When my mentor @jaydr asked me to write about things to look out for before joining hive communities, I was surprised because I still felt like a newbie who was just trying to navigate her way through the hive community. But then again, I remembered that I had joined some communities already and truly, there were things I subconsciously looked out for before I clicked on the join button. I only hesitated for a bit because I did not outline these reasons somewhere, but they were somewhere in my subconscious guiding my choice of communities, and just like every other thing we do in life, we have reasons why we do them whether subconscious or conscious. Okay, enough of the digression. Let's dive right in. I eventually penned down four things.
****AM I USEFUL TO THEM?****
The first thing I looked out for was whether or not I would be able to contribute towards the goals of the community. For instance, I joined @MedHive because its goal of providing quality health information to people aligns perfectly with mine. I love health promotion. I can spend the whole of my 24 hours talking about how people can improve their health and so, I knew I had a lot to contribute to Med Hive, so I joined.
****DOES IT INTEREST ME?****
Yes, this is a bit similar to the first but slightly different. I have zero interest in gaming for example and so, if I join communities that promote or post gaming content, I would most likely be mute on their posts. I wouldn’t contribute meaningfully to the community either and so, I joined communities that I can easily engage by dropping comments and posting on like @foodiesbeehive because I love food!
****WHAT IS THEIR LEVEL OF ACTIVITY****
This one is very important. How often do they post? Is there a known pattern? Is it random? Is it consistent? The level of activity in the communities you join determines the level of engagement that you get on your posts which directly affects your earnings. So, before you join a community on hive, after checking that what they do aligns with your interest, you have to check for the pattern of the group’s activity. For instance, if you want to join a group and their last post was made a year ago, run!
****HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE IN THE COMMUNITY****
Like every other reason in this post, this is very important because it also determines two things. First, it determines the level of engagement you will get. The fewer the members of the community, the lesser the chances of getting engagements on your post and this equally affects your earnings. Secondly, when we have a few people in a group that is not new, it might indicate that the community is dormant and they probably do not post content that is engaging enough for people to want to join. I think one should be wary of such communities.
On this note, do check well before joining communities on Hive!
