I actually got my Hive account more than a month ago, but due to how it works I was unable to "get it off the ground" as they say. That was until I got some very nice help from Steve Hodl, or mypathtofire as he is known on Hive. Help I am super thank full for getting.

Hive and getting set up

The first thing that I notice with Hive is there are several "ways" if you will, to get an account. And most of them require an upfront cost of around $3. Sure not much in the scope of things, but still. I opted for one of these accounts, the inji version. 

After getting this it is very much recommended to get the Hive key chain. As this will help you immensely and make a lot of the stuff much simple for you. And it literally is what it says it is, it helps you keep track of all the different types of keys associated with your Hive account, and everything surrounding it.

And now you basically should be good to go. Your first post on Hive is recommended to be an introduction post, where you present yourself to the community. And I would recommend googling and reading a few of the tips on how to write a good introduction post. Something I did not do, and regret. 

Hive and its mechanisms

Hive, unlike Publish0x, has a mechanism that basically limits your interactions on the platform. At least initially. This is HP, or Hive Power as they call it, this is basically how much energy you have. And writing a post or commenting will cost you energy. And how much can vary over time and of course on the post or comment in and of itself. These actions cost energy, and it will replenish over time.

There are a few ways to increase your HP. The easiest way is to simply buy Hive tokens and transform them into Hive Power. This will increase your maximum HP. Allowing you to post more frequently and comment more.

The second way to increase your HP is to get upvotes from people who have a large HP pool of their own. This will then translate into earnings. Half of what your post will earn by these upvotes goes to you. And it is paid out 7 days after the post was created.

In the normal setup, this evening will be divided 50/50 between HP and Hive. Of course, you can convert the Hive into HP as well. But when you post you can also directly choose a 100% HP option. Turning all your earnings for that post into HP.

If you plan to give Hive a more serious go, then I would highly recommend putting in $10-20. Or have someone help you with the third option to increase your HP. This is done by delegating some of their own HP to you. In a sense lending it to you. This is what Steve Hodl so graciously did to help me get a jumpstart. He let me borrow some of his HP for two months.

The fourth way to get more HP is to have enough HP that you generate more by upvoting and curating people's posts. These earnings will go directly to your HP.

Community

Hive is centered around the idea of community. There are a ton of them, and their focus ranges from gardening and music to gaming and crypto. One of the best pieces of advice I can give to you is to spend time looking around and finding the different communities that interest you and the content you want to make. 

In a way the community function in a similar way to how categories work here on Publish0x. But there are several differences. The main one is that most of the bigger communities have their own portal, this is where the content publishes either directly through their portal, or by using the community #hashtag as one of the 5 first #hashtags.

After joining a community you can post directly in it by choosing the community from the menu, using its portal, or by using its #hashtag. And in this last aspect the community work just like the category here, the #hashtags you use to make the post appear in the corresponding community. You can also use more than 5 #hashtags.

Engaging with a community is also encouraged as just like with a post, your comments can get upvoted and earn you HP and Hive. As well as build up your following. 

Most community on Hive also have their own Tokens, these you can earn, often stake, and trade for other community tokens or Hive. This means you have a second layer of tokens you earn for engaging with a community, on top of the earnings you get from upvotes.

A lot of these community tokens also have commands connected to them. As an example the LUV  token, if you hold 10 or more of them you can use the !LUV command in the comment of a post and thus spread some LUV and generate a LUV token to the person you are engaging with. And this is just one example, there are a lot of these types of tokens. So find a few that you like and start spreading them around. I am sure it will be appreciated. =)

My advice

In short, this is my advice for you if you want to start out on Hive:

• Invest $10-20 into Hive and convert it to Hive Power, or HP. This will give you a good start and allow you to create content regularly. Or if you have a friend that can lend you some, works as well.
• Do some research before you write your introduction post, ad a good one of these can greatly benefit you.
• Look around and join communities you are interested in either because you enjoy the content or because you want to create similar content yourself. There are a lot of them and most are not crypto-focused.
• Use the community portals if you want to create community-specific content. Often they allow you to use more than 7 #hashtags, that is the limit on the basic Hive content creator.
• Engage the community.

I hope that you have found this post useful either if you are starting out on Hive or thinking about doing so. And if you got any questions regarding Hive, please feel free to put them in the comment section down below and while I am far from an expert I will try and help to the best of my ability.

If you would like to support me and the content I make, please consider following me, reading my other posts, or why not do both instead.

See you on the interwebs!

Picture provided by: Hive, https://pixabay.com/