Hi! I'm a complete newbie to the bitcoin community. Do you guys have any recommendations on what I should be doing first? Would truly appreciate any advice you can provide. 
If you are a newbie, better you multiply a quality post to get some merit because it is very important to increase your account rankings, while waiting for the ranking increase you can follow various bounty to earn coins by following the campaign from bounty in the form of signature campaign, twitter, facebook, and others. Do not forget also you should read the various rules on each topic so you do not get into trouble later.