I know, I know, that first half hour is key if you want your post to get into the hot section but let´s analyse the pros and cons of this issue together.
Whether you are a newbie or an experienced Steemian, I´m sure you´ve heard of Curation rewards but do you know how they really work?
A lot of people like @abh12345 all over his blog or @themarkymark here have done curation analysis way better than what I could do regarding numbers, so I´m not going to focus in the analysis of curation, I am just going to tell how to increase the chance of getting voted by knowing how curation works.
Ok ok but I have to dig a bit into how Curation Rewards work, right? I´m going to put it as simple as I can and without numbers so every newbie understands:
When you post, there is a 15 minute window where every upvote given to your post, goes directly to you. Then between the 15-30 minute window, every vote you get will be shared between the person who voted you (a small percentage) and yourself (a very big percentage). When the post reaches the 30 minute mark, every vote you get will be shared with the person who votes you ( a slightly bigger percentage of what it was in the 15-30 minute window) and your post. But this number depends on how many previous votes and money your post already has...
This means, if a whale sees your post when it has already been 35 minutes after you posted, and it has 30 cents and 3 votes and it is a good post, made with effort and quality chances are this big user will vote on it.
BUT...
If you upvote your post in the first minute and then use several bidbots to get that same post to, let´s say a number, 6 dollars and 20 votes, even if the whale thinks the post deserves a big vote, the curation rewards will be lower than in the first scenario, so chances are this full of Steem user might not vote on it or if it does, it probably won´t be with the same percentage.
I am not saying you shouldn´t vote on your posts... by all means, do it! If you like using bidbots to boost some of your posts, be my guest! This is just a friendly advice from someone who takes curation rewards as something important for the platform.
I am still voting for the posts I like or think they have amazing quality regardless of the pending payout, and writing about this subject might bring replies like I only care about getting curation rewards but no, my friend, if you look closely to my voting behaviour for the past 4 days (using steemd or steemdb), you´ll see I vote on posts even if they have 20 cents or 8 dollars of pending rewards. I´m just telling you this because now that I am on the "voting" side, I understand how much of a difference (Curation reward wise) it can be voting an already big post, or voting for an underrated post.
I´m bringing this topic to the table just for one reason, probably, probably the strategy of voting on your post in the first minute and the use of bidbots in first minutes of your posts is working against your success instead of in favor of getting those precious rewards we all want.
I would like to read your thoughts about this, perhaps I am seeing this issue from a perspective not so accurate or you have another angle I should consider.
Oh by the way! I do selfvote, but I do it hours after I post, that way you can get some rewards out of your vote ^^
There's strategies to upvoting? XD
I probably should care about curation rewards but I thoroughly don't, I'm just a 1-3c spatter cannon ;D
Hey!I just went to your profile to see what was new and see what i could vote but there is nothing new :( perhaps you want to join the contest I started and have an excuse to post :P Voted this comment as there was nothing in your blog.
Yeah its crazy hug? Strategies everywhere about everything!
This time of year gets crazy! So my blogs and my AER project tend to get sorely neglected :< I've just done a homeschooling post though, have recently made accounts for my kids so whatever sbd I get from it will be split between them :)
The end of year stuff is over now, just have some Christmas presents to finish making (which will hopefully be done today or tomorrow because I need to order them and then post one of them on after checking to make sure it's okay!) so hopefully I'll have a bit more time to work on things that I want to post about :)
I use steemit to assign school work for my son, it is 10% of his English Grade. I give him the freedom to post what he wants to post about. He recently cashed out for the first time and got something he has been wanting for a while but Mom wouldn't buy it because of the cost.
I don't do grades. They are kind of motivated by the wallet for similar reasons though :) Only problem is once they get on the computer to write a post Youtube and games are much more enticing and interesting, sigh :)
Money hasn't never motivated my son, well at least till recently. I think him seeing a good amount has changed his view, but I knew it would be a good way to him to save and I knew the only way he would post regularly is if I made it apart of his grade. I told him it was 10% but I am only grading on participation if he makes a post daily he gets the points. We didn't do grades till High School. We started doing grades for transcripts purposes. He might need transcripts for a job or if he decides to go the traditional University route to further his education.
This is good advice. I should un check the upvote box when I post and just upvote myself later ;)
I haven't thought to try this.
Thanks for the tips brother man!!
Hey brotha! I mean, It is not a general rule or something, I just found out that Curation rewards are heavily affected by the first votes, so it is just trying to get more help while not autovoting very soon! Hahaha
Thanks Nomad Soul-- I appreciate the advice! I am still learning and so I appreciate it. It's hard to know how this works and why it works when we're starting out, so a lot of "mistakes" can be made early on if we are just emulating what other's do without understanding why. 100% upvote, followed and resteemed.
We were all new mate, I don´t do this kind of posts a lot because there is a lot of better Steemians doing better posts, but I thought a very simple and without numbers explanation would be useful for the newcomer :) Thanks for the upvote and resteem, I´ll make sure to go through your profile soon.
Much appreciated! TY!
Thank you for the information. I did not know.
I will try how it works on my next posts.
Have a great day,
Thomas
Thank you for sharing great post with us also specially thank you for your kind vote which you give me thank you have good day,
Don´t thank me man, I´m happy to vote on amazing content like yours! I started a contest in case you want to participate, it is my last post.
Heeeeeeelp i'm new
Make good posts, comment on your recently acquired friends content, join a community over at steemit.chat and discord... but don´t spam other people´s posts with a variation of the same comment, odds are you´ll get flagged and no one will help you :(
hi @anomadsoul. Your suggestion is very helpful, I am also concerned about new friend. But, I also often remind they are that still new in Steemit
a lot wants to easily rise here on steemit.. i am not referring to alexaocar of course.
That's an eye opener article. Thanks a lot for sharing this knowledge.
I´m glad you think that way and founf useful the post, I have to say it is not the only way to get a big vote but I´m sure it can work. By the way, I saw your comment section, another advice would be to really engage with the content... thanks for replying but people actually want feedback or at least an opinion regarding the post, this can also work for you to get people to follow you because they appreciate your content.
Okay. I will keep that in mind. Perhaps I was very impatient to get followers.
awesome tips! :) haha I usually set it to vote immediately, but I will try it out. Thanks.
My last post had 19 views but no upvotes in First 1.5 hr, then I used 1.5$ worth bot and the views increased to 76 and even some dolphins voted there...What you have got to say about that...
Your post is very much logical may be I will follow your advice for few of my new posts and see where I land...
Nice reading your comprehensive analysis @anomadsoul:)
Yeah man, it may work differently for every user, but the fact thar you used the bot an hour later helped for the visibility without taking much rewards from the curation process as if you used it in the first minute.
Im glad it got voted! This advice is no rule, just a behaviour analysis ive seen in the past months :)
Thanks for your feed back...Loved reading your post...Looking forward to read a lot more awesome stuff from you:) Regards @xabi
Thanks for sharing! - I'll probably just continue to upvote my own articles when I publish them. It's usually worth $0.03 or $0.04 so that shouldn't decrease the chances of potential whale votes. :D
The thing with curation rewards is that most of the % goes to the first five voters! So having 4 votes instead of 6 makes a huge difference hahahaha hey, I started a contest in case you want to check it out.
That is very true and I totally get your point. I just don't think it will do much difference with my vote or not at this point. :)
Cool contest! I probably won't be able to participate througout the entire contest though, so that's sad. However, I'm totally up for sharing things, so let's go! :)
Btw. Thanks for the support!
Wow i'll be damned, i nevr knew how these process work i use to think buying of votes are very essential in the first minutes, well it seems you pay more on every pay out, im glad for these mindblowing information, very useful post.
Well it is kind of tricky to find out especially if you don´t read the long as bible white paper and also I don´t even know if it is updated... so I thought about making this post! In case you want to participate in a contest, I just started one, it is my last post my friend.
Oy yeah i will check it out now
Thanks so much on this, omg I had kinda upvoted my own on a new post I just posted and then I saw this and went back and un upvoted if that makes sense hahaha.
It is so easy to not know this if you don´t read it in a post! We are all learning step by step :) Hahahaha it makes sense lol... If you want to participate in a contest, I just started one about the year that´s ending, it is my last post!
Good to know! Thanks :)
Thank you for teaching me this Eric, I started voting on myself with buildawhale because I would only get forty cents in hours on my posts so I did it like last week and been doing it everytime but I think I'll quit I think it looks desperate, I do like to use bots for other people tho, thank you for explaining about the curating and what time to self vote cheers my brother!! Its snowing hard here I'm watching it from my recliner lol
Hola Eric , Gusto de saludarte! soy nueva en Steemit y estoy haciendo nuevos amigos y veo que ya tu tienes experiencia, me gustaría que vieras mi ultimo post en mi perfil, tiene un enlace para unirse a un grupo de Whatsapp donde puedes compartir tus publicaciones mis amig@s y yo te vamos a votar, asi puedes mejorar tus resultados con votos orgánicos y puedes conocer mas personas, por cierto muy buen post! no sabia nada de eso!
Hola tocaya, te recomiendo que revises la publicación de @lince en la que se habla de spam, esto que estas haciendo, dejando el mismo comentario una y otra vez en el perfil de todo mundo, no es bien visto, es molesto y genera spam innecesario. Te recomiendo que mejor dejes comentarios de calidad y personalizados, de esa manera ganaras muchos más seguidores y además, más votos.
wao.!! i'm new in steemits.. thanks for your advices :)
I stopped using upvote bots a while ago because while I thinks the intention are probably good, I think there are better ways for whales to help out minnows. I wish more whales would put their efforts into manual curation programs like OCD and responsible delegation if they don't want to go out and find good posts themselves.
I did think about going back to using them just for the deadpost contest I'm running so I could reward the winners with more sbd or steem but so far I haven't.
As for self votes, good point. I try not to self vote myself until my post has almost paid out and sometimes forget to cause whatever.
Exactly man, if it is to make contests and the such is great, if not, well we can all do whatever we want but still, it is better to not use them very soon! I started a contest, it is on my last post in case you want to participate!
Thanks @anomadsoul for this advice
So I have never used bid bots and it definitely factors into whether I vote on people I have to say. The self voting has never bothered me, as long as people aren't posting a bunch of times a day. I have a rule for myself that if I end up posting a second post in a day, which is rare, I only give myself a 25% vote on it. I don't vote my own comments and I keep track of my self voting percentage, making sure i keep it under ten percent and closer to five, mostly I end up around seven to eight. I would certainly give the no self voting in the beginning a try though, I'll have to remember to unclick the button :)
Someone told me that Ned plans on selling votes...have you heard anything about that? I've heard other rumors that he's been encouraging the practice, but I'm not one to put stock in rumors until they have merit.
I do self vote posts, but usually days after. Good info here.
Ye, me too. I mean, selfvoting once a day or something like that is not that bad... but how about giving an extra chance so other people votes us and then we vote on our post! Hey man, i started a contest about the ending of 2017 in case you want to join, it is my last post.
thank you for stating this very simply and clear. i didn't really understand how the curation works before and the earnings for every entry. i now have a clearer understanding!
Sometimes when people explain it with numbers it becomes confusing and people end up without fully understanding the drill, I am glad you found this post useful! I started a contest in case you want in, it is my last post, the contest is about 2017.
Thanks I'll check it out
Hey Eric, i wanted to start off by first saying thank you fo the vote and secondly for this post. I wasn't sure how this worked, being a new steemer, myself and this was pretty insightful. I'd appreciate any suggestions you have on my more news focused blogs if you get the chance to look at them and a follow if you enjoy my content.. Regardless, i'm following you :)
You don´t have to thank me man I am glad I found your post, it was amazing i hope you continue to make great content. If you are interested in participating in a contest, i just started one today about the end of the year, I hope you join us.
hey yeah im interested in it! what is it?
I believe that in the past few hours, you gave me a big upvote, for a post which was having about 5 dollars worth at the time and 2 days old. So you are really doing as you've told :). Big thanks for the vote, and led me to your content which looks very valuable, giving you a follow :).
Thanks for the mention man!
I'll get you added in my league for next week and see if you appear on the list (after the rules are worked in)
I totally agree with you that if you want the chance of a nice vote around 30 mins, or even up to a day or two, don't stick the bid-bots on early.
Nowadays, I use them on day 4/5/6 when the post has got lost in the Blockchain :)
Cheers!
I know u cose u vote one of my english post (im spanish, have but english) but now i see your blog and... DAM! is so good! so u have a new followers and ty for vote! I will try to improve my English reading and writing you!
Thanks for your vote and follow man, I sure like to browse the spanish tag a lot, I am from México! Thanks to you for making good content, it is always nice to see people putting effort to making good posts.
¡Hola Eric! Nunca había pensado eso del final. Creí que se ganaba lo mismo al votar tu propio contenido en el momento de publicar o después. Igual no uso bots casi exclusivamente por dos razones:
Aunque tal como dices, parece que algunas personas les funciona.
Thank You for posting this. As a new user I found the system very confusing for the beginners. I focused to learn the differences between currencies, and never thought about upvote system (still Im here for only two weeks).
But I did notice that upvotes and earnings extremely vary between my different posts (practically from 0 to 100$), and I am trying to keep the quality of my posts.
I presume that there are days with lower activity, so posts dont get visible, but you pointed out some interesting tips that I will keep on my mind. So thanks again :-)
oh I tried every way to draw the attention from a whale but none of them are really showing.
Even if I do not self voting and do not use the bot, still there has no chance.
I do not know why I do not meet any whale yet.
As far as I know some of my posts(mostly based on writing) really deserve some credit which is being posted after so hard work.
So after waiting for the whale for couple of month, I decided to use the bot instead.
because it was really tough for a minnow to get his level up without the support though.
Gracias por los consejos, no habia leido antes tus post, pero esta informacion me ayudara muchisimo en cuanto a la curación.
Gracias por tus buenos deseos hacia esta hermosa comunidad.
Oh nice to know. Hmm I guess will have to try that. I sometimes use those auto or votebot on some of my post 1-2 days later and yet so little votes heheh. Thanks for the tip will try that on my next post.
Hmm. I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the tip.
Sometimes its tempting to use “originalworks” because that’s the only time my post gets upvoted. LOL! Hehe. I’ll change my ways from now on. Hehe. Thanks 🤗
I understood about the 30 minutes rule of thumb as I have read those posts you mentioned before, but as to hope for a whale to swim by, I think plankton, like myself, suffocates way before that can happen, lol...
Your post do give us something to look forward to though :-)
Thanks for this useful information @anomadsoul, I will practise it after this..
Thanks for providing this information. I am a new photographer to steemit ; and still learning the ropes here. How will a whale see the post if there is no votes on it however and it has no chance of getting ranked?
This is good advice. I recently realised that I should untick the upvote icon, when I post and just upvote myself after few days. Your post confirmed. Thanks for the post ! I haven't thought to try this.
Hey @anomadsoul I have a quick question. I started using the randowhale function to make my posts more visible as I consider myself very new and small, but after reading your post I would like to understand something. Do you think it's better to wait the 30 minutes then still do randowhale, or how do you feel about this function?