Bots, bots, bots everywhere!!
Last week, 8 days ago to be exact, I wrote a post celebrating 1000 followers. That post here, was the first post that I used bidbots in an attempt to reach the trending page, and to subsequently increase my viewership, and make a good return on the investment. Since then, I have written two posts in a series on Incentives, here, and here, that I have also used bidbots on. I will do a similar post to this one with the results of those two posts.
So far, only the 1000 follower celebratory post has paid out, and here were my results:
Paid: 234.071 SBD or approx $657.07USD at todays exchange rate
Return: 155.523 SBD and 44.54 Steem Power or approx $586.67
For a loss of $70.40 USD
I also received a (sizeable?) @Grumpycat flag from @madpuppy because I used a Bot that they don't agree with. That of course affected my returns. Basically they flag and "erase" any votes given by bots that upvote posts older than 3.5 days. You can see the message in the comment section of my post to learn more.
WARNING!
There are a few things to watch out for when using upvote bots. First of all, you want a bot that won't get you flagged by @GrumpyCat and @madpuppy regardless of whether you agree with what they are doing or not. We don't want to pay a bot only to have that bot's upvote countered by other users. You can check the cut off ages for bots on Steem Bot Tracker. Make sure to use bots that have 3.5 days or less listed in the Max Age column to avoid a grumpy response.
The next thing you will want to check while you are at Steem Bot Tracker is the min/max ROI. Most of the bots do not list any limits on the up or down side, so really you aren't too sure what you are getting. If a round is over-bid, will you take a loss? It might be a good idea to focus on the bots where there is a positive ROI in the minimum column. We don't want to lose money, unless there are at least some other benefits to using a bot.
The Positives
As you can see, using the bots for the first time, I took a monetary loss. But, did I gain anything? Well yes. My post hit the trending page, albeit quite a way down the list. My rep score went from 49 to around 53 based on that post. I also gained a bunch of new followers. 8 days ago I crossed 1000 followers. After three posts where I paid to get to the trending page, I am now over 1250 followers.
Hopefully, those extra followers will actually represent more value in the future. As a person's follower count goes up, does it necessarily result in more upvotes and more rewards? It will be interesting to see over time if that is the case.
For this post, I plan on using just one resteem service, and one bot. This way, I can hopefully identify the best bots to use. I will start with those that advertise a guaranteed profit, and see if they deliver.
Thanks for reading, commenting, voting, sharing,
SnubberMike
Hey @snubbermike - I just came across your posts (since they were higher up in the list due to your use of content promotion services) and you're absolutely spot on about a lot of the issues or at least misconceptions about Steem.
Unfortunately it's getting late and I don't have time to read everything now, but you've earned my follow and upvote!
If you have any suggestions / ideas / whatever about how to improve the voting bots or the bot tracker website let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on them!
Your analysis is pretty amazing! Please do an analysis on the newer posts.
Its a little sad that new Steemits can't make it on their own merits.
That an audience can't be built organically. That is must be driven via self-voting and power delegation, which kinda breaks the economic engine of Steemit entirely.
Thanks for the right up. Good to see the transparency around bots.
Well I was told by another user (I will bring him up in an upcoming post) that paying for an audience won't work this way either, because there just aren't enough users who actually read the posts and then upvote.
If I use bots at a loss and then gain followers who do not curate organically, then really, what have I paid for?
Time will tell :)
You may just be paying for the mortar for the next layer of the ponzi pyramid below you.
I'm one of your new followers because I saw your post on the trending page. I've always beleived in using upvote bots. If you have something worthy to share, please use the upvote bots.
The problem, from a profit maximization point of view, with using bid bots is that there's always someone to ruin it for everyone in the last minute. And as you mentioned, using a service not approved by that self-appointed censor would get you flagged.
That's why I recommend using minnowbooster. I like your content and I'm nominating you to be whitelisted. Cheers!
Good post. Helps get more clarity on this whole bot phenoma on steemit. Resteemed to my tiny followers. Hopefully they resteem and more people can see this.
amazing!
Good job brother. Thank you for sharing for I can also try using the bots to increase the viewers on my post. Thank you very much.
im very new to the steemit ecosystem and have plans on content creation posts in the near future so regardless of how bots you may get upvoting your posts the ones i've read so far have been helpful to me at least better understand how best i can enjoy the platform so thanks from a fellow micromini steemer
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STOPI wanna learned how to use bot... I am new here... this is my 2nd day... been reading a lot about bot...
This post has received a 28.57% upvote from @msp-bidbot thanks to: @snubbermike. Delegate SP to this public bot and get paid daily: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP Don't delegate so much that you have less than 50SP left on your account.
agree with the analysis, as i use bots for followers and exposure at present. following you for this helpful post.