Most people who use steem have wondered if there are any benefits to Promoting a post, and to what extent those benefits will be. I will outline my own personal experience over the past several months to help you get a better idea for how Promoting works, and what benefits it has, as well as the negatives associated.
Getting more eyes on your post
Paying for promotion seems like a really easy way to get more people to see your post, and it can be, but do not fool yourself, it can cost a lot of SBD to get your post high enough in the list to make it matter.
The hidden details of Promoting Posts
The first step when determining if you are going to promote a post is to first check the Promoted section with the category you are posting in. For example this post is in the "#steemit" category. You can easily take a look here at all the posts currently being promoted with the #steemit category.
The first thing to notice is the promotional cost. Look through the top 5 posts and determine how much they paid to promote their post. Remember, promoted lists by how much was paid for promotion, if you want to be in the first 5 posts you will need to pay more than the 5th lowest post paid for promotion.
For example, currently as of writing this post, the top post on #steemit under promoted paid 33 SBD **:
Going down to the 5th highest post we see they paid 15 SBD for promotion **:
What this means is to get in the top 5 you would need to pay more than 15 SBD for promotion in the #steemit category, and more than 34 SBD to get to the #1 spot.
I was in the top but now others paid more for promotions, what do I do?
You have 2 choices, if you NEED to be at the top you can always pay to promote more and "out bid" them for the top spots. Remember though it is best to promote a post within the first hours of creating the post to maximize the time potential for earning to offset the cost paid for promotion!
Does promoting actually earn me more? Do I break even?
This is a great question, and I find personally that organically you tend to earn much more than trying to promote your post. There are a few exceptions and even times where the cost is justified (say selling a product) where you indirectly are earning back your promotional costs (think an e-commerce business).
Over all, if you do not have the SBD required to get in the top 5, you are literally throwing your SBD away! I have found unless you are willing to bid for the top spot, you have almost 0 chance of earning back even what you spent on the promotion versus what you would have earned organically anyways!
I hope this helps a few people, remember this is a guideline and my own personal experience!
** You can easily see how much was paid to promote a post by simply clicking on the earning amount directly next to the up vote button.
This is a really helpful post, cheers bigdeej! I have considered promoting but I think unless your content is really really good it wont be worth it, you might sit near the top but that wont guarantee upvotes, anyway this is a feature on steemit that wasn't around last time I was here so thanks for explaining it to me.
I agree completely, basically if your content is going to really earn, 99% of the time organically it will! Better off increasing consistency, quality of content, and loyal followers that you engage with. I find promoting worth it if you don't mind paying to get more followers and/or eyes reading your content, but do not be naive and think throwing 100 SBD at promotions will instantly make it $1,000+ post!
I think that sums it up perfectly, I have just had a thought though..Do you know where the steem that is used to promote actually goes? since it looks like part of the site not a user promoting a service?
Yes it is sent to @null and burned
Thats great cheers mate, I love it when crypto gets burned! steemit is becoming more appealing by the day.
It sure is a neat concept, promoting basically destroys SBD (steem backed dollars) which in turn reduces the outstanding supply of STEEM (indirectly).
Thanks for providing this feedback on promoting posts. I had conspired it in the past but I didn’t really know the risk/reward. This post definitely provides some excellent guidelines.
Really good info. As a new Steemer, and new to the environment, I actually learned something :-) Up-voted!
@shadowbot brought me here and I already learned something new. :D I saw that promotion cost on some other posts before and wondered, why somebody would even pay for that. Until I realized that one of those promoted posts was advertising a ponzi sheme with his ref link there...
Either the post is good enough for getting upvotes or it's not. Totally agree on that point.
Yes you are seeing the truth now! Scammers love to use it too so BEWARE! Great point!
Thanks. I never even looked at post promotion before, let alone analyse it's usage.
Thanks for the information but i dont have that much sbd to reach upto top spot.
Awesome! Most everyone I've talked to said it was a bad idea to promote a post, but didn't explain the process. It's definitely not worth it for me to bid half an SBD and lose it by not making a net profit. Preciate the detailed explanation.
Real professional tips here! Wow, i am glad I checked this post out. Something to keep in mind. Thanks so much.
Congratulations @bigdeej!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:
Great advice Glenn, just a shame that the cost is so high to get on there, especially with the more popular tags. Ive nearly finished my Shadowbot writeup but will probably end up having to use upvote bots for it to get more exposure simply because promoting isnt cost effective!
Hi I used the promote button and I can't find my post in the promotion section,and I checked my wallet and saw null, what could be the cause.
You probably did not pay enough to get to the top.
Very good info, i'm just learning and i didn't know how this works.