I'm convinced Steemit's "Promoted" section is an underappreciated feature right now. Here is my case for boosting your posts.
I've had mixed success with boosting posts, but overall, promoting posts has proven very beneficial to me. I've more than made my money back, and whenever I boost posts I always get a few a few extra followers. Out of curiosity today, I totted up the combined earnings and promo costs on the top 25 posts in the promoted section...
The combined earnings (so far) are 800 dollars, with promo costs of $450. If you adjust the earnings for actual author payout (around 80%) it's still 640 dollars. So, statistically if you boost a post by $45, on average your earning will likely be around $64, and that's before we've even factored in the quality of the post. Do you fancy those odds?
So it's a gamble..
Yes, a gamble with excellent odds. Like a roulette table with twice as many red as black numbers. Some people are promoting their posts very effectively. User @nspart currently has 5 promoted posts with $33.50 promotional costs and $218 earnings from those posts and counting ($174 adjusted for curators). Other people having decent success recently with post boosting are @intelliguy, @aggroed, and some guy called @condra.
And it's not just for people with big followings. User @gamma-rat currently has 71 followers. His first 3 posts weren't very successful, but when he boosted his fourth post (yes, his fourth ever post) 145 upvotes came in and the post is on course to earn 40 dollars. @martin.the.chef promoted a post for $3.50 and it's on 24 dollars now with 5 days left. @sensei's (superb) intro post is currently at $90 after just a $5.47 boost.
But what if I loose money?
That is indeed a risk, but even if your promo cost exceeds your earnings, you will likely gain some followers and give your name a bit of visibility which will help you in the long term. Remember the cumulative effect on Steemit is very powerful.
How can I improve my odds?
So we've already established that you have superb odds to begin with. Now if you only boost the posts you're confident about, and don't bother boosting the weaker posts, you've again improved your chances. And when to boost your post? As soon as you hit that POST button. Early momentum goes a long way. A new post getting more attention will get more attention because it's getting more attention! Finally, I would also recommend you boost to at least the top 25 position, whatever the cost. There's only so much scrolling anyone will do on the Promoted page. After about the top 25, earnings drop off fairly fast.
I hope this has been some food for thought. If you've made a really good post and want to give it the extra attention it deserves, for goodness sake, throw some money at it.
Happy boosting!
Photos from Pixabay.
This is horrible advice. Don't promote. Stay out of it. Nobody cares. Leave it up to poor idiots like me that like to do without any competition. :)
Haha great response!
I just was thinking the same 😂
Lol! I'll do it now just to spite you. Can i? hahaha!
My cost has gone up 10 SBD since this post came out :(
@condra is makin' my game more expensive. :)
bad bad @condra :D
Great advice! Thanks for the knowledge.
Resteemed and up'd to help get it out without you wasting as much promotion on it! ;)
Thank you for the informative post. I just signed up on steemit this past week and I'm still figuring everything out. Your info is helpful in wrapping my head around all of the features.
Glad to be of help. This post might help too.. Greets.
How do you know how much you need to put out to promote in order to reach the top 25? Is there somewhere it tells you this about of Steem Dollars yields x amount of impressions. Or X amount of Steem Dollars yields this ranking?
On the "promoted" page, click on the potential earnings on any post and it shows you how much was spent on boosting. The cost to get 25th place (or any other place) varies considerably from week to week, depending on various factors.
Thanks for the info condra. Does it work for an older post? Or do you have to post when your content is new if you want to expect to receive upvotes?
I believe you can promote any post that has yet to be paid out, but you're probably best promoting new posts. Curators tend to do most of their voting in the first couple of hours of a posts life.
I thought that might be the case. Thanks for the confirmation. :)
Thanks.
Hmm, the funny thing is...it would cost me 1 steem to promote but I haven't made that much to do so. Great advice but I think I'm still a 'broke interactor' status at this point. Aloha! 😜
Thanks for the advice. Greetings from Mexico.
...and I just upvote and resteem your post because I find it informative and inspiring. Aloha!
Many thanks!
This noob is appreciative -- that promotion button looks a bit scary on this side of the computer.
I'll keep my eye out for your first promo!
https://steemit.com/steemit/@clevercreator/the-clever-creator-is-for-hire
I did it!
Ahh great. You're kickin ass!
Thanks for this, condra. I have been pondering the pros and cons of promoting and had actually decided on giving it a flick. You've given me food for thought with this post and I will give it a go on the next piece that I write. Can you give me some idea of the amount of money you will usually spend to promote a piece?
I'm still experimenting with it, but so far it seems like the more you spend, the better the return. 15-20 dollars seems a good range. The post can't suck though.
Thanks!
This post has been ranked within the top 25 most undervalued posts in the second half of May 30. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $30.20 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: May 30 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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TYVM
I'm a music and will be doind some promo real soon thanks for the post it was good
Cheers. Hope it goes well.
You got me convinced.
Tried now.
Just 1 SBD.
Returns?
2 cents. :D
Post gone before I could see it...
Is that the post at 150 dollars?
YES.
Do we have any analytics? I still don't know what happened to the $1...
The dollar went to @null, which means it was burned. That's another thing I didn't mention, every time you promote your posts, you're burning STEEM, making it more scarce, and putting the price up, if only ever so slightly.
How much was your post at before you promoted it? It seems like any promotion under around 10 bucks is pointless as you end up too far down the page.
Gotcha! I knew it was burned because someone advised me not to try promotion and I was like... let me give it a shot.
$1 is too less, anyway. The post was sitting at $149 for sometime and went up to $149.02 in 5 minutes after promotion.
Can't solely tell if promotion had any role to play.
But I see you and others in the PROMOTE section right up there and couldn't find mine. Wonder what's your daily spend atm?
I don't have a "daily spend" per se. I imagine if one was to promote too many posts, their name on that page might too many times might put people off. For now, I'm just promoting about twice a week, and only the posts I feel have the best chance of success.
Thanks for the advice. I see no reason to promote yet unless I am trying to generate leads or market a product.
But very curious to try it out. You got my attention with it. :)
Thank you!
Great post Thank you very much for your time and informations @condra
I started with #Steemit two weeks ago and I learning every day its great I'm very excited 😉
I#follow you now greetings from Cologne Germany my name is Lars @laloelectrix 😎
#upvoted and #resteemed with best regards
yesss, this is a useful post!! Upvote and Resteem.
Thanks to bring this to the point. I will try it with one of my next posts.
Greetz from Germany and Belgium
meep
oh thanks @ionlysaymeep,
I really enjoy this word as it create so much fun into my head. Could you be so kind and say it again, even a bit loader..... ;-)
meep
Great article. I was literally just questioning if I wanted to promote a post I just made so I came to the promoted tab and, well look what we have here! :)
Thank you for the breakdown! It is much needed!
I am going to try it out for the first time. We will see how it goes I guess.. thanks for sharing your story!
Good summary and overview @condra
Keep STEEM N ON,
Frank
Thank you, I've never considered promoting a post til now!!
Just did my first promoted post.. My introduction and have seen decent results.
Ill be following and upvoting
Please feel free to check out @thewolfofcrypto as well as my recent introduction : https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@thewolfofcrypto/hello-steemit-community-or-my-introduction