This may seem like a trivial topic, but it isn't so, especially for beginners.

There are two factors you need to take into consideration:

• what you want to use the reward for (power up, spend it in its liquid form)
• what is the price of SBD relative to $1

When you write a post, you only have three options to select how to distribute your rewards: to fully power up, 50% power up (SP) + 50% SBD and finally you can decline the payout.

On Steemit you can use three tokens, as you know: Steem, SP (Steem Power) and SBD (Steem Backed Dollar). SP is the non-liquid token, Steem is liquid and easily transferable, SBD is liquid or semi-liquid (in the way it is liquid when kept in the Steem Dollars balance but semi-liquid if kept in the Savings balance).

Then, keep in mind the post rewards are split between the author and the curators. In simple terms it's a 75% / 25% split between author and curators. In reality, the authors usually get more than 75%, because part of the curator rewards for upvotes within the first 30 minutes of the publishing goes to them. At the same time, curator rewards decrease based on the order of curating, which is why curators don't wait for the 30 minutes to pass to upvote a promising post.

So, which post rewards should you choose? Let's analyze your options:

1.You Want to Use the Rewards to Power Up

You may be inclined to say the best option is "100% Steem Power". Well, it depends.

a. If SBD price is HIGHER than $1 and you estimate it will continue to be higher after 7 days when you'll receive the rewards, then it is better to choose "50% / 50%" and then sell the SBD you receive for Steem on the internal market (you can even try to get a better price by not selling at market price, and test the water for a better price). In the end you power up the Steem you have bought.

It may seem complicated but it's rather simple.

Why compare SBD to $1? Because when rewards are distributed, SBD is considered at $1 value, like it was supposed to be when it was originally thought.

At the current SBD price, I always use "50% / 50%" and this process.

b. If SBD price is LOWER OR EQUAL to $1 then you use "100% Steem Power". It gives you what you want and you won't lose value by requesting SBD as well.

2.You Want to Use the Rewards to Make Various Payments

First, this is highly not recommended for any small under powered account (including mine). It's not what I would do with any account, if I believe in the future of the steem blockchain, unless I want to diversify or have urgent payments that I cannot cover otherwise.

Regardless of the SBD price compared to $1, it's better to choose "50% / 50%" in this case, because SBD is liquid, while SP is not and you would need to power down to transfer from SP to Steem (a process which takes 13 weeks to fully complete, but you can interrupt it at any time).

Conclusion

Increasing your Steem Power is a slow process for small accounts (unless you use external funds to speed it up). This is mostly why I wrote this post, because a few fractions of SP more can make you happier when you don't see a significant change in that number for a long time!

I hope it helps! Let me know if you have questions.