Promoted Posts Analysis From March 1, 2017 to February 28, 2018

Steemit has 4 tabs on it's home page, Trending, New, Hot and Promoted. Hot and Trending are the most popular sections since posts in these tabs normally have higher payouts and greater engagement as compared to New and Promoted sections. The aim of this analysis is to analyze the Promoted section from the month of March, 2017 to February, 2018. This post will include a general analysis of post promotion section like total number of posts, total number of SBDs spent, engagement analysis and then we will find if spending higher number of SBDs gives you higher rewards or not. We will also see how much SBDs authors have spent who got higher rewards on their promoted posts.

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Data Collection

All the data was extracted from Steem SQL Database (Paid subscription service held and managed by @arcange). The data was taken from March 1, 2018 to March 31, 2018. SQL query that was used to extract the data was:

SELECT author,
permlink,
title,
created,
children,
total_payout_value,
author_rewards,
promoted
FROM comments
WHERE created BETWEEN '2017-03-01' AND '2018-02-28' AND promoted NOT LIKE '0.000 SBD%'

General Analysis of Post Promotion Section (Rewards & Engagement)

Total Number of Promoted Posts

Total number of posts promoted from March 1, 2017 to February 28, 2018 were 6762 with an average of 564 posts per month. From the above graph, we can see that the total number of posts promoted in the month of August, 2017 were 1701 that is around 25.15% of the total posts promoted from March 1, 2017 to February 28, 2018. Also, the number of posts shared in the month of January, 2018 were 1045 that were almost doubled if compared with the previous month's posts.

Number of SBDs Spent on Promoted Posts

Total number of SBDs spent on promoted posts from March 1, 2017 to February 28, 2018 were around 3090.128. Same as above, authors spent around 953.994 SBDs in the month of August that is 30.87% of the total SBDs spent on promoted posts in these 12 months.

Average SBDs Spent on Each Post

Average SBDs spent on each posts is quite low, on an average, authors spent 0.507 SBDs on each post. However, what I have noticed is that spending more SBDs doesn't always give you higher rewards and this will be analysed further later in this post.

Total Number of Comments

Total number of comments on these promoted posts were 10176 and the average comments per post was 1.5 comments per post which is quite low when compared to the engagement on posts that come in the trending and hot sections of Steemit. Month wise average comments can be seen in the below chart.

Average Comments Per Post

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Top 20 Authors In Terms Most SBDs Spent

Top 20 authors in terms of spending the most SBDs had 36.14% share of the total SBDs spent on all the promoted posts in these tweleve months. Total 1116.998 SBDs were spent by these 20 authors. One strange thing I noticed was @coincube spending 862.78 SBDs on one post. I first thought there might be a mistake in Steem SQL Database but on further investigation, I found that this value was actually true. Below, you can see the top 20 authors in terms of most SBDs spent and author rewards.

Author	Total Posts Promoted	SBDs Spent
@coincube	1	862.78
@elliotmeijer	2	47.327
@pvdbincome	1	44
@nirgf	1	19
@eddiejmc51	7	16.587
@scarlet7	1	16.01
@alifar	1	16
@notdaone	1	13.33
@ptmikesteem	3	12
@lastgreatstand	2	11.54
@lykendream	5	11.23
@loveherwilds	5	11
@markaustin	2	10.31
@starke	5	10.12
@cecbdo	1	10
@generation	1	10
@vimeo	1	10
@yuz	1	10
@nolafairy	5	9.15
@jonasmatk	1	9

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Top 20 Authors In Terms Of Author Rewards

Author	Total Posts Promoted	Author Rewards
@educ.leb	2	86.98
@oldstone	1	52.405
@dynamicgreentk	1	37.246
@ruah	1	37.213
@dber	1	21.61
@spherechain	1	19.218
@cnfund	1	17.278
@irwanumpal	3	15.757
@yoon	2	15.468
@johano	2	13.244
@soi-green	7	11.623
@realrayyan	1	11.488
@gunsmithing	1	9.82
@robyneggs	2	9.292
@markaustin	2	9.272
@lapstjup	1	8.86
@rye05	1	8.398
@trangpu	6	8.382
@socialmedia	2	8.249
@beeskee	2	8.175

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Top 20 Posts In Terms Of Most SBDs Spent

As I mentioned above, spending higher SBDs doesn't promise you higher rewards when your content isn't unique and creative. The author reward of top posts in terms of most SBDs spent was actually 0, means none of the authors were able to earn a single penny on spending spending their SBDs. On further investigation, I actually noticed that most of these posts were flagged due to the spammy and harmful content they wanted to promote.

Author	Post Title	Author Rewards	SBDs Spent
@coincube	MyNeoWallet.io Online Web Wallet for NEO / GAS!	0	862.78
@pvdbincome	100 DOGE for FREE from me ! Just try out FLEEX and even get a 100GH for FREE	0	44
@elliotmeijer	💥 [Exchange overview #1] What is KuCoin? | Could KuCoin become a top 10 exchange?	0	27.327
@elliotmeijer	📖 [Coin overview #1] What is KuCoin (KCS) | Worth investing?	0	20
@nirgf	Why Do People Cheat?	0	19
@scarlet7	The Game Changer LAToken ( LAT ) LIVE VIDEO CHAT WITH THE FOUNDER TODAY!!!! - Former CEO of Myspace joins the team..... Meshing Digital and Real Assets - Truly the Next Gen of Tokenization!	0	16.01
@alifar	Top 5 Crypto Trading Apps for iPhone and iPad	0	16
@notdaone	How to get passive income?	0	13.333
@cecbdo	The Case for "BEICash", a Steemit Based Community Token	0	10
@generation	EOS, STRATIS, and ETHEREUM; What are the major difference? Which one is the best?	0	10
@vimeo	Project Green house (In time-lapse)	0	10
@lastgreatstand	Tact Bivvvy 4.07oz 2.0 Survival Sleeping Bag	0	10
@yuz	Asch (XAS) - A decentralized application platform based on side-chain technology - On a new exchange on 11/02/17	0	10
@jonasmatk	Aigang Launches First Demo of its Blockchain Protocol — Real-world use case of Smart Contracts?	0	9
@zonpower	Hidden Power	0	7.942
@tattooedhands	#suicide: like, comment and subscribe	0	7.355
@the-ego-is-you	☞ Get Your Post Resteemed! - We're Starting a New Tag. 😎 Payout Declined, so You Can Upvote and Spread This Message ✌	0	6.231
@suranel	VOZEX - Cloud Mining Investment	0	6.01
@kineticcuts	Big Mouth Billy Bass - Short Film, Comedy/Horror	0	6
@scriptkid	Tor as a SOCKS5 proxy in your C++ applications with socks5-cpp	0	6

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Top 20 Posts In Terms Of Author Rewards

@educ.leb by spending 0.041 SBDs was actually able to earn 86.98 author rewards on his post. Though we can't assume that this payout is just because of the promoted section but you can see the same behavior on other 19 posts as well where authors spent little amount of SBDs and were able to get some decent payouts.

Author	Post Title	Author Rewards	SBDs Spent
@educ.leb	All Goals • Manchester City has very logically imposed against Arsenal (3-0) in the League Cup final this Sunday. Josep Guardiola won his first title on an English bench.	86.98	0.041
@oldstone	과거를 대하는 태도, 베트남과 한국의 경우	52.405	0.2
@dynamicgreentk	Homemade probiotics aka lactic acid bacteria	37.246	0.5
@ruah	Added 15 bots for the utopian-io.js	37.213	0.05
@dber	Nerds - Teaching Children To Eat Other People's Happiness	21.61	0.05
@spherechain	Episode 17: 2018 is the Year of the Dtubers	19.218	1
@cnfund	【AFTER CREATION】(Chapter 144)(Chinese Original Fantasy Novel)/【创世之后】(第144章 聚气之法(上))(原创玄幻小说)	17.278	0.002
@irwanumpal	Home Solutions That Endure In Hurricanes	15.757	0.916
@yoon	뜨거운 감자, 4차 산업혁명	14.392	0.05
@johano	My little hurt friend and Trident	12.916	1
@realrayyan	Monday's color challenge (red): red shoots decorative plants in front of my house.	11.488	0.001
@gunsmithing	Pt. 5 DIY restoration vintage 22 HVLP finish and re-assembly	9.82	0.001
@lapstjup	The Monkey Kid	8.86	1
@rye05	Metal Slug 2 - Arcade Review - The Old School Way	8.398	0.001
@trangpu	League of Legends - Game Info - All Star 2017 GPL lol#5	8.382	0.001
@socialmedia	Belated Introduction to Steemit	8.249	0.356
@munia	unforgatable moments	8.139	1
@markaustin	original improvisational composition entitled Live Jam #5	7.742	5.1
@beeskee	Software Inc Alpha 9 - Episode 1 - A new start	7.319	2
@soi-green	12月5日、東京株式市場とドル円相場	7.059	0.001

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Conclusion

From the above analysis, we can say that authors don't show much interest in advertising their post on Promoted section since the average SBD spent on each post was 0.507. Same thing goes for engagement, it's quite low if we compare the engagement on posts in the Trending and Hot sections. Authors who paid the highest number of SBDs tend to share spammy content and didn't receive any author rewards. So spending more SBDs doesn't mean that you will get higher rewards, your content should be creative and unique and that's the good thing I noticed. People who have been sharing quality content and spending less on promoting their posts have actually a good positive ROI.