Get your timings right
Curation has become a key part of my earnings and the more I grow the more important it will become in the future. I think a majority haven't seen it as an important part of earning and are making a big mistake.
Before hardfork 20 curation was a joke and not really worth looking at. After the changes it has become more lucrative than ever and I have noticed many sticking to the 15 minute mark.
I know the basic rule of thumb was to stick to 15 minutes as this is where you are supposed to get your highest return. This is not the case and I am not going to say what time you must vote to obtain the best return as every author will be different. I know chasing the bigger accounts doesn't mean better rewards as this is not true. It is possible to earn more on a $2 or $3 post than a $100 post.
I know we all want to manually vote but this isn't always possible and by sticking to this policy you are leaving Steem on the table. I think it would be safe to stick some of your users on steem auto and comment later when you can catch up. This way you are earning more and not losing out. This would leave you with enough votes for manual curation as well.
Fiddling and playing with your times is the only way and this week I have managed to hit 4.3 SP per 1000 SP held. I know some users with more SP than myself earning half of this and some even less than that.
Steem is hard enough to earn for some of us and growing is what this place is all about. The bigger you become the more you can support others and once you see what is possible surely it is worth experimenting and playing around. We all have certain users we vote for every day and those are the ones that need to be put on auto vote. Why shoot yourself in the foot when you are going to vote anyway and miss the curation.
I think once users see what is possible and how much is being tossed away they will change how they vote. If I manually curated totally I know I would be cutting my return in half and I can't afford to throw away nearly 400 Steem a year.
Lately I have had power outages and steem auto has been a god send as at least I am still supporting posts when I can't be on. I honestly believe it is the way forward and shouldn't be ignored especially if you are a small account trying to grow.
What is the best time....that is still uncleared. But how about curating a content just before a big Upvotes .🤔 I that would make a lot of sense..I belive..
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You would think so, but that isn't the case. Every user has different vote times and they vary hugely. If a big upvote comes in later on the vote just before used to be the case, but no longer.
That was the usual practice that I learned when I joined Steem...to upvoted before a bigger upvoted which is a typical task considering we are not sure what vote is coming or we keep a close watch on the bot tracker 😊
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You are awesome at this stuff - you should write a book!
PS what's the optimum time to set for votes on your posts.... ;)
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Hi Steve. I wish I knew more and still learning. The vote times vary so much between the different posts and authors. Some are on 6 minutes and some seem to be best at 9 minutes. The 15 minute vote has been blown out the window.I will try and check to see times for mine.
Eventually, this will become my focus but at the moment I think more value is driven by engaging newer users to build the curators of tomorrow. I still have my SteemAuto updated to support those I always do and catch up with then later!
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That is what I have been doing as well. I do that first every day to catch up on comments where my votes went. It is just having some good habits and not getting lazy by catching upon the comments.
Great information @cryptoandcoffee. I too am exploring curation. However, I've yet to earn anything close to 4.3 SP per 1000 SP held. That is truly amazing.
Appreciate you taking the time to post.
I have noticed the authors that have lots of votes and you support normally you have to get in as early as possible even going down to the 7/8 minute mark to benefit. Others you can test at around the 11 and 12 minute mark.
Thank you for the additional insight @cryptoandcoffee. Very much appreciated. I'll expand my research.
Funny - I'm just researching curation ATM and I decided to use you as an example of a good curator given that yer at the top of @abh12345's curation league, and I recognised yr name so assumed you must be active.
Do you use beempy? I was clicking around that last night and was surprised at how early the peak return is on many posts - as you say, well before 15 minutes.
Not giving too much away here as to 'how you do it' - but it's not that difficult to figure out with all the data being public.
The question is what happens if and when everyone wises up and just copies your curation habits?
Then it becomes a big shag-pile, and you'll need to find someone else flying under the radar.
busy, dtube, utopian, esteem, etc vote 'late', so there's always room for some OK rewards, even from folks like me who can have 50 cents down in the first 10 mins.
I'm unwilling to seek rewards if it means changing who I enjoy and interact with, but even here you can tidy up a bit and earn a little more.
That is what it is about. Why vote for content and authors you don't enjoy. it is about maximizing on posts you would vote for anyway. If you just vote for the rewards then what is the point of curating and everyone would be hunting instead of reading and supporting.
I don't think that is the answer as you should be following people you enjoy anyway. Others can follow me with pleasure .but will they enjoy the same content or is it just about the rewards. The reason why I don't publish times is that every user is totally different. Some authors have users who vote a little earlier and some later so each one is not an exact science, but they are definitely not the same times. Some of the authors you follow could have a vote range of 5 or 6 minutes. That is where the fun comes in and it is playing around that will get you the returns.
Oh I'm totally with you on only following/ autovoting who you appreciate.
It's interesting how much it all varies even for one author: I was checking out @anomadsoul on beempy yesterday... peak curation rewards for his posts jump around all over the place.
It's a fascinating part of steem to play around with - as you say, if you are going to autovote people, which I do, you may as well keep an eye on the times and modify them accordingly!
I guess if more people do copy and try and jump in ahead of the most effective curators then the peak timings will just change.
I've also yet to get my head around the lost money for early voting - I dunno if this is factored in the beempy calculations.
I'm just playing ATM to figure it all out!
Whatever changes i make to my autovoter I'll still save a fair chunk to manual vote anyway, but curation, It is all part of the game!
I must have a look at beempy as I have never heard of it. The times do fluctuate on whoever is voting and when they vote. You are right as constant adjustments will be required for popular authors.
https://beempy.com/curation/@cryptoandcoffee/one-year-on-and-how-the-figures-stack-up
@abh12345 put me onto it yesterday - you can just cut and paste whatever post you want after the curation bit.
@crokkon's done some interesting posts on the average best time for maximum curation rewards for a few selected accounts, all we need now is an interface that allows you to access it easily! Probably easier said than done.
Then again, maybe such a tool already exists, it's hard to keep up on here sometimes.
I have been playing around with it and some of the vote times are scary. I had no idea that voting so early was so profitable. It goes against everything that most of us thought and I think it is going to constantly change and we will find lower and lower voting times.
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Thanks for your insight and advice @cryptoandcoffee; there’s plenty we can all learn from one another so I’m sure many others, like myself, appreciate you taking the time to write this post.
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