A short guide on Steemit concepts and tools

Hi Steemians,

As we all noticed, we have lots of new Steemians these days on the platform. This is a great news for all of us :)

Although, I’m also pretty new on Steemit, I learnt plenty of things in the last few weeks and I will like to share some of the useful information with you guys. In case I missed something or misinterpreted, feel free to leave a comment.

First of all, what is Steem and Steemit.com?

Steem is a blockchain database on which Steemit.com is running. Like Bitcoin, Steem is using transferable tokens to run the operations. Steemit.com represents a social media platform where users are remunerated for the published content.

Tokens and tips on how to use them

Steemit.com uses two types of tokens:

• Steem: transferable tokens which can be transferred at any time.
• Steem dollars: tokens that worth 1USD. Although the term creates some confusion, the purpose of having Steem Dollars as a second token was to bring more stability to the individuals who use the Steem network. They function in a similar way as the convertible notes work to fund startups. They can be converted into Steem (it currently takes 3.5 days if you use the conversion option from your wallet), they can be sold on the Market or they can be used to buy things on marketplaces.

If you already own Bitcoin(BTC), you can buy steem using the Buy Steem or Steem Power option from your wallet. In case you have a Poloniex account and you want to do an exchange from there, you should follow the steps described in the guide prepared by @cryptos - How to transfer Steem from Poloniex to Steemit.com?

Steem power and its implication

By checking your wallet you will see another concept: Steem Power. This section represents your user’s influence on the Steem platform. The higher the Steem Power, the higher the influence of that user on the value of posts and comments.

In case you want to increase your influence, you can transfer Steem to Steem Power by using the Power Up option from your wallet. Another way to increase the Steem Power will be to select Power Up 100% on your posts. This option is available when you write a new post.

The more power you have, the more curation rewards you can get.

At the moment, up to 25% of the post’s payout go to curators – the people who upvoted the post. The rest goes to the author. In case you vote for a post in less than 30 minutes from publishing time, a portion of your curation reward will go to the author payout. The allocation between 0 min to 30 min is linear, so if you upvote at 15 minutes from publishing time, you will get 50% of your curation reward.

Pay attention - Steem Power is less liquid. Once converted, if you want the entire amount back, it will take 13 weeks. The process is called Power Down and it can be initiated from your wallet. You will basically receive 1/13 of your Steem Power to Steem every week during the 13 weeks period.

Voting power

The voting power can be checked here: https://steemd.com/@username. Replace the final part of the link with your own user account name to find out how you stand. The voting power depends on how many upvotes you give per day. It starts at 100% and the network recharges it every day by 20%. You can use up to 40 full strength votes per 24 hours.

Tools

There are several useful tools you can check out in Steemit App Center(accessible from Settings):

• SteemitBoard – you can check how many posts you had, the average rewards per post, how many comments and any awards you unlocked.
• SteemViz – a very useful tool from where you can also check your potential payouts for the open posts.
• DeadFollowers – you can check how many of your followers are actually active on Steemit.com

Hope you find it useful!

Steem on!