How do you get the most out of your UpVote?

The short answer is: You don't! Your vote doesn't count for shit, and you don't matter. OK... so that's a bit harsh, but the truth is that as a minnow, you and your vote really don't matter (sort of).

Once your vote becomes worth something, then YES... there are 'complex' calculations and factors to consider when deciding what content you should be UpVoting, and equally important, WHEN you should be voting on a post. As with my other "Minnow Hell" posts, there are more than enough people that have written great posts, with fantastic advice, aimed at Steemians who have been using the platform for some time (or invested heavily in STEEM), but if you're not one of those people yet, I'm here to share my experiences with you as a minnow with the voting power of dust!

My curation rewards for the entire first month on Steemit

That's right, a whopping 0.015 STEEM after I painstakingly scouted great content, waited for 20-30+ min before upvoting, Making posts at "the right time when your audience should be online" and I wasted far too must time in my 1^st 2 weeks on trying to maximise curation and author rewards. BTW: Those 2 "BIG" curation rewards came from self-upvoted posts. The one was my #IntroduceYourself post where bots will upvote and shill their agendas, and the other was probably me getting lucky with a whale vote of $100 on one of my videos. Yes... you would need about a $100 upvote after you've voted before your 0.00x little upvote on your own post materialises into any sort of curation reward... and then it's still just 0.004 STEEM.

This is you... now please go lie by the door!

Image Source Unknown... i.e. WhatsApp groups.

OK... so just give up and leave?

OH NO NO... Everyone has to start somewhere, and unless you invest a serious amount of fiat into Steemit, 'at the very bottom' is that 'somewhere' for you... fortunately it is like they say: "When you're at the bottom the only other way to go is up!".

So what should you do?

I don't know for sure... but... what I did, was this:

Good Content

Firstly, write good content! Simple! Although unrewarded, good content still crucial to building a following on any network, and SO MUCH MORE SO here on Steemit. When other Steemians do happen to accidentally come across your profile, you want them to follow you, and the only way that will happen is if you have something interesting for them to read/consume. (OK... following count probably doesn't matter shit either since everyone follows so many people that your post is unlikely to be seen in their feed once they've followed you... BUT... some people will hopefully 'bookmark you', there's no such thing on Steemit BTW, and check back on your posts).

It's also the only way that you'll get lucky and some @dtube, @dlive, @dsound etc. bot might give you a bonus upvote. It is also critical that you have a history of good posts if you want 'someone' like @curie to discover and share your content. NB: Ignore all of what I said about these bots for now... for the first week or two anyway, and just focus on making friends, connecting with like-minded communities and generally getting to know Steemit and it's citizens. I'll be writing another post about which content categories have a few whale bots lurking around, and which communities are great at helping minnows etc., but for now... please ignore all of that.

Ignore the formulas/best practices, and just be yourself

Another thing you want to ignore is voting power, upvote values, timing and blah blah blah!

Like (i.e. UpVote) what you like, add comments to posts (even if they are old, and you are only reading them for the first time now), upvote people that comment on your posts (although dust, the authors will still get a notification that you did so and appreciate the gesture).. i.e. ENGAGE! Comment, comment and comment again! Hell... even upvote your own comments... the ones that add value to the original post anyway (The reason for this is that even though your vote isn't worth much... it will push it up passed a lot of the noise and the author and other readers are more likely to see it).
NB: Please DON'T comment crap though just for the sake of commenting... you need to be genuine!

To Summarise

Pretend you aren't getting paid for any of this (pretty much the same as on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even your own blog). Simply create good content and engage with others. "Build it and they will come" is actually true in this case... well, sort of... but that's a rant for another day :P At the very least, you need a solid base from which to use your "tips and tricks for maximising upvote value and/or rewards".

Some other useful posts for life on Steemit:

• Introducing GINA - This is a MUST HAVE, and if you don't have the 0.001 registration fee from author rewards yet, then hit me up on Discord and I'll send it to you.
• DON'T POWER UP - Why you'll probably just end up losing it.

I've written a very cool dice game (OK, that's my biased opinion) where you can win free SBD every couple of hours.

• please go check out @PlayDice: https://steemit.com/@playdice
• NB: Unless you've taken my advice in this article, don't play the game, as you probably won't have enough SP to reach the minimum 0.006 UpVote value required to play.

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Disclaimer

I've been on Steemit for less than 2 months now, and could be talking out of my ass... however, I like to think I've learned from my mistakes and my advice will help you avoid the mistakes I made. If any veteran Steemians reading this notice any errors in my thinking... please correct me wherever I went wrong!
OK, who wrote this crap? - Meet BraaiBoy Here

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