Tips on Post Timing and Promotion From my Experiments Yesterday, Dolphinschool!
So, yesterday I did a little experiment with post promotion!
I'd been operating under the assumption that sharing my post links to steemit chat and Facebook were driving my vote count, so, here's what I did.
- I posted my first post and waited, left it as it was. (8:30 AM, CST US) The votes came, but, since it was a dolphinschool post (which obviously appeals to minnows) only a small payout, which is fine. 96 votes 17 comments in one hour, 116 votes and 32 comments at last count.
- Then I added one of my fiction posts (Anarchist's Almanac) (Noon CST US) and decided to wait on that one as well, before promotion. It jumped to 117 votes and $224 in payout in two hours. At 8 hours, it seemed to be stalled, so I promoted it on Steemit chat. Jumped to 144 votes 2 comments and $294.
- My second fiction post (JACKED) (2:45 PM, CST US) At 3 hrs in it had 112 votes, 4 comments and potential payout of $163, Promoted at 6 Pm CST US, last count, 141 votes $253 payout.
My last post of the day was my Steemit Ninja post, which hasn't caught on yet.
**So, here are some conclusions. **
- Fiction pays better for me. It seems that crypto, politics and travel are good non-fic topics for others.
- I won't be spending the time to promote my posts until the votes/payouts are slumping from now on.
- Adding promotion to posts once they have plateaued seems to add value. No idea if this plays out consistently, or just yesterday.
What I'm trying next
- See if the timing is important, I'd really like to post at noon and around 3 pm CST again today to see what happens.
- Try adding paid promotion later, say about 3 hours in, to see if I get a boost from that.
- Get to the point where I can drop two posts at noon, one fic, one non to see what happens, not today, though, I have a carpentry gig that must be finished.
Here is my advice!
From http://catchawhale.com/ and from my experience, it seems that mid day to afternoon in the US is a good time for me and whatever whales are following my work, since my payouts yesterday were the best they've been in a few days, they werre lagging a bit.
I would suggest holding off at least one hour before promoting posts on Steemit chat, or other outside sources, here's why...
- At 27 minutes, curation starts to payout, votes before that earn nothing.
- Early, low powered votes seem to "scare off" whales and mid level speculators. It's not that I don't want minnow and dolphin votes, but I want them later, to raise the profile of the post.
- If I promote early, I get a lot of low paying votes, and it seems like the potential for a better payout is less, if that happens.
This is not a scientific sampling, only an anecdote based on one day!
So, if it doesn't work for you, there are a million other factors at play, all I can do is share what is working with me!
Very interesting observations. I've found the best time to post to be the same time you mentioned. As for promoting, I did not even think about the 27 minute mark. Thank you for the suggestions. :)
you're welcome, be sure to let me know if you learn anything else that's working
Necromancy!
How has this changed if at all after HF19? What time does curation take effect?
Curation rewards start at 30 mins still, from what I've read, but the author portion is about to go away. So, I'm not sure how this holds up.
Wow, thank you for replying! So the author gets all the vote rewards for the first 30 minutes? Where can an aspiring dolphin keep abreast of the changes to steemit.com?
No, the author gets 75% of total upvotes. They are doing away with author's curation rewards. I'm not sure if it's changed yet. But, it used to be that the author got 25% of the curation, in addition to the 75%, if they upvoted first, after 30 min.
Thank you for posting your findings
Yep, you're welcome, thanks for the comment.
I've noted down the important points for future reference.
I think you meant to type http://catchawhale.com/ instead of whalewatch.com.
Thanks!
Thanks, slayer, I edited it accordingly
Sorry! I always upvote when I see your posts (and read them of course)... I'll try to curb my patience and wait a little while - who am I kidding? ;)
Keep up the good work, it's awesome watching you climb the heady heights of steemit :)
Nope, don't do that! But, do yourself a favor and be one of the first after 27 minutes, you'll get more curation rewards! LOL
Thanks so much for sharing your experience. This is very valuable advice to me.
you're welcome. have fun with it, let me know if you learn anything else that helps in this area
Ok!I am upvote,for the sake of the experiment)
thanks favorit! I'll take all the votes I can get!
I made my first late-night post last night (10:45 pm eastern) and it got the most votes so far of any. Not the highest payout, but definitely the most votes. That could also be because my following is growing, though. If I post tomorrow morning and the votes go back down, that'll be useful data!
That's the thing, that's why I started tracking when I post to see if there are trends,or if it's just day to day.
Great insights @markmorrisjr! I also wanted to tell you about a free tool I launched about a month ago... http://st33m.it! It's a custom URL shortener that also provides stats & analytics for your posts so you can see where your readers are coming from and where your promotion efforts are making the most impact! (steemit.chat, links from other Steemit articles of yours, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
You can read my original post about it here: http://st33m.it/launch
I've also been thinking about trying to better time my posts so that I put two posts up within a short amount of time. Let's say one of your posts does exceptionally well and gets up to the trending page... some users who've never seen your posts before might click over to your profile and upvote the other post that's in its first payout window as well. Perhaps a slim chance, but you never know! ;)
I know I've done that for other users I've discovered!
Yes, I would say post them an hour or two apart, so that they don't compete with each other.
I'm using bitly, which has all of my other links, too, so I will probably stick with it. I tried a few others in the past, but functionality is essential. If your tool goes down, no one can reach the content.
Timing is important. I keep track of the amount of new contents and sometimes it is very slow.
That's a good point, jyezie, when it's slow might be a good time to post, less competition for votes and you'll stay at the top of the new category longer, since it shifts you down as new content comes in. When is the lowest point typically?
From what I can remember before lunch break was slow and so was during late night. But I recall a website where you had where you could where Steemians are spread on the world. So depending on the user base and timezone all over the place, and the type of content I guess, you can have small competition and enough curators. Although I don't understand what you mean with the :
Can you point me where you find that?
If you read the official FAQ, you see that until a post is 27 minutes old, votes for curation earn no rewards. This is to prevent someone from instantly upvoting their own content with multipleaccounts and double dipping.
I couldn't find anything :-(
That FAQ is actually just a couple of weeks back, at most and I've read that same information elsewhere. It's hard to know what to believe on this platform, since there's not much "official" documentation outside of the whitepaper, and most of that is based on principles, not specifics, so it changes from time to time.
Here is a link to the initial draft https://steemit.com/steemit/@shenanigator/official-steemit-faq-rough-draft-your-edits-are-needed
Thanks a lot. But i think that 's old. You can see it with old post and the way the payouts are shared. But I haven't seen a recent post reward shared like that. Or maybe I really just don't know anything about Steemit. Thanks a lot for the info.