Tired of Tiny Curation Rewards? A Half Dozen Strategies to Increase Your Booty!

I was in a conversation today with a thoughtful curator that proposed raising the curation rewards. I thought about it. The problem lies in the fact that the reward is a set 15% of the reward from the post, divided between the curators.

To raise that percentage, something must be taken either from the authors, or the witnesses, both of whom do invaluable work in the steemit mines. The best method for raising curation rewards remains, working to raise the price of steem.
There are some tricks you could use to increase your take as a curator however, and I thought I would share a few of them here.

If you know others, share them in the comments, or mention me in a new post about curations strategies! Good luck!

Start With the New Posts

One trick that not everyone picks up on here on Steemit is this, the first curator to upvote any post gets more of the curation rewards! So, starting in the new category can help you up your chances of making a bigger reward haul! You’ll still want to be choosy. Look for authors you know perform well, or that you want to promote, choose popular topics, or topics you wish were more popular, and finally, check the post quality. Don’t upvote junk, unless you’re just in it for the cash, then by all means, proceed and may the odds be ever in your favor.

Filter your choices'

A comment on one of my posts led to a conversation that presented an interesting idea, smart curation engines. What if Steemit fed you content it knew you would prefer first? It could shortcut the curation process, by serving up authors, topics, or related content for your curation, rather than digging through piece after piece, looking for a winner.

Since that’s not on the agenda any time soon, use the filtering available to get the best results. You can use your following list to choose authors you know you like, or trust to provide a good payout. In addition, each category can be further sorted for “new” “hot” or “Trending” posts, using the radio buttons at the top of Steemit. This provides a shortcut to the most popular, or newest content!

Follow the Money

Another winning strategy, is to simply follow the money. When you find authors that consistently get sizable payouts, check their blogs first. If they have new content, try to get in early to earn as much as possible of the curation rewards.
Some categories also consistently payout better than others.

You can find the amount paid out by category, by selecting “more” at the bottom of the category list. A menu pops up with a full list of categories and the number of posts, and amount of payouts in each. By clicking the column labels at the top, you can sort the list from alphabetical to show you the busiest, or more lucrative categories first.

Follow Quality Authors

If you’re like me, you want to earn, but you’d really like to see quality content win out. So, choose authors you believe do a good job. Whether they have a million followers, or only a few is up to you. You can reward the popular writers, or prop up some beginners that you feel are worthy.

Combine both to make the most of your rewards. Newbies should get support, and may hit a good payout now and then, but are unlikely to provide consistent curation rewards you can bank on. By choosing some of each, you can make the most rewards and help improve the content on the platform. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back, you know you want to!

Run Link List Posts

You’ve seen them before, ten overlooked posts, or the best five bitcoin posts, etc. If you want to be known as a curator, one way to do it is to write curation link lists. You might choose to do them whenever the mood strikes, or set a time and date for your next release to build anticipation. Get creative, offer rewards in small steem payouts, or just bragging rights for the posts you think are the best.

If you’ve previously upvoted, or commented, you’re doing double duty. You’re promoting good content, and you’re helping raise your own curation profile by sending more readers to hopefully upvote the story and comments, to increase your curation rewards. That’s what’s known as a win/win!

Promote Posts You’ve Curated

You don’t have to stick to promoting your own posts. You can pay to promote posts you’ve curated if you think it will pay off, or just want to get the content out there. In addition, you can use steemit.chat or Facebook groups, etc. to share links to your curated content, whether you wrote it or not. This is not only a great way to increaser the potential rewards, but win friends and influence people!

In fact, please, share links to this post, right now! Thanks!

So, what other curation strategies are working for you? Share them in the comments, or write your own post about it and tag me. By sharing what works, we make Steemit stronger, raise the price of Steem, and all of us get richer together! Steem on!