To Curate or not to Curate | That is the question
I have been thinking about the earnings that I get in Steemit and still believe that it is the best place for bloggers right now in terms of rewards.
I sometimes submit 2000 word articles which can be anywhere from $12-$20 depending on how complex the topic is. In Steemit I average about $3 SBD - $15 SBD which would roughly mean I can make $9 - $45 USD per post at a $3USD peg for 1 SBD. This is not bad.
What's even better because of the 50/50 rewards system I also get an approximate amount of Steem Power. This means that I am continually powering up which makes my bandwidth, voting value and prestige in the platform continually increase as well.
Last December with SBD hitting as high as $20 USD this meant a lot of happy holidays for a lot of people. This also prompted a lot more account creation that spilled over into January and February.
Steem Power is so important on this platform right now that people are hoarding it like a dragon hoards treasure. Except for a few pioneering people like @fulltimegeek and his Stewards of Gondor most people like to keep their SP.
If they are delegating it usually for profit. There are even several vote buying and selling services as well.
I had a recent discussion with someone in regards to SP leasing and if it is worth it. Number crunching in order to make up for the cost of the delegation you will need to self-vote your own post and comments at least 80% of the time for you to break even. Currently, I self-vote 7.2% and the rest are given to the communities and individuals that I support. So from the start, I am operating at a lost.
A more lucrative way is to sell my votes and at the current SP that I have, I would be getting 1.54 SBD on a daily basis and 11.58 SBD weekly. A good way to earn if you don't post much and would just want to maximize your profits for just having an account.
The best way is to delegate to bid bots. I was looking at the accounts of big SP holders and by curating either manually or through curation trails one can earn about 40-60 SP daily. Now if you delegate the same SP you can earn about 250 Steem daily.
This is simply mind-blowing and would explain why people choose this route. You just need to have a lot of money in order to do this and the money will just keep coming. Steem will be high by the end of this year.
What am I doing with my SP?
So she asked me what was I using it for. Well, the majority of it is being used to upvote content that I like. I get about 1.5 SP-2.5 SP per week for curation rewards.
Last January I tried front running some people who earn a lot in their post and although the curation rewards were good it rapidly lowered my voting power that it was hard to support other people.
Most of the people that I upvote don't really get a lot of rewards but by upvoting and commenting on their post I give them encouragement. Nothing makes a person quit faster than consistently seeing 0 upvotes and comments.
So in the spirit of the Stewards of Gondor which I look up too that is what I am doing. Spreading my upvote and leaving comments.
My last week standing was at around 514 upvotes given to 220 people. I plan to get this higher and reach 500 comments.
It doesn't net me the best kinds of SP rewards but the connections that you make and the awesome people that you meet makes it priceless. I don't operate Steemit as a business like most people do but use it as a means to inspire hope, cultivate the creative mind, establish relationships and make a difference one comment and upvote at a time.If I operate at a loss with curation I hope that I can make it up by content creation and get those elusive upvotes.
So how are you using your Steem Power?
My SP isn't that high at the moment, but I will use it to reward u. You deserve it.
Omg Food goddess it is so unexpected!! Thank you for this wonderful gift!
Since I dont have much SP, I always do intelligent upvoting . Though it took me a while to give my very low upvote value, I always make sure that I leave a good remark on the post.
Yeah at the start you good be smart on not using up your VP. Sometimes when I don't have the VP I leave a comment at least it is still engagement and morale boosting.
precisely boss.. you're so good with that and i really admire your passion and dedication. So glad to meet u along the way
Hmm... was going to ask you were you sell your votes for that much but just noticed you actually have more SP than me... :O
I tested it out in Smartsteem and the returns are great. Then you can also set who gets your votes so you know its not going to go some shitposter. |
I like how he is doing business.
I'm beginning to think the pricing of delegations is based off of upvoting around 10 times per day. Doing the computation, I found that if you split the cost of delegation with 10 people, and sent it to a separate account where it auto votes the 10 people at 0 minutes, you were kind of breaking even. Which is pretty funny.
I suspect this is optimal for bid bots which have 10 votes a day spread out to everyone. In some sense the leasing of delegation and use of bid bots aren't too far off.
I use my steem power to vote as you do. I delegated some as a statement that I believe certain posts are overvalued and consistently abused, to return more to the rewards pool. I think I may need to adjust my strategy though to keep my voting power higher and space the votes out.
I've never thought of it that way on how the pricing of delegation is computed. This is why you are the Tax man hahaha.
I was thinking of splitting the cost of delegation with someone so that I can continue community building with my main account and earn Steem and SBD on her account. Sort of a balancing of two because you can't help if you don't have power.
I understand why some would do this but it is absolutely crippling to the community in the long run. If more people sell their SP for profits, less authentic voting is taking place, therefore less human interaction, therefore less growth on the platform.
It makes sense why people would do it, don't get me wrong, it is just a lazy alternative to curating and voting people, I think.
If the platform is to strive, we need to actively support others. If we don't, the place is just going to get flooded with BOTs and the whole place will go to shit.
Granted, I won't care because my aim is to build a community on discord which will always be with me. No matter what blockchain social media site we are on.
We are humans, not robots. This should be the platforms mantra.
It is buddy. The main argument there by bot owners is to get the power of whales accessible to Minnows. By promoting their posts it gains the visibility in the trending boards and whales can see their content.
But honestly a lot of people use it as a crutch. Their is this one person who posts 5 posts a day of different Marvel characters. Puts 5 bidbots on each and calls it a day. No one even comments anymore except a few that sees his reputation and earning not knowing it's a golden shit post.
I'm mo saint i boost as well but I couple that with good content and I don't end up losing SBD but gaining more.
For now I see this is indeed very platform made from a side income. In contrast to other platforms, although now many new platform launches with using Blockchain systems as well. Totally agree with you point out above. In this platform we did have to raise the revenue to get power steem. Although since the beginning of the year 2018 is his very volatile price SBD, but not a maximum as at the end of last year.
I have seen here some really great content creators that have managed to go full time steemians. Hopefully will reach that level of success someday.
Yes we came from a very bullish market for SBD but we might see it normalize before the end of the year.
Wow. Really, I think you understand the purpose of steemit. Not just for the upvotes or sbds alone. But also to inspire others. That's awesome. You got a great strategy there.
Thanks for being selfless
I don't think I am entirely selfless but more of I have a pay-it-forward attitude that wants the platform to succeed.
most of the redfish and minnows now will become the dolphins and whales in the future. If we don't support them now then there is the chance that they might give up early and never reach that potential.
I see.... Only leaders have that sort of mindset.
#leadership
you are such a nice person Mav :) I absolutely agree to your stance of helping out newbies by voting them up... this will help Steemit in the long run. But you can perhaps come to a balance by leasing some SP and keeping some for doing your own curation? That way you earn some good reward as well which will help to increase you SP even more and help everyone in turn?
I have some delegation but most of it is to individuals to help with their bandwidth problem or for certain communitys.
I don't have much SP and since I mostly publish in a somewhat narrow (and not necessarily broadly popular) niche — spirituality and self-development — it can be hard to be see and build much.
What little I can offer (currently 2-3 cents a vote) I tend to give to content that is somehow helpful, interesting and worthwhile to me, and that I think might be the same to others. And I try to engage and interact as much as possible where I do visit; show the poster a little gratitude for their efforts.
That is a great thing that you are doing. Admittedly that is a very specific niche that you write about and not a lot of people curate those stuff.
Just keep going on the Engagement and your followers and engagers will increase as well.
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Thank you kindly for the feature!