Increasing your influence on steemit.com when voting for posts and when posting will also result in an increased income for your actions, time and efforts spent on the website. In order to do that you will have to get more STEEM POWER and there are numerous ways you can do that:

• Posting high quality and unique content on steemit.com and voting for other high quality content that gets published, it takes time and effort, but the rewards you get in STEEM POWER directly increase your influence and the STEEM DOLLARS (SBD) rewards you can convert to STEEM and then use them to Power Up converting them to STEEM POWER.
• You can use your computer to mine additional STEEM POWER for you, the mining process uses your CPU, so every computer can be used to mine - Guide on mining STEEM with your computer on Windows
• It is possible to purchase STEEM or STEEM DOLLARS (SBD) from a crypto exchange such as Poloniex.com or Bittrex.com, then send the purchased tokens to your steemit.com account and and convert them to STEEM POWER

Note that STEEM tokens can be directly converted to STEEM POWER using the Power Up function, but converting STEEM DOLLARS is possible only to STEEM and then you can use them to Power Up to STEEM POWER, however this takes 1 WEEK for the conversion process! 

 

Everlasting STEEM Power; Why you should Power Up!

 STEEM Power is your ticket to everlasting (at least theoretically) revenue stream. 

 Did you catch Willy Wonka talking about the Everlasting Gobstopper? They last forever.For the past week I have been watching my STEEM Power account. Without doing anything my STEEM Power grew minute by minute. I decided to track it during the times I was not earning any rewards or adding to my STEEM Power. What I found is fascinating.

Compounding Interest

 You may remember the days when banks actually paid a decent interest rate and you could see the compounding interest each month on your bank statement. If you did nothing (no withdraws and no deposits), your balance accumulated and the interest paid to you each month also increased because it was compounding.The equation for compounding interest is: 

 

Compounding Steem Power

 A while back I went to my STEEMit wallet to view my STEEM Power. I just happened to hit refresh about five minutes later and noticed my STEEM Power balance increased. There were no new rewards and I had not transferred or purchased any additional STEEM Power. Being curious I decided to track my STEEM Power balance over time.When my account had 259 STEEM Power (SP) units it earned about 0.060 SP units per hour.Then through rewards and direct purchase of Steem Power my balanced increased.When my account had 338 SP units it earned about 0.088 SP units per hour.See the benefit of compounding SP units, I purchased a bit more SP units.When my account had 427 SP units it earned about 0.111 SP units per hour.In my observations it appears that the STEEM Power is increasing every minute.Using the compound interest equation with a cycle time of every minute, I extrapolated out how much could be earned every day, 30 days (about a month), and year.My observed interest rate per minute is roughly 0.00043%. That seems incredibly tiny but remember it is compounding every minute.Let's assume this minute by minute interest rate stays the same over a year. What is the estimated potential?SP PowerHourly GainDaily GainWeekly GainWeekly InterestMonthly GainYearly Gain2590.0601.50011.0064.24%50.5842,030.0343380.0882.13515.2344.50%70.2843,023.9564270.1112.66218.9844.50%88.9653,840.826All gains are in STEEM Power (SP) unitsMore on why the Weekly Interest is included in the above table a bit later.

How is this Possible

This is best explained by the STEEM White Paper:

Because Steem wants to encourage long-term growth, it is hardwired to allocate 9 STEEM to Steem Power (SP) stakeholders for every 1 STEEM it creates to fund growth through contribution incentives. Over time this drives the ratio of the total STEEM value of Steem Power balances to the total of STEEM balances toward 9:1 . (It seems likely that the ratio will be somewhat greater than 9:1 due to continued net Powering Up of the newly printed STEEM.) It also means that long-term holders are almost completely protected from the dilution used to fund growth.

Benefits of Accumulating STEEM Power

As you increase your STEEM Power the minute by minute compounding makes your Steem Power grow even faster. You gotta love the power of compounding!The STEEM White Paper states that individuals are guaranteed to have more STEEM in the future than they have when they first convert from STEEM to STEEM Power.The other benefit of increasing your STEEM Power is that it gives your votes more weight.It is said that STEEM Power is the heart of the STEEM system. The benefits of accumulating Steem Power are truly powerful.

Ever Lasting STEEM Power

 One day you may find yourself needing to power down. Powering down is accomplished in weekly payments over two years (104 equal payments). You can stop the power down at any time.Here is a post about powering down, The Power of Powering Down-What I learned after Powering Down for Two Weeks.Powering down is accomplished at the weekly rate of 0.9615% (100% divided by 104 payments). Note that this is much less than the weekly rate of gain (4.24% to 4.50%). If you do nothing and assuming the weekly rate remains the same, you will have an everlasting revenue stream from your STEEM Power.We are at the early adopter phase of STEEMit. In my opinion the weekly rate of gain should be steady for a while (not sure how long), but I will be monitoring it.My advice to anyone on STEEMit is to remain active in the STEEMit community and accumulate STEEM Power.

Sources:

Image sources found using Google.STEEM White PaperSteemit Guide : Some Quick Facts about Steem , Steem Power and Steem Dollar that every User Should KnowThe Power of Powering Down-What I learned after Powering Down for Two Weeks 

 

Still Confused by Steem, Steem Dollars, and Steem Power? The Power Plant Analogy

 Welcome to all of our new users! Like most people who discover Steemit, you’re probably wondering about the currency tokens: STEEM, Steem Dollars, and Steem Power. Why do we need three of them? How are they different? When will I get paid? These questions are understandable, but they focus on the pieces. What we really need is a 200-foot view.

Let’s power up the drone

The basics of Steemit are easy to understand: you make money by posting and voting on good content. But as you get hooked on the great articles and moneymaking potential, you’ll want to understand how it really works. Steemit and the Steem economy are a complex system with lots of moving parts, so you’re in for quite an education.If you try to understand the each part of Steemit, you’ll get there eventually. But I think there’s an easier way to begin. Turn on that monitor, please, and I’ll take the drone over STEEM CENTRAL, our main power plant. When you see the whole platform functioning, I think you’ll have a better understanding of the parts themselves and the roles they play. It's an imperfect analogy, to be sure, but a helpful one also! 

 

What Powers Steemit?

What powers Steemit? The blockchain spins the gears. Witnesses keep it honest. Developers enable the Steemit social media platform and the payment systems with which we interact. Average people like us provide the content that gives the site its chief value. And we curate it, too, deciding which content is rewarded. Everybody tells their friends about it.Put that together and what does it give you?Holy guacamole! If a holistic whole is what you want, here is a model for you. We can compare Steemit to a conventional thermal steam electric power plant. Steam power, get it? Wink, wink. Change the ‘a’ to an ‘e’. But before we go there, I need to explain how a normal steam power plant works.By then, our drone should be in position.

Steam Power Plants

Thermal steam power plants are used to generate power from coal, nuclear, geothermal, solar thermal, waste incineration, and many natural gas sources. Though there are many variations, these plants basically turn heat energy into electricity. This basic model forms the bones for much of the world’s energy generation.Here is a picture of a geothermal power plant in Iceland, which uses steam to convert heat from the earth into electricity. Don’t worry about pollution; there isn't much of that. It is just releasing extra steam into the air. This is a very renewable and sustainable energy source. 

 Here is a diagram of how the main parts of a steam power plant work: 

 A steam power plant requires water (which can be recycled and reused) and a heat source. The heat could come from geothermal, solar thermal, coal, nuclear, natural gas, or some other source that is hot or can be burned. A pump sends the water to a boiler, which heats it into steam, and then that steam powers a turbine. When the turbine spins, it creates electricity with help from the generator. The generator is connected to an electrical grid, and customers who plug into the grid are able to use that electricity. The steam condensate is then collected an cooled, and that water gets pumped back into the system for reuse.

The Steemit Power Plant

The weather is nice today and they have the top down. Love that retractable roof, Steemians! Did one of the witnesses spring for that? My, it's a sleek machine. STEEM CENTRAL sure looks so light and airy. Such a transparent place. 

 Now the drone is directly overhead. STEEM CENTRAL sits right below us and we’re looking down inside. The inner workings are plainly visible on our monitor. They look something like this: 

 Content provides the value to the Steemit social media platform. It is most similar to the water that circulates through a conventional steam power plant. Vaporized into steam one day, more content appears instantly. Content is ever present, always changing, and capable of reuse and regeneration as content creators contribute fresh ideas with new written blog posts, videos, photographs, art, music, and more.The Blockchain drives everything, like the great pump at a conventional power plant. Spinning out new blocks, generating new data that grows continually, it verifies and enables transactions and posting information. Content can be posted, more currency can be created, and people can get paid. This beast never sleeps.Steem Power (SP) operates like a concentrating force. Like a boiler, it superheats the content and creates steam. Oops, I misspelled that; I meant STEEM! When you earn rewards for posting and voting, part of this is paid to you in SP. When you Power Up, you are increasing your SP also. Congratulations, you are becoming a virtual Class A shareholder with your bucketful of shiny tokens. SP gives you stronger voting influence. It also gives you a virtual stake in the future growth of Steemit and the Steem economy, since most of the new currency tokens created are paid out to SP holders. Where does the real muscle come from? From your hard work, of course. Creating and curating content makes it all start to bubble happily.Steem Dollars are the price-stable currency tokens that represent about $1 each in value. You will get paid partly in Steem Dollars (SD or SBD). There are so many possibilities with SD. You can spend these in the virtual economy which is soon to come, you can hold them and accumulate a 10% return, or you can sell or transfer them into Steem, Bitcoin, or other currencies. Like the turbine that’s spun by steam power in a conventional steam power plant, SD bridge the raw power of Steemit with the real world applications of a price stable currency.STEEM is the liquid currency, much as electricity is the final product from a conventional steam power plant. You can transfer it, spend it, or Power Up into SP. Passing through this generator is the final step before the product of all your hard work is realized. Through bridges, gateways, merchants, and exchanges, your STEEM plugs right into the online economy. When the market cap of STEEM goes up, you are paid more for bringing your STEEM to the market, just as if wholesale electricity rates had gone up and a conventional power plant operator cashed in by selling it back to the customers on the grid.

World Domination

The drone is out of power now. We’re grounding the sucker. Fortunately, we have an appointment with the man himself, the evil genius in charge of the Steemit Power Plant. Let’s see what he can add to our understanding of how Steemit works. 

 What’s that? He says he has no time to speak at the moment. He’ll make one statement and that’s all the time he can give us. Let the great man make his statement:

“This Power Plant facility is a most impressive creation. And yet, my Power Plant is only the beginning. If you thought I would stop here, you were wrong. (evil laughter ensues) I will not rest until we have achieved total world domination. Onward and Upward, Steemians!