Hey Steemit, as I noted in a previous post, I've been away from Steemit for about a year and I've just recently gotten back into it. One of the things that's changed in the time since I was last here was the addition of some great tools for new-to-mid size users to help them get more leverage in the system.

One of them is SP Delegation (which I have not experimented with yet) and the other are the introduction of helpful bots such as @minnowbooster. There are other helpful bots, but @minnowbooster is currently the most reliable for immediate profit and post boosting from what I've seen. If you have 1 SBD to spare, you can start profiting with this great bot.

(Image Source: @minnowbooster)

Here's how you can "boost" a post in 4 easy steps:

Step 1.) Get the full link of a post or comment of yours that has more than 12 hours left until payout. For example, this is a valid URL:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@trending/steem-delegation

Step 2.) Check the voting power of @minnowbooster at steemd.com to ensure it's above 45.67%, right here:

https://steemd.com/@minnowbooster

Again, let me stress this - make sure the voting power of @minnowbooster is above the breakeven point of 45.67%. The higher the voting power, the more you'll get in return for your investment.

See this explanation:

At 100% voting power the bot will give your nominated URL an upvote worth 3 times what you paid in, with the received vote value decreasing proportionately as VP decreases, ie 66% VP yields 2 times, right down to breakeven at 33% VP and a loss if you pay in when the bot has less than 33% VP. (These are gross percentage values, please take into account that on Steem 25% of the post value goes to the curators, in which case the NETT breakeven is actually at 45.67% VP)

Step 3.) Send at least 1.00 SBD to @minnowbooster using your post or comment URL from step 1 as the memo. Sending just 1 SBD seems to be the most common, in order to upvote as many posts as possible.

Step 4.) Enjoy your upvote! (Note there is a limit to how many times you can do this in a week - it currently appears to be about 5x.)

At first I was really skeptical, I have to admit. I thought it was a bit "unfair," that it was gaming the system, and that it violated the integrity of the community, but after seeing the people who are using it and how it really works, I've completely changed my tune.

I'm a HUGE fan. There are a myriad of benefits that happen when you use @minnowbooster:

• You get back 1x-3x what you put in, depending on the voting power of @minnowbooster. (You have to wait 7 days to get your payout, and it comes in the form of 1/2 SP and 1/2 SMD, but it literally pays for itself and then some if you do it right, so no complaining.)

• You create a cascading snowball effect: More people see your post and are more likely to upvote it because it has a buck or two in voting power already attached to it. As long as it's a good post, of course.

• You support a service that makes it easier for small-time users to get visibility and profit for your posts, plus @minnowbooster earns curation rewards for your posts. Everyone wins when your post succeeds.

• There's a limit to the number of times you can do this weekly to prevent abuse. I'm not sure what the limit is, but it appears you can upvote yourself 5x per week or so currently. This is a good thing, clearly, it would be abused to high heaven if you could do it endlessly, so pick your posts wisely.

For the full @minnowbooster guide, see this post (by @minnowbooster themselves)...there is a lot more you can do with it that I have not covered here, including SP delegation, which is beyond the scope of this post. (If any of the minnowbooster devs read this - great job, thanks for developing this, what a great idea and tool for helping everyone.)

Go claim your upvotes from @minnowbooster!