This tutorial is meant to help new users on Steemit learn how stuff work here. I @focusnow hope to use this and other tutorial posts to help my new recruits understand how to use steemit. Our beloved community is called @chainpower. Follow us if you can.

A little more about SteemPower and why you should invest in it?

In a previous article, I explained what Steem power (SP) is, though not in much detail. Here, I would like to provide additional information about Steempower.
Your Steem Power determines your influence on this blockchain platform. Steem Power does at least two things for your account. They are as follows:

1. The Value of your votes (curation): When you upvote an article, what determines the value of the vote is your Steem Power (in addition to your voting weight). People with larger steem power add more value to the earnings of any post. For example, an account with a large SP can add $1 or more in one vote. On the other hand, accounts with smaller SP can add $0.03 or less to a post's earnings. In addition to the voting weight, the larger your Steem Power, the bigger your votes. If you do not have enough SP, your votes could be worth less or even nothing. So as a new person on Steemit, you should work really hard to increase your SP so that your votes could be worth more. If your votes are more valuable, it results in a larger influence on any posts you upvote i.e you literary add more money to a posts earnings. The second benefit of a larger SP is connected to the first. Check it out.

2. Curation Rewards: When you upvote a post, you join others that upvoted the post to share in the voting (or curation) rewards. 50% of a pot's earning is shared among all those that voted for the posts. What is the sharing formula? Your Steem Power (SP). So those that voted with a larger value because of their larger SteemPower, are given more curation rewards than those that voted with less value. The larger your vote (as a result of a large SP), the larger your share of the curation rewards. So its very simple. Curation rewards are calculated and shared based on the value of your vote. The person with the largest vote on the post receives the largest part of the curation rewards. The person with the smallest vote on a post will also receive the smallest share of the curation rewards.

Conclusion

So from this little explanation, its obvious that the best way to grow both in earnings and influence on this platform is to increase your Steem Power. It will help you to increase your voting value and curation rewards. People with larger SP are more likely to get an audience than those with smaller SP. Everyone on Steemit wants to earn more. So, many people here would like to connect more with those that have more SP so as to earn their votes from them.

There are further benefits of a larger SP than the 2 above. For example, a larger SP affords you enough Resource Credits so you do not run out of what you need to vote, comment and make posts.

If you want to know the value of your SP, there is a nice little tool created by @penguinpablo that could be useful. You can check it here: https://steemnow.com/. I will make a tutorial on how to use Steemnow to calculate the value of your Steem Power so that you know what its actually worth.

I will also make a tutorial on practical ways to increase your SP. I will be back with the next tutorials.