Vote well, win big. Or how to maximize your curation rewards.

Did you know that voting for content can also earn you some kopecks ?!

When you're not necessarily blogger or content creator, voting articles or comments is one of the other ways you can get your wallet on Steem.

But, please, do not create bots that vote all your comments or articles, except, if you want to kill Steem!

In fact, by voting a recent article, you enter the list of curators, who will receive up to 25% of the rewards that said article has generated.

This 25% is distributed among all the curators, the distribution is based on four parameters:

The "finish ranking" at the time of the vote: every vote after yours gives you a few more rewards.
That's why it's interesting to share (restem) items that you think are undervalued (since chances are your followers will vote and share after you).
Voting Power of the voter: it adds a multiplier effect (between 0 and 100%) ... this is the story of apples.
The percentage of vote granted (via the slider, for those who have access to this tool): also a multiplier effect (0 to 100%).
Voter's Steem Power: Adds a multiplier effect on rewards.
However for most items, less than 25% of rewards are redistributed to curators ...

I explain below how it is done and how to optimize your curation rewards.

How to vote effectively?
To maximize your rewards, you need to understand how each setting works.
This section explains in more detail each of the parameters that influence the final amount. (And if someone has anything to add, go ahead, because frankly, it's not pie).

1. The finish classification
   

Spot and vote on an article that will make the buzz, before it becomes popular. This will definitely put you in a good position to benefit from the best possible winnings.

But what is the exact impact of the order for obtaining curation rewards?

In fact it is huge!

As can be seen in the graph below, the percentage of rewards drops very quickly.

In fact, more than 90% of the rewards can be recovered by the top 10 curators. It is therefore important to vote early if you want to benefit.

That's what happens in optimal conditions, but there's a trap: the 30-minute delay.

The 30 minutes delay

Now you may say to yourself: "Curation is easy, just vote directly when a successful author publishes an article."

I think we can pretty quickly all agree that it would be completely crazy. Indeed it would mean that the articles would not even be read before being voted and it would give a huge advantage to bots curators who, by scanning the blockchain, react much faster than a human to vote new content.

The creators of Steem thought about it and put in place a mechanism that prevents that from happening. Unfortunately few people seem to know (at the same time it's not obviously, we must admit).

What happens is that during the first 30 minutes of a publication's life, the rewards of votes will be shared between the curators and the author. The distribution is done linearly as shown in the graph below:

We see that the further we move away from the moment of publication, the more the curator will be rewarded. More precisely:

A vote taken directly after the publication will yield all its rewards to the author (100%).
A vote after 15 minutes will yield 50% of its rewards to the author (50%).
Beyond 30 minutes, the rewards are not altered.
So if there are votes before 30 minutes, the author will receive more than the 75% of the article's rewards, and the curators will share less than the original 25%.

1. The Voting Power
   The second parameter is your Voting Power percentage at the time of voting.

It does not appear on your Steemit page, but you can find it on sites like steemstats, steemnow or steemDB but also on your busy.org profile.

In the end, your rewards will be multiplied by the Voting Power value during the vote.

1. The percentage of Vote awarded (the slider, therefore)
   This is a tool to refine your curations.

A full power vote (100%) decreases your Voting Power by about 2%. Knowing that the regeneration of this energy is done at a rate of 20% per 24 hours, you can vote 10 times a day with maximum voting power, and finish the day at 100% Voting Power.

If you vote a lot, you will probably want to modulate the power of these votes based on the value you assign to the content of the articles.

To be able to settle it via Steemit, you need to have a certain level of Steem Power (to date, August 2017, about 500). So you can manage your votes a little more subtly.

On Steemit, your votes are at full power by default. Other applications, for example on eSteem or Busy, allow it from the first vote.

Be careful, by using less than 100% of the vote percentage you will be able to vote more (20 votes to 50%, 100 votes to 10%, ...) but your rewards will be reduced (1/2 to 50%, 1/10% to 10%).

In the end, your chance of winnings through this system are equivalent whether you vote a little or a lot. It's up to you to place your votes wisely.

1. The Steem Power
   As you already know, the amount of Steem Power you hold determines your influence. With more influence, the votes reward the authors more importantly ...

On the other hand, you may not know it, but this is also true for curation awards. The more Steem Power you have, the greater will be the part of the curation rewards that will come back to you.

Conclusion
The ideal situation is for you to be the first voter and your vote to be taken at least 30 minutes after publication. Although possible this situation is rare on items with high rewards. This still gives you a good reason to go dig in the articles of users with fewer followers to find rare pearls.

The timing is crucial. However, it is sometimes better to vote a little too early, and still be ranked in the list of beneficiaries, than to arrive at the end and recover the crumbs.

Is it better 50% of possibly a lot, or 100% of something bigger?

As a curator, it will be up to you to judge the best time to vote. You will need to analyze the content of the article, the current number of votes, the time of publication, etc.

Apart from the timing, you are also advised to keep your Voting Power high enough (> 80%). To do this it will limit you to 10 votes at full power per day (or the equivalent using the slider, if you have it).

Sites like SteemNow (Zone Latest Curation Rewards) and SteemStats (Transactions tab) show you the curation rewards:

If you want to boost your curation rewards, you can increase your Steem Power. This is obviously not at all mandatory but will have a multiplier effect on your rewards.

"The value of a man lies in his ability to give and not in his ability to receive."
Albert Einstein

Remember that, economically, these votes do not cost you anything. Do not be afraid to vote for what you like, for content that you like but which is quality and unique. Check if you have any doubt about the veracity of the article (copy-paste?). Do not save, be generous (without giving everything to one person: give it to others too) Vote for the little ones who create quality content, because that's what you want to see flowering on Steem Do not be afraid to give.