Well my table shows you should try to be the 1st to upvote. And it is best to do after 30 minutes. But in most cases you can better be the 1st to upvote after 15 minutes then being 9th after 30 minutes. Just to give some example.
Perhaps this helps as a start for some curation basics?
https://steemit.com/toolkit/@sndbox/earn-steem-by-upvoting-how-curation-rewards-work-on-steemit
Thanks so much for that! And I had a look at the link as well; all very useful.
So would you say it's better to curate moderately successful authors with followings that vote late after a post is published?
Yes, but those are hard to find.
Understood. How many people do you think is a good number of people to follow if you are a plankton or minnow? And how far should one exhaust their voting power before stopping voting?
I'm trying to keep my OWN posts around $2 payout each right now. I get a lot of votes from using bots though. So do the bots get curation rewards too? Should I delay using bots or use them right away? Which is best for people voting on my posts?
Right now I have 5 people that vote for me automatically around 15 minutes after I post. I sometimes use the bots before them so I don't forget. So should I wait until 12 hours or so?
I am interested in learning to curate better rewards for myself but I am also looking to give back curation to the people voting for me.
The number of people you like to follow depends on how much time you like to spend at Steemit. I don't have to much time. So I better limit it to 25-50 people. Cause imagine how much I can read every day is they post 3-4 times a week?
Bots also get curation rewards. They are just like any other user, only programmed with code. You better use them straight away. Cause of the bot upvotes your posts a few minutes after you published it, the bot will get less curation fee.
Btw, why don't you power up the 34 Steem?