The Benefit of Voting Bots
I am a big proponent and user of the various paid voting bots and services on the Steem platform. I think they provide a great service to minnows and new users by allowing us to get our posts out there and seen by more people and build our following.
Detractors of paid voting services say that it’s not right that people can buy upvotes and I can see where they are coming from. If people could buy $100+ of upvotes and get on the trending page then I would probably agree with them. Realistically though, if you use all of the upvote services currently available, you can maybe get around $20 max. This is enough to get your posts on the “hot” page for a while and get a little bit more visibility, but not all that much.
I think this is actually the perfect situation for Steem for two reasons:
- It provides a way for minnows and new users to get a little bit of attention for their posts. If the quality is not there then they won’t get far, but if the quality is there it can help grow followers by leaps and bounds.
- It encourages people to purchase and use STEEM and SBD. Steem is one of the only cryptocurrencies I’ve found that people actually use and most often that use is promoting their posts. This should be encouraged as much as possible to help grow the value of STEEM and the platform as a whole.
How to Use Voting Bots Effectively
So now that I’ve hopefully established that paid voting bots and services are a good thing, the question becomes how to use them effectively and profitably.
At first I somewhat randomly sent some SBD to the voting services I knew about and got varying results. I think this is what most people are currently doing. But after a while - once I really started to learn how things work - I realized that I could take a much more scientific approach.
I jumped into the Steem JS API and wrote a quick tool to monitor the status of the various voting bots and services so I could easily see when profitable opportunities were available. This allowed me to earn some great returns on my SBD investments. For example on my last post I was able to get a $5.47 upvote for $1 SBD from @boomerang!
Presenting the Steem Bot Tracker!
Finally, rather than just using the tool for myself, I spent some time making a somewhat presentable web page (which is not easy for me!) at http://www.steembottracker.com so that everyone else who is looking to promote their posts and grow their following, like me, can benefit.
The primary value - as you can see in the photo below - is that it tracks the status of 5 popular bid-based voting bots and highlights ones which are currently under-bid and nearing the end of the bidding cycle. It also suggests the max amount to bid in order to remain profitable. Using this method takes the luck out of using these services and allows you to capitalize on some great opportunities like the 447% return I was able to get with @boomerang on my last post.
The current version is just a quick-and-dirty implementation in order to get the tool out to everyone as soon as possible, but over time I hope to expand the site to be a comprehensive resource for new and even experienced Steemers to learn how to promote their work on Steem.
Please let me know what you think in the comments and let me know if there are any other good post promotion tools or services that you think I should add to the site!
Utopian Contributor Report
I am trying out Utopian.io and writing this as a Contributor Report. Utopian is a great new project by @elear. It is a site based on the Steem platform that aims to reward contributions to open source projects! Check out @elear's post to learn more: https://utopian.io/utopian-io/@elear/utopian-the-begin-of-a-new-shared-meritocratic-economy
oh my....if I have found you before I wouldn't make my website.
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@firedream/realtime-data-addition-on-steembotcompare
https://steembotcompare.neocities.org/
I re-invented the wheel...by the way your html is much better than mine :)
FD.
This is incredibly epic! @yabapmatt can you add to minnowbooster maybe the last 5 votes and what they were worth? I am happy to supply an api for this, if json is easiest for you. tip! 5
Sure, i should be able to pull that data using the account history call in the Steem JS API. I'll put that next on the list! Thanks so much for your support!
Like I said we can supply you with a json api with the latest votes. That can save you some time :) and it shows how much each user payed. Because 2SBD are not always 1% it depends on steem price f.e.
Sure, I won't say no to that! Do you mind sharing how you calculate the upvote % based on the bid amount?
We use the lowest % that is at least 3 times vp times send sbd. Check our Frontpage for a js example minnowbooster.net
@reggaemuffin I just updated the vote weight calculation and fixed the text so it doesn't say 1%. Will integrate the /api/global parameters later, thanks again!
yeah - the amount of sbd gain per % is not linear. It would be good to explain that the return depends on the current voting power.
At 100% => 3x Return - 2 SBD send equals 6 SBD vote value.
At 50% => 1.5x Return - 2 SBD send equals 3 SBD vote value
etc.
If you vote without comment - in stealth mode the max return is x2.
@yabapmatt
Ok I think I got it, i'll update the site a little later today. Thanks for the info!
Can you also use our minnowbooster.net/api/global to get parameters?
Definitely, thanks for sharing! My apologies for having posted incorrect information initially, I should have done some more research. It will be updated before the end of the day.
Thank you for keeping the info up to date! Here is our latest upvotes api: https://www.minnowbooster.net/upvotes.json
@reggaemuffin just wanted to let you know that the page has been updated to pull and display the global parameters and also show the details of the last 5 upvotes from the api calls you sent. Please let me know if anything is missing or incorrect and I will update it asap. Thanks again for your support!
Looking perfect, thank you for your tool!
I gave it a 5 SBD tip and a 5 SBD upgoat, and an upvote that should be roughly 10%, probably came out as 12%.
Sadly the upgoat was already doubled, so I got that back.
What is the rational to selfvote this comment?
Here, check out @tipu, it is a really good idea in my opinion. tip! 0.1
Minnowbooster upgoat. I like to keep my voting power over 50% so I use tipping features and minnowbooster to reward users. A healthy mix of everything is best.
Thanks for sharing this strategy, @reggaemuffin. Being a fairly new user here this is a helpful little gem of guidance for me. Cheers!
Hi @newsflash! @reggaemuffin is sending you 0.1 SBD tip and @tipU upvote
:)
From @reggaemuffin : If You Like What I Do, Vote Me For Witness :)@NewsFlash Sorry for replying to this comment, not sure how else to reach you. I beg you to reconsider your downvote. I was merely doing an experiment to show the community that it is possible. I paid $30.77 to make this post possible. As you can read below, many minnows have benefited from this knowledge. I do not wish to make anyone angry. If you must insist on downvoting my post (that I put a lot of money and work into), please explain why.
Well done! Wanted to test it out and saw that buildawhale was profitable - but was already into the last 20 seconds as I entered the page. Send my transfer too late - damn you password entry.. :D
But great tool nevertheless!
Ha yea - the downside is that by making this public is that it will reduce the amount of profitable bidding opportunities, however i'm hoping that in the long run it will help the bots make more money which they will hopefully use to increase their vote values. Ideally that will lead to a win-win for everyone.
Come give us a try :)
Candidate for tool of the year !!!
@yabapmatt where do we register to be listed on steembottracker?
Please contact me on Discord or Steemit.Chat and I can help get your bot listed.
Finally it's here!) I was waiting long for such a thing
This is great. I used bots too, but have no idea how to optimize my return. This is very useful for me. The website is great too. Now I can use these bots more optimally. Following you.
Man, your tool is the coolest thing since upvote bots!
I will make a video with Steemy about it. :)
I would love a Steemy video!
I will be checking out your website, @yabapmatt. If @reggaemuffin says it is incredibly epic I don't want to miss out! Thanks for being so generous, and sharing your work with everyone! You are a rock star! Cheers, and following you now!
Thank you @mitneb! I'm not sure if it really deserves all that praise - especially compared to the amazing work so many others are doing - but nevertheless I appreciate it and it has given me more motivation to continue working on projects to enhance the Steem community!
Well, after taking a look at your website, and reading through all of the comments here, I'm confident that you deserve all the praise and thanks that you have received, @yabapmatt. It's going to be a very useful tool for all of us who are trying to be strategic with our Steemit resources. Cheers!
Hey @yabapmatt, would be nice with an added feature to get notifications with sounds/text X minutes before the vote of a specific bot. Thank you! :)
Yes, totally agree - will plan to add that soon!
Good news, ty! :)
Just added notifications, check out the update post for more information: https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@yabapmatt/steem-bot-tracker-update-notifications
Thanks for the suggestion!
Hope your server can withstand the traffic, given the dearth of tools within steemit itself useful tools such as this could see a real stampede. Know how to build load balancing failover clusters?
The killer 'app' for steemit users would be a dashboard that allows them to see some statistics on the steemit environment as a whole (current tokens value, number of posts/comments/votes in x time, top 5's/10's), some statistics on the own account (# posts/comments/votes in x time, current SP & vote %, account value), and a few widgets to adjust/graph these values, like changing target account from self to other, etc.
Steemians would go mental for that, less requirment to run all over the web looking for info they want in steemit.
Thanks for all your efforts on this and future projects, you're going to prove to be a very valuable community member.
Upvoted, resteemed, and following.
As @reggaemuffin said, it's just a simple web page so I don't have to worry about servers, load balancing, etc - although I am quite familiar with that. The point of failure for my site is the node(s) that the Steem JS APIs connect to going down in which case I wouldn't be able to get any of the blockchain data. I could still always put up a nice error page though.
Out of curiosity, why do you think what you proposed would be the "killer app" for steem users? How do you see that being used?
The examples were just hypothetical and not particularly important, but as steemians know, after logging in, there you are: go for it, and good luck. While using the service you don't have a lot of visibility into the metrics of your or anyone else's account, or content, without simultaneously referring to at least one other service like https://steemdb.com (which is pretty much the dashboard we have), these are just common examples:
If you're a writer with fairly consistent rate of output it would be useful to be able to review an interactive line graph showing articles posted during
<period>where incoming comments and votes and payout could be overlaid; where did that spike come from? Change period to 48hr starting<date>, tick the check box for comments, turns out a recent comment got 147 votes, a couple of them on the larger side. How's my interaction with others looking? Check boxes for outbound votes and comments; I need to spend more time looking at others' work.Basically steemians end up flying blind or using multiple web services, which can make it hard to track output/performance or even peruse the content. Important basic elements of steemit are absent in the web GUI, such as current voting power value shown on the 'ribbon', and a 'previous version' link for edited content.
Just ideas, at any rate. For now steemians have to settle for scrolling down long lists hoping to not miss something while trying to keep a heuristic map in their head, and/or referring to multiple external services.
I probably shouldn't have used the 'killer app' term, I did so glibly, but the term should be reserved for the eventual app that facilitates directly posting from the internet (or wherever) to steemit whatever is currently under the users finger and that may just kill steemit with spam and lawsuits.
Since this is a html/js page on Amazon S3 it will be really hard to overload it 😊
Should we try, as a 'test' ;)
Just kidding.
Hi @yabapmatt, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord
Thanks @shadowspub, appreciate the inclusion in your ramble!
Hello @yabapmatt! Thanks for having used Utopian! I hope you liked it!
Utopian Rewards Open Source Contributors with Steem!
Excellent contribution!! I am going to reward you now as being one of the first contributors of the Utopian platform. You should receive a vote from one or two whales in a few minutes :)
For those interested in learning what Utopian is check this: https://steemit.com/steemit/@elear/utopian-already-rewarding-early-adopters
I really like it! I've been chatting with @codewithcheese recently and saw him use it in his last post so I wanted to get in on the action! Let me know if there's anything I can do to help grow the site. Did you build it on your own?
One thing though - i couldn't figure out how to add more tags to my post. I had to come to SteemIt.com and edit the post to add more tags.
@yabappmatt Utopian was originally built on top of the new Busy.org template but now it's changing substantially. Tags will be possible soon. You did a good job adding them directly from Steem. Just don't delete the github-xxxx for now ;)
@yabapmatt just sent you the whale vote as a BIG THANK YOU for using Utopian. Hope you enjoy :)
I appreciate that very much! I didn't know you could "send whale votes"...
Well it's possible with some investment, but was my pleasure to contribute to the success of this contribution! Keep going with the amazing work ;)
Hey @yabapmatt I think this contribution deserves much more attention than it had, because the big downtime. I wrote an article to bring some more traffic to this post. https://steemit.com/steemdev/@elear/utopian-steemit-down-important-things-you-missed
Love how you say ‘wrote a quick tool’ when you actually mean ‘built an entire website’!!
This is awesome, I hope this post gets some traction!
Cheers
Ha thanks - I guess I see a lot of the much more involved tools and sites that others built and don't see mine as much of an accomplishment, but it's great to hear this and be reminded that it's all relative! Hope this helps you make better use of the voting bots!
Interesting looking at the site now - looks like lots of people tried to jump onto @buildawhale as it was closing and undervalued, but missed the window and got carried over to the next vote - which is not looking so good
Looks like a great tool - very selfless to hand it out for free!
Cheers
Thanks! I'm hoping the followers and upvotes I get from publishing the tool will outweigh the benefits of keeping it for myself.
I generally bid with a minute or two left on the timer to make sure I don't miss the window, still a bit of trial and error there.
Excellent work @yabapmatt! Exactly what was needed!
Thank you for developing bot tracker! I have been using voting bots regularly for some of my posts and it is annoying to go through all the recent transfers in every bot wallet so i do not lose on bidding for votes. Your app will make it lot easier and gain profitable bids.
Bookmarked the webpage, upvoted, followed and resteemed. Thanks a lot!
That's exactly what I was doing at first, glad I wasn't the only one :-)
This app is gonna save lot of time and money! Thanks a lot again!
Great tool I can't wait to try it out. How do it affect the rate of a post if you have all the voting bot vote on the same one as far as Author and Curator? Can you explain to me what Max Profitable bid means. I am thinking that the most I should send to the upvote bot. Am I correct?👽
Hey, not sure I completely understand your question, but the number of bots that vote on your post doesn't affect the split between author and curation rewards.
30 minutes after you post, any upvote rewards will be split 25% curators and 75% author.
Before 30 minutes it's a linear (i think?) scale going from 100% author rewards for an upvote immediately after the post is made and down to 75% at 30 minutes.
So for the max possible payout from bots you want to have them vote as soon after you post as possible. @minnowbooster is great for this since it can be used profitably at any time as long as you're under the limits.
Let me know if that doesn't answer your question!
Yes. Thanks for advising me on this question! I get it now. I was thinking about that before I read about this wonderful post.
I was on your website and for the Bid-Based Voting Bots I came across the column that says' Max Profitable Bid. Is that the suggested amount to bid to get the best possible upvote?
No, not exactly. The way the math works out the lower you bid the higher the return on your investment will be, so for the best possible ROI you should always bid the bot minimum.
The Max Profitable Bid amount is the maximum amount you could bid before the ROI goes negative (taking 25% curation reward into account). So if you bid exactly the Max Profitable Bid then you should get back exactly what you put in (again after the 25% curation reward).
I typically like to bid around half the Max Profitable Bid but it's really up to your preferences.
Thanks for the response and I learned the hard way on the first trip. I will follow your directions this time. I bid max bid and was upset with the results from @booster because I lost around 8 sbd there and some from others also.
Make sure you wait until very close to the next vote time, otherwise more bids will come in after you and you’ll lose out.
The row in the table will turn green when it’s a good opportunity within 10 mins of the next vote.
I am enjoying the Steem Upvote Bot Tracker! This will mark the third time I have used it since finding out about it earlier. Ok Now I think I got it because first I bid max bid and the second time I put my bid in too early.
This is literally the best thing ever!
This looks like a really good tool. Unfortunately I can't seem to get on the website at the moment :
Is it my connection?
It is working for me. Right now it just redirects to here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/yabapmatt/bottracker/bottracker.html so try that and see if it works.
Thanks for the direct address - it works fine on that.
The site does look very useful. I have never used bots so far. Maybe now this helps take the uncertainty out of them I will give them a go.
I still cannot get in to the site on the main address via either Chrome or Firefox.
Features like this are quite a boon for a new user like me.
Thank you so much!
A
Lot's of information! Thank you.
can people upvote this
https://steemit.com/dmania/@tsnaks/stephen-hawking-in-zero-gravity-zg1hbmlh-msu4g
Follow up vote comment
img credz: pixabay.com
Nice, you got a $8.64 @minnowbooster upgoat, thanks to @yabapmatt
Want a boost? Minnowbooster's got your back!
The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @yabapmatt to be original material and upvoted it!
To call @OriginalWorks, simply reply to any post with @originalworks or !originalworks in your message!
To enter this post into the daily RESTEEM contest, upvote this comment! The user with the most upvotes on their @OriginalWorks comment will win!
For more information, Click Here!
Special thanks to @reggaemuffin for being a supporter! Vote him as a witness to help make Steemit a better place!
This post has received a 35.21 % upvote from @buildawhale thanks to: @yabapmatt. Send at least 0.50 SBD to @buildawhale with a post link in the memo field for a portion of the next vote.
To support our curation initiative, please vote on my owner, @themarkymark, as a Steem Witness
BOOM!
This post has received a 4.04 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @yabapmatt.
This wonderful post has received a bellyrub 12.69 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to this cool cat: @yabapmatt. My pops @zeartul is one of your top steemit witness, if you like my bellyrubs please go vote for him, if you love what he is doing vote for this comment as well.
Hi @yabapmatt! @reggaemuffin is sending you 5.0 SBD tip and @tipU upvote
:)
From @reggaemuffin : If You Like What I Do, Vote Me For Witness :)Thanks @reggaemuffin - just voted for you for witness btw!
This post received a 25% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @yabapmatt! To learn more, check out @randowhale 101 - Everything You Need to Know!
I assume @boomerang is yours?
No I am not affiliated with any of the bots in any way
@OriginalWorks
Follow and upvote Hope do same
Thanks @yabapmatt! Following
love this! I will spread it to the 4 winds
Great work on this so far! Would you mind adding @discordia to the list ?
Just added it, thanks! Please let me know if there are any other bots or services I should add as well.
Thankyou, I'm sure @aggroed would appreciate it if you added @lovejuice to the list too :)
This is so nice. 💻 CPU of all the Bots 😃
Great tool @yabapmatt! Thank you for this great contribution to the community! :)
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Followed and upvoted! :)
This is great. I also used to walk, but they have no idea how to improve my profits. This is very useful to me. The location is very good. Now you can use it to walk well. Follow you.
I'm just seeing this and I'm really going to try it out.. quick question tho, how can an author know when his great post is up to the "standards" of steemit users/curators
Hi @joecxt - In my opinion the best posts are ones that add value for people reading it. Posts that teach people something or provide information not readily available elsewhere. Obviously posts about tools or services that you have built or are providing are really great for adding value.
Spend some time reading the top posts on the trending page to see what people really like on here. If you put in the effort to learn and create value for others you will excel on this platform.
but is that what steemit is originally about? IMHO, if people only need to make posts that "add value", then the growth of this platform will be deccelerated and people will see no need to leave their social media platforms and jump on the ssteem bandwagon if they can't post what they like and be rewarded for it.. they'd rather post on other platforms where they have fns and followership and more importantly, friends..
I'm yet to make a new friend on here.. I joined November 2017
I think it's a misconception that this is a social media platform. It's really not. It's not a replacement for Facebook at all and I don't expect people to move from Facebook to Steem.
Steem is built for content publishing and is much more similar to Reddit than Facebook. Sure you can post about whatever you want, and that's great, but you shouldn't expect to get rewarded for that. That's not what Steem is about.
If you provide value for others, then they are more likely to provide value for you by upvoting your posts. This is, in my opinion, what Steem is all about. Many people provide lots of value to others posting on Reddit, YouTube, etc, but for the most part the company reaps those rewards.
On Steem the content creator gets most of the rewards.
I've finally figured it out.. thanks for the clarification and now I can clearly state what Steem is about to people I want to bring on board.. following you..
I've finally figured it out.. thanks for the clarification and now I can clearly state what Steem is about to people I want to bring on board.. following you..
We are looking for Bot Builders
http://shaivitetemple.org/Forum/topic/blockchain-bots-that-benefit-people/
This is just another form of advertising - paying for your content to be visible. Totally defeats the very purpose os Stremit, in my view. I’ve been on this platform for two days and I’m very disappointed to see what it means in practical life.
this is the greatest web I have seen in steemit and it helpful @yabapmatt.
thats why i select you as my witness, I do appreciate your found,,,
This is a really great explanation of this, thank you. I’m new to steemit and know that I’ll need to get some bots soonish to get more attention on my content and this is an outstanding resource/tool for getting going. Followed!
good post. hello steem upvote bot tracker
I completely agree, bots are a great boon to the community. Looking at Reddit as an example there are a ton of helpful bots such as Wikipedia linker, Good Bot Bad Bot bot, etc. I'm hoping Steemit and blockchain will find new and better uses for bots than just advertising and upvotes.
Always keep that in mind.. ;)
thank you so so much for this very informative post
The link you post for steemvot tracker takes you to a scam site. Please fix.