If you are new to Steem you may be trying to figure out how upvoting post and Curation Rewards really work. After all, you want to hire on good content but you also want to maximize what you get paid as a curator. Here are the basics of what you need to know.
The 30 Minute Rule
Once a post is written the first 30 minutes are crucial for curators. When a post is minutes old, your upvote is actually going to give 100% of it's payout to the author. This percentage slowly decreases until the 30 minute mark is hit and at that point upvotes are split 75% to the author and 25% to the curators.
So if you are feeling benevolent and really want to give to can author, vote as early as you can in that first 30 minutes so the authors payout is maximized.
However if you want to maximize your Curation Rewards wait until the 30 minute mark is reached and then upvote the post.
Do I want to be first to vote?
I have heard rumors that the first 5 people to upvote a post actually get a bigger piece of the 25% that gets paid than the other curators. However, I have been unable to prove if this is true or not. If you can confirm this, please comment below so I can add this into the post.
How often can I vote?
Many people new to the platform often think that if I get paid to vote for content, then I should up vote everything I see. Steem is designed so that you have voting power. Each time you vote you will consume 2% of your voting power. So if you are at 100% voting power and you use up 10 votes you will only have 80% of you voting power left.
I recommend you try not to do more than 10 votes a day as you can only regain 20% of your voting power every 24 hours. And the higher your voting power then more your upvote is worth. If you reach 0% voting power, your votes will have no effect on the post payout.
If you found this guide to be helpful please let me know. If you found anything that needs to be edited or revised please let me know so I can make this guide better.