Steemit 101 for Minnows: The Minnow To Whale Strategy

So in the wake of the notorious HF19, things are really shaken up. I woke up this morning with a little extra time before to work to get caught up on steem with a cup of coffee, because let's face it, this platform is pretty addicting! So I checked the feed and read a new post from a newfound friend who normally has some good, wise thoughts (shoutout @sflaherty). As usual, I sent him an upvote because I liked what he was saying. To my greatest surprise, my upvote sent his fresh post from $0.76 to $2.16! Whoa... I'm only a minnow with 26 followers, and more than 99% of my SP is delegated from admin. But my upvote has $1.40 worth of power?? Crazy. Afterward, I wanted to give all my friends upvotes! The power started fading quickly though, and that's when the effects of HF19 started to get a little more clear.

Obviously, voting is now very different than how it used to be. Please correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm still relatively new here and would hate to be learning things incorrectly.

From what I've read, you now have voting power that depletes with a linear relation to the rate at which you upvote. The fully charged, 100% vote is worth 4x what it would have been prior to HF19, and it decreases the more you vote. The rate at which it decreases is related to how much steempower you have. So this gives an advantage to casual users that vote less than 10 times per day. Steem junkies like myself, however, we have a little bit of an obstacle now. Prior to HF19, I loved upvoting EVERYTHING. I mean, why not? I like sharing the love. I want everyone to feel noticed here on steemit!

So a new formula for the voting rules are going to require me to change my strategy. After all, "it's calculated." My goal is to bulk up to more than a minnow, so here's my new strategy for my steemy future.

-Comments
----- Based on what I've read about the implications of HF19, there's nothing that limits how many comments I can write. Assuming that's the case, I'm gonna comment on everything I can. If you've got a post that has something good in it, I'll respond to it. It's the best way to put my name out there. I follow a couple whales, so if I'm online at the right time when they make a fresh post, I'll try to land the first comment. But I won't post something simple like "Great post!" or something like that. I'm gonna take the time to, at the very least, skim the article (time is of the essence for first comment) so that I can make an intellectual comment that might get their attention. Best case scenario, an upvote from a whale carries weight, which translates eventually to steempower.

-Followers:
----- I don't know of any magic ways to get followers, except by being a friendly person. I try to welcome new steemians with comments on new posts in the introduceyourself category. One thing that I try to keep in mind is that (most) of these accounts are REAL PEOLPE. People like to feel welcomed. I was amazed to see TWENTY FOUR welcoming comments on my introduceyourself post a couple days ago. I had like two followers at that point, my mom and my dog. Also, if you want someone to follow you, ASK! You can ask in a comment string or something. There's really not a reason to say "no." Remember the thing about them being regular people just like you and me?

-Posts:
----- I feel like it's a good idea to find a general trend of things to post about. The last blog I kept up with was on WordPress, and I only did it because I was graded on it by my ENGL1102 professor. I'm still in the process of finding my rhythm for topics. Regardless of the topic, I've always been one to want to write something that I'd enjoy reading, mainly because I have picky taste. Also, and likely more importantly, I try to write stuff that people will find important! I really enjoyed an "Investing 101" post by @patcher on the basics of buying and selling cryptocurrency. I'm new to this, so everything I read was helpful.

-Upvotes:
----- Alright, I saved the voting part of my strategy for last because it's the most affected part after HF19. Previously, I was basically the Oprah Winfrey of upvotes. "You get an upvote! You get an upvote! You get an upvote!" But that's not the case anymore. Since my first vote of the day carries the most weight, I'm gonna have to be a little more particular as to where it goes. I'd much rather boost a smaller guy's post from $3.50 to $7.50 than a whale's post from $1,839 to $1,843. It would make more of an impact to up someone by 400% rather than 0.4%, ya know? That being said, I'm also gonna send my full-power upvote to someone who's thinking in the same direction I am. But that's just the nature of the upvote.

That's about all I can think of for the moment. It helps me to have my thoughts written down, because otherwise I'd forget. I hope this is something helpful for all the minnows flourishing in the wake of HF19, too! If you're reading this and thinking I suck at strategizing, by all means! Please drop me a comment on what you'd do! Everything's more efficient when you have someone to bounce thought off of. As of now, I don't have a lot of followers, so please do me a favor and resteem! I want nothing but to help the minnows out there, so you can help too with a resteem!

Also I'll trade you a follow for a follow. Follow me @dunkey

Cheers!
Ryan