Most people who use steem have wondered if there are any benefits to Promoting a post, and to what extent those benefits will be. I will outline my own personal experience over the past several months to help you get a better idea for how Promoting works, and what benefits it has, as well as the negatives associated.

Getting more eyes on your post

Paying for promotion seems like a really easy way to get more people to see your post, and it can be, but do not fool yourself, it can cost a lot of SBD to get your post high enough in the list to make it matter.

The hidden details of Promoting Posts

The first step when determining if you are going to promote a post is to first check the Promoted section with the category you are posting in. For example this post is in the "#steemit" category. You can easily take a look here at all the posts currently being promoted with the #steemit category.

The first thing to notice is the promotional cost. Look through the top 5 posts and determine how much they paid to promote their post. Remember, promoted lists by how much was paid for promotion, if you want to be in the first 5 posts you will need to pay more than the 5th lowest post paid for promotion.

For example, currently as of writing this post, the top post on #steemit under promoted paid 33 SBD **:

Going down to the 5th highest post we see they paid 15 SBD for promotion **:

What this means is to get in the top 5 you would need to pay more than 15 SBD for promotion in the #steemit category, and more than 34 SBD to get to the #1 spot.

I was in the top but now others paid more for promotions, what do I do?

You have 2 choices, if you NEED to be at the top you can always pay to promote more and "out bid" them for the top spots. Remember though it is best to promote a post within the first hours of creating the post to maximize the time potential for earning to offset the cost paid for promotion!

Does promoting actually earn me more? Do I break even?

This is a great question, and I find personally that organically you tend to earn much more than trying to promote your post. There are a few exceptions and even times where the cost is justified (say selling a product) where you indirectly are earning back your promotional costs (think an e-commerce business).

Over all, if you do not have the SBD required to get in the top 5, you are literally throwing your SBD away! I have found unless you are willing to bid for the top spot, you have almost 0 chance of earning back even what you spent on the promotion versus what you would have earned organically anyways!

I hope this helps a few people, remember this is a guideline and my own personal experience!

** You can easily see how much was paid to promote a post by simply clicking on the earning amount directly next to the up vote button.