Introduction

This is the second post in a five part series in which I'll be talking about how I 'Steemit'. The topics are as follows:

1. Voting/Curation (Yesterdays post, updated with a section on Comment voting and Bot trailing via Wallets)

2. Steem Power Delegation (This post)

3. Posting

4. Interaction

5. Bid-bots

The goal is to be open about what I'm doing here and perhaps provide some hints to help other users. I'm also hoping there will be some feedback from you guys, containing tips, tricks, and advice to aid the Steemit journey - How do you Steemit?

_{Courtesy of pixabay.com}

Steem Power Delegation

Since Hard Fork 18, it has been possible to delegate, or 'lease' Steem Power, to other Steemit accounts. And indeed, last month we saw the Steemit CEO @ned, delegate a whopping 3.5 MILLION Steem Power to 7 users. More on that post here (right click and open in new tab) if you wish.

_{CEO leads the way with delegation}

Why delegate?

Delegating Steem Power can be useful for a number of reasons:

You may be taking a holiday and wish for your voting power to be used wisely
You may want to raise your profile in the community
You can lease this SP out and take interest payments on it's return
You can take an agreed sum for the hire of this SP for a fixed amount of time
You can 'invest' in a Bid-bot that makes regular payments in SP to you during the time of the lease
You may want to invest in a community style account which is able to rewards followers of this community directly

A few recent examples of large delegators/delegations include @ned, @neoxian, @demotruk, and @aggroed.

These delegations vary from supporting community growth in largly un-tapped markets ( @ned ), powering up Bid-bots so they can give more/bigger payouts ( @neoxian ) for interest on the Bid-bot income, loaning of SP to individuals for a fixed sum ( @demotruk ), and support of community projects like @minnowsupport ( @aggroed ).

Neoxian Steem Power

_{Shark? More like minnow!}

My delegated Steem Power status

Here you are, warts and all. A screenshot from Vessel ( a desktop client built by @jesta ):

_{Courtesy of Vessel}

Allow me to explain who these accounts are, and why I have delegated SP to them.

@boomerang, @minnowbooster, @minnowhelper - These are Bid-bots in which I have a small investment in, to the total of 100 Steem Power. They pay a small amount of interest to me each day:

_{wallet transfers}

I also use these bots for my blogs (and sometimes other users blogs) and so delegating SP for a daily interest rate, as well as receiving a larger vote from the Bid-bot is like a double win.

@lovejuice, @msp-lovebot, @muxxybot - These accounts are also Bid-bots, but i want to keep them separate from the above because they don't send daily interest. These are bots tied to the minnow support project, and so I feel like I am supporting minnows by delegating SP here.

@minnowsupport - Not a Bid-bot, but the main minnow support project. This account is used to support minnows up-voting ($upvote) their post in the MSP discord chat, to raise awareness of the project, and to resteem worthy minnow posts.

Within Discord chat, you can see an additional benefit of supporting these accounts. My username is listed in a particular group of users, which gives me a little more visibility - any publicity is good publicity as they say!

_{Image from Discord web client on PC}

The final delegatee on my list is my girlfriend @osm0sis and she has 500 of my Steem Power. This enables the slider in the steemit.com interface, and hopefully will give her more visibility when voting on the content she likes, which is mainly in the travel and photography tags at present.

So in summary, there are a few reasons for delegating SP. Cash and Profile being the main two, and pure kindness being another. :)

Why receive delegated Steem Power?

More Voting Power! Is the number one reason for taking on additional SP. The account with this boost in SP will be able to give a larger vote of confidence on any piece of work they curate. The account could be:

a Bid-bot
a Community style account wishing to reward contributors in this particular niche
a 2nd/3rd/4th/5th user account to upvote your own work with stealth - BOOO and HISSS.

The other main reason for renting Steem Power is to boost a personal profile by giving greater rewards out to followers. A recent example of this would be @stackin , who leased SP and was able to blog about it along with other motivational work, and reward his followers more. Win, Win.

Renting Steem Power is much cheaper than buying it outright, except it's not yours to keep of course. At current prices, 1000 Steem Power would cost around $1200.

Two weeks ago I borrowed 1000 SP for a month, at a cost of 10 Steem. This has worked out well for me for a few reasons.

I've received more than the amount I paid via up-votes to my posts from my 'banker' ( @demotruk )
I've received more than the amount I paid via up-votes to my posts from my 'banker'!!!
I could lease 500 SP to my girlfriend without feeling the pinch
I can lease 200 SP out to other bots/community accounts without feeling the pinch
My profile and voting power has increased

How to delegate Steem Power

A short note on what I feel is the best way to delegate Steem Power and keep track of your delegations. The way to go is Vessel, the desktop application by @jesta. Delegation is just a small part of the application, but I find this the easiest tool to use. These excellent blog guides by @jesta cover all you need to get started.

Don't forget to come back and comment/vote after you get engrossed in these guides and Vessel!

Introduction to Vessel (hold 'ctrl' and click to open in new tab)
Delegation feature addition

Other points to note regarding delegation

If you wish to cancel delegated SP, the delegation is canceled immediately, but it'll be 7 days before you can use the SP to vote again
YOUR COMMENT HERE?

How do you Steemit? Part 2: Delegation - Steem Power