With STEEM just completing its HardFork , we are now sitting at version 0.22 of the STEEM blockchain. With this update there was a significant change in the rewards and in this post I would like to address how you can maximize your curation rewards.
Curation Rewards ?
Curation rewards are rewards you receive when you vote on a post. To simplify this explanation, when you vote on a post and your vote commands a $0.50 vote value. The author will get 50% of the upvoted value and ideally, you would receive about $0.25 back in curation rewards.
This is subject to change as there are other factors which would increase or decrease your curation rewards. For example, if you vote before 5 minutes just as the post is created, you may not get the curation rewards as thats how it's designed. If you vote after the 5 mins point and there are others who voted after you have placed your votes, you may receive higher curation rewards.
The earlier you vote, the better chance of getting a higher curation reward.
Here is a link to understand curation rewards better
https://www.steem.center/index.php?title=Curation#Curation_Rewards
Maximizing Curation
This is my recommendation on maximizing your curation rewards. An effective method which makes sure you do not waste your potential rewards by keeping it idle.
Using STEEMAuto
Login to SteemAuto.com using your steem account and once you are in click on CURATION TRAILS. You will then see a list of curation trails which you can follow
IMPORTANT ! NOTE
There are a few settings which you MUST do else it would run your voting power dry extremely fast. In the curation settings you have to enable it and make sure you put in the % weight. Default is at 50% , my recommendations are about 50% or lower and scale voting weight. You leave the rest as its default.
What happens here is that whenever the account votes, it would then trigger your account to vote as well. If you have selected scale voting weight it would vote based on the %.
For example if 
The other setting you must do is head over to DASHBOARD under settings. Edit the Limit on Mana and set it to around 85% which is my recommendation.
This setting is crucial as you do not want to overuse your vote and leave you nothing to manually vote when you have the time.
Once you have set this up, you will then see your account automatically voting up Steemians thru curation of others.
I do recommend that you follow
VOTE SELLING
Vote Selling may still by a hype at this point of time, however as time goes by, I would guess that there would be less people using this vote-selling as like bid bots , to reach ROI for someone who wants to buy a vote may costs them a lot more. However selling your votes is surely another way you can maximize on your curation as you as the seller gets both curation rewards and also payment for your votes.
I shall not go too much into the details as I've done a more comprehensive post on this previously. Here is the link
https://steemit.com/teammalaysia/@bitrocker2020/vote-selling-or-how-i-helped-my-friend-earned-steem
I do hope that this would help you maximize your curation rewards as from yesterday, i've seen my curation rewards almost double up just by using these methods.
The best part is that its fully automated once you get it setup and you do not leave your STEEM Power idle which is a real waste.
Have a brilliant day ahead !
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://steemitup.club/maximize-your-curation-rewards-and-earn-more-steem/