Often enough I have wondered about what the best way to show support for the many people and projects that are here on Steemit.
There are numerous ways to do this, from upvoting, resteeming, commenting, donating, using bots to give a nice boost to an upvote all the way to delegating Steem Power.
Personally, I feel that delegating Steem Power is one of the best ways to support those projects out there that support the community. I'm not talking about the bot selling services, what I am talking about are projects that support users with uniform all round upvotes, giving a heck of a lot of encouragement to people here.
Many of these projects and incentives are a part of The Minnow Support Project (MSP) which as the name suggests are here to help Minnows out in general but are not necessarily limited just to minnows as many of them can help out anyone who isn't yet a Whale. So that means that 99% of us can get supported by these great services provided by people who have the good will, enthusiasm and energy to invest their time for us.
Personally I have delegated over 1000 SP to minnow support projects and love the support that they give to all of us!
So, my recommendation is to delegate to the MSP Projects, you can pick and choose which ones, there are no "rules or regulations" as to which ones you can and can't support, there is no order of precedence, we all have the freedom of choice and expression as far as what we do with our SP.
Why would anyone want to delegate SP along the path from a minnow to a whale?
Well it really is as simple as making Steemit a better place for everyone. As with the real life situations in which we as communities all pitch in where we feel that we can make a real difference same applies to this online community.
Putting aside a some SP and "loaning" it without actually giving it away is an excellent way to pitch in and make a real difference.
Numbers add up, really quickly!
With the number of users here if everyone pitched in just a bit it adds up to a lot and it gets shared right back to the community, to all of us.
How, well, even if lets say one of us do not have any direct benefit from that particular service that we are delegating to, the ecosystem here is like a circle. It goes around and as we all know the good old saying, "what goes around, comes around" the benefits others have from it sooner or later reflect upon the upvotes that we get from other Steemians.
Which leads me to the one on one support.
We all know that resteeming is a fantastic way to get a post seen by those who follow us.
Don't need to go into that topic.
However, what I find to be one of the best feelings out there is the number of upvotes received. Not necessarily the value of the upvotes, but the actual number of people who upvoted a post. That goes hand in hand with the number of people who opened the post (and read it).
So, even the smallest of upvotes, no matter what their $ value may be really does make a real difference to peoples morale here.
Using upvotes to support people and likewise the projects out there is one of the best ways to show your support and willingness to participate.
We all know all too well that we can't be on here 24/7 and that there are way too many posts that we wish to upvote, likewise there are numerous services such as the MSP projects and if we all upvoted everything that our voting power would drop to zero! But there is no better feeling than seeing the number of upvotes rise on your post! Admit it! Likewise when we upvote others the same thing happens!
As for upvoting projects out there, yes, this is a fantastic way to pitch in and show your support.
Don't think that your vote doesn't mean much, it makes a world of difference.
As for the upvote bots out there, yeah sure use them, if you wish to, they are there to be used and made the most of.
When you feel that you wish to go the extra mile in supporting someone then don't hesitate, chances are that you shall definitely feel good about the fact that you turned your SBD or Steem into a lot more SBD or Steem for someone who deserves it. So even if your vote is in the cents you can still leave your mark on those posts and for those projects out there with your cents. It really does make a big difference!
This post is me expressing my opinions that are based on my personal experiences here on Steemit.
I can understand that some may see things differently, sure, that is fine by me, but it doesn't hurt to read and understand how and why others see things the way they do.
Doesn't make anyone right or wrong, all it means is that we can understand each other better afterwards!
Maybe it helps to better understand things when someone just shares their thoughts here, rather than making a "sales pitch". No free set of steak knives with this post!
I hope that I wasn't too boring with this post, but have been thinking about all this the past few days and figured that I better share these thoughts here while they are still all bouncing around in my head.
Thanks for reading.
Yours truly
Jack