Hello everyone,

Greetings to all from the far corners of the globe. It is time for another edition of the easy living series!

easy living steemit.jpg

Special greetings to all those in Africa, Nigeria especially.It is such an honour to be a member of this community. The growth we have experienced has been exponential and I wouldn't be surprised if the number of users currently in steemit from Nigeria hasn’t quadrupled over the last 6 months.

With that said, lets dive into the guide for the day, we talking about trails.

Just what are trails

Many newcomers may not be aware, or may not fully understand what trails are, heck, if you registered from around august, I doubt you’ll understand the concept of trailing and its potentials because little had been said about it since then.

The short definition is that trails allow you to follow another user's vote with your own account. This means that whatever they vote on, you'll vote on it as well.

There are currently 2 sites which offer trail services that I know about, one is the powerful but glitchy trail service available at streemian.com created by Hive account@xeroc and the other is the relatively new trail service available at steemauto.com, created by Hive account@mahdiyari

I usually use an illustration to demonstrate what trails are since it can be confusing, so lets go.

Suppose I go to streemian.com and create a trail for my account, Hive account@destinysaid.
4 individuals(Hive account@example1 Hive account@example2 Hive account@example3 Hive account@example4) then decide to follow my trail
This means that if I vote on any post, my account, plus these four accounts above, will vote on the said post.

Voting weight and timing

In both sites that offer trail services, the follower is given the opportunity to select the voting percent he/she wishes to give the trailer, and the time in-which the vote should come in.

So lets say Hive account@example 1 gives my account a 30% voting weight and a time of 3min. This means that whenever Hive account@destinysaid votes on a post, Hive account@example1 vote will not come in on that post till after 3mins has elapsed, and when it does come in, it would only give a 30% vote.

The beauty of the above setup is that maximum curation reward can be gotten if an individual sets it up right, as well as preserving the voting power of an individual.

When it comes to what trails are, the above gives the definition through and through;

However,

trails can quickly get deep and messy

The ethics behind using trails do matter. See, since your vote as a trailer means you get to use peoples vote as well, you have a certain responsibility to your actions. For example, you could easily wipe out the voting power of your followers if the trail is not set up properly.

Self voting is also something that could drain the VP of everyone in your trail quickly(I very rarely do self upvote).

It is usually left for the follower of the trail to look at the voting pattern of the trailer and see how best to set up their accounts.

For example ,a follower, following a trailer who votes a lot,close to 200 posts a day at 30-45% each(which is what we nigerian curators do most times now) should set up his account such that the votes come in after a set amount of time, and at a voting weight that would be convenient for him/her(probably around 30%-25%).

All in all, the ball is in your court, and you are free to set up your account on a trail, however you like.

Multiple trails can also be followed, it all depends on if you have the VP to spare, and your goals. Most times, people follow trails for the curation reward, and while this is ok, there is a far better reason to follow trails.

I believe that trails should be followed not just for the reward, but because you want to support those whom your votes would be going to. Most times, trails are created for specific purposes which you can mostly see in the description when you want to join the trail.

There are multiple trails available both on streemian and on steemauto. Browse through the collection and figure out what would be best for you to join.

As a newcomer then, I was following multiple trails that helped minnows. I have had to leave all the trails I was following in order to do manual curation and reviewing of posts.

Join a trail today!

There are multiple reasons to join a trail, my favorite of which is helping one another grow. But if that is not your style, another reason to join a trail would be for the curation reward.

Curation reward from voting through a trail does not come big at the first instance, but it is more of a long term commitment. After several months, you could see your SP increase by any number of factors.
(just like Hive account@acidyo made 500SP through trail voting in 6 months)

Another reason to join a trail is that even if you abandon your account for any reason, be it job, health or whatever, you can still be active on the blockchain. You can still earn rewards , and your account as well as SP can still grow!

Join a trail and support fellow Africans, as well as earn curation rewards!

a short video I made exploring steemauto

That said, I currently run 2 trails. One for my main account which I use in voting mostly Nigerian posts(along with a few Africans) and the other Hive account@afrovoter, which I use in conjunction with a team for voting African related posts.

you can see the number of followers on each of the accounts through the video*
I Currently use steemauto and I must say, it is very easy to get into.

So to become a trailer there, or to follow the Hive account@afrovoter trail, please follow the following steps:

Go to steemauto.com
Go to login/register and fill out the form. You would be required to send 0.001sbd to Hive account@steemauto using a randomly generated memo, this is so they can verify that the account is yours.
After that, go back to steemauto.com and click register again . It will show successful.
After that, you are free to log in. Please note that a recaptcha verification is required.
Once logged in,click the curation trail button, and you should be taken to steemconnect to approve your using of the site. Simply follow the instructions there by putting in your username and password.
Once done, you can now scroll down and you should see the trail afrovoter. Simply click follow, scroll up to settings, edit the voting weight and time you wish to give to us, and bam, you're now a contributor with your VP to the African community.

The above steps can also be followed for any other trail.

All in all, trails are wonderful ways of spreading out votes to quality posts.

Easy living is a continuous and ongoing series that has been dropping useful hints and tips on living life easily, through experiences of my own as well as other individuals who decide to share.