Lotus Tips: Why - And How To - Delegate

This is part of a series Natural Medicine is publishing to support new users. They will all be available on the 'Welcome' Page of www.naturalmedicine.io to help new users find their way around. Whilst there are plenty of other places that might offer this advice, and do it very well, we felt it important to gather it all in the one location for Lotus users in particularly, although this information may help anyone from any tribe!

Previous Posts:

How to Power Up or Stake
Formatting Tips
Promote Your Posts on Natural Medicine.Io
Standards for Content

What is Delegation?

'What is delegation, and how do I do it, and how much?' is probably one of the questions we get asked the most when newbies approach us for support. First of all, if you are a new user, hopefully someone will delegate to YOU! Delegation is a loan, and raises your Steem Power. This means that you have more ability to make your vote count, to earn more curation rewards. New users nearly always get a little bump from older users as a way of helping out. Steemians are cool like that.

You can't power down this delegation, or give it to someone else - it's just a loan. And it can be taken back at any time, although it does take 7 days to undelegate.

This also makes them lose a little bit of Steempower. Most people with larger accounts don't care so much about that. They just want you to be sucessful and stick around. But it's a big problem for small users, so if that's you, don't delegate until you're around 500 SP unless:

• you aren't always around to curate, and would rather your vote was used for something you care about
• you really feel passionate about supporting a community that's supported you.

Why Delegate to Natural Medicine?

If you're an advocate of natural health and healing, your delegation helps support a like minded community. Your vote goes to helping other people get upvoted, as well as yourself for good #naturalmedicine content. It also helps us raise the funds (through curation) that we need to:

• continue supporting a team of people curating and doing other jobs for the tribe
• continue our curation efforts
• help build www.naturalmedicine.io
• help onboarder new users
• help create a better and bigger #newsteem to potentially raise steem price
• support autovoting of good content curators
• gives you an automatic upvote on a daily post if you are delegating over 250SP.
• we follow you and upvote all the good #naturalmedicine content you write.

How Much Should I Delegate?

If you're a new user (under 150 SP) you'll gain free entry to the Natural Medicine server anyway - you just have to tell us that so we can let you in, so you can access post promotion and our support. Many people choose 100 as a good amount that makes a real difference, smaller users might only delegate 10SP. Some donate 250 SP or more - those users, once whitelisted, gain a daily upvote for every post they write, even if it's not natural medicine related.

How do I delegate?

There's a few ways to do it (there's always more than one way to do anything on Steemit - it's part of the fun!).

I like delegating by using Steempeak. If you're not on Steempeak yet, it's simply another interface for the Steem blockchain and you can log in using your usual keys. You'll see the delegation tool in your wallet. Click on that, and write the user name of the account which you want to delegate to in the box that says 'delegatee' - if you're delegating to @naturalmedicine, you'll write naturalmedicine here.

The second way to do it is on www.steemy.com. Can you see the highlighted drop down list below?

There's all sorts of funky tools there. You can see who delegates to you, and who you delegate to. I like to use it as sometimes I forget who I've delegated to, or how much, and this is important because because when you want to increase, or decrease, your delegation, you MUST PUT IN THE EXACT NUMBER YOU WANT TO DELEGATE. So if it's 100 total, write 100. If you don't want to delegate anymore, you must write 0. And if you want to increase it to 110, or 1000, you must write 110 or 1000. Many people increase their upvote incrementally - sometimes by 10SP a week, sometimes by more.

A Big Thank you to Our Delegators for Your Ongoing Support

1000+ SP: Fungi Delegators

@immarojas @realself @riverflows @tribestemup @walkerland @pennsif

500 - 699 SP: Lavender Delegators

@bewithbreath @missdeli @porters @vincentnijman

300 - 499 SP: Clover Delegators

@alchemage @artemislives @enjoyinglife @hopehuggs @metametheus @nainaztengra @nateonsteemit @phillyc @richardcrill

200 - 299 SP: Yarrow Delegators

@amico @anttn @bearone @cmplxty @digitaldan @holisticmom @mountainjewel @solominer @trucklife-family @zen-art @quochuy @wildhomesteading

100 - 199 SP: Dandelion Delegators

@anggreklestari @barge @dazedconfused11 @eftnow @madushanka @minismallholding @quochuy @sagescrub @senorcoconut @thelaundrylady @tibfox @viking-ventures @yangyanje @crescendoofpeace

0 - 99 SP: Mint Delegators

@allyinspirit @amymya @bala41288 @belleamie @bengiles @bifilarcoil @binkyprod @brutledge @cambridgeport90 @canna-curate @careassaktart @claudiaz @consciousangel7 @crosheille @desertrat @frejafri @hafizullah @inuke @julianhorack @kimmysomelove42 @ligayagardener @lizelle @mayb @nashilda17
@NATY16 @ofsedgeandsalt @organicgardener @owasco @plantstoplanks @raj808 @rebeccabe @rem-steem @riveradc @samstonehill @senattor @simplymike @skramatters @sn0n @squishysquid @thereikiforest @thetreeoflife @thistle-rock @torico @tryskele @vibesforlife @wildlocusthoney @xwalkran @yestermorrow @your-poet @tixinhacapitinha @a1-shroom-spores

Do check if you're on the list - sometimes we miss one or two, though we try hard not to!

Oh, and if you're wondering what tags to curate? Our curators look at most of these tags and much more! Check out www.naturalmedicine.io for a full list of supported tags.

naturalmedicine	health	healing	yoga
spirituality	herbalism	homesteading	innerblocks
vegan	meditation	wellness	cbd
qi gong	keto	tai chi	herbs

Thinking about writing a #naturalmedicine post this week? We have upvotes to burn and will resteem the best of you to nearly 1,000 followers! Go you! We're also resteeming on our @uplotus account, so go give that a follow too! That's the one where you'll see the LOTUS rewards.

All the curation and author rewards in LOTUS for this post will be burnt to help the ecosystem.

We need YOU! Please consider delegating to help keep this collective going. The minimum entry for membership is 20SP (free for members under 150SP), and helps give YOU upvotes, contests, meditation sessions, an awesome discord support group, and so much more!

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