In a respectful manner, I will attempt to offer up a small challenge to the whales of steemit.

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For the record, I am not entitled to anything, and I do not envy your position. The job of a whale is demanding and full of a lot of unnecessary hassles, or at least that’s my view based upon what I’ve seen in my months here.

I offer this up as just some food for thought, and thank you all for your time.

In a recent post from @berniesanders about promoted posts he mentioned:

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After taking some advice from @smooth, I will be regularly voting on promoted posts moving forward and promoting posts I find worthwhile.

Burn those SBD!

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In his reply to that post, @smooth wrote:

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Bravo berniesanders!

There is value in how the promoted feature burns some SBD of course, but I also find that the Promoted page is a good way to find quality posts (that doesn't mean I agree with all of them especially some of the conspiracy theory posts, but they are at least posts that people some real put effort into writing, decent photography, etc.). Most people won't spend money to promote junk posts, so it serves as a decent filter for removing a lot of the spammy garbage that you have to wade through on New, etc.

If more people were aware of this aspect of it, the page would have more visibility and spending money on promotion would make even more sense.

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From my perspective, I have a few thoughts.

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• Many of us work our tails off every day attempting to create great content, but far fewer use the promotion option. Until I saw the previously mentioned post from @berniesanders, I hadn’t really used it.

• From the author’s point of view, we generally promote posts that we want to get more visibility whether it’s just to try to get a greater payout from a post or to raise community awareness about a specific topic or opportunity. As @smooth said, “Most people won't spend money to promote junk posts,” so it’s a great way for whales to check out some solid posts they may not normally see without having to sort through a lot of garbage.

• Sending SBD to null certainly has a benefit as well.

• Without whale votes, most posts will not get much attention. The higher the payout, the greater the visibility.

For these reasons, I challenge the whales and all steemians to at least attempt to check out the promoted page on a regular basis.

It’s a great way to support others who are really investing in steemit.

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Without having promoted posts get votes and payouts, no one will use that feature, but, as @smooth already said, “If more people were aware of this aspect of it, the page would have more visibility and spending money on promotion would make even more sense.”

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I know that some may see encouraging whales to upvote promoted posts as an attempt to turn the promoted feature into a form of vote-buying, but the personal preference of the whales still comes into play, and just like with posting, it’ll always be a gamble of time and effort, and even SBD.

For the "non-whales" out there:

What are your thoughts on promoting posts?

Are you more likely to promote posts after reading what @berniesanders posted?

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Thanks everyone, and full steem ahead!

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FOLLOW

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