Being a minnow here on Steemit is not easy; especially during the frustrating times after the Hard Fork 19 which also lead to scarcity of upvotes and an unwanted trend of self voting.

But, there is still hope. Do not despair. There still is a lot to cherish and look forward to when it comes to being a minnow on Steemit. There are some amazing platforms being run by people who genuinely care about problems of the largest part of this community; the minnows!

Note: - Images are made using Canva or screenshots and all gifs are linked from Giphy.

I am listing 5 of these amazing platforms which you can be part of or use to increase your Steemit payouts. Your posts certainly deserve better than they get. These platforms will help you get a few extra bucks on each post.

1. Minnow Support Project

I am listing this one at the top because I have been using it for some time now. The other reason is that this project does not demand significant investment from minnows.

The Minnow Support Project (MSP) is brainchild of @aggroed who is a concerned Steem blockchain witness and supports minnows actively. You can find useful posts related to MSP on @minnowsupport account.

How to Join?

My fellow Steemian @diverse-thinker put up a guide on how to join Minnow Support Project. Here's the link to the guide which is how I joined too. You can ask questions on his post if you have any. You will need to send only 0.001 Steem and 0.001 SBD for registeration.

Benefits of Joining

Once a registered member, you can submit your posts for being upvoted.

MSP bots @minnowsupport and @banjo and also the members who joined before you will upvote your post.
Your post will get dozens of upvotes. I have normally seen 40-60 upvotes per post.
Your post rewards will be improve 1-2 or even more Steem Dollars for free. You do not have to give anything to get these votes.

Seeing these dollars on your posts will be pretty nice. Do try it!

2. Randowhale

If you haven't heard about @randowhale , where have you been? Randowhale gives a random vote to anyone who submits his post to it. However, there are some conditions which you should keep in mind.

How to Use?

The process is very simple.

Send 2 Steem or SBD to @randowhale. Use the link of your post you want to get upvoted as memo.
Submit.
Your post will get a random upvote of 1-5 % power from Randowhale and a comment on your post confirming the vote and its percentage.

Here's a visual guide to make thinks really simple. I have used it and I think it can be a profitable overall if you use it well.

Send randowhale 2 Steem or SBD.

Get the vote and confirmation.

The detailed guidelines and best tips on using randwhale are given in this post. You should read it.

3. Booster

I came to know about from an off topic comment by @sircork. I searched it and found it interesting. And of course I used it immediately to test it. You can say that @booster is similar to @randowhale except that: -

It does not demand a fixed amount of 2 Steem or Steem Dollars.
You can send any amount of Steem Dollars (NOT Steem). The vote will be corresponding to the amount.
It does not upvote immediately but after every 2.4 hours (when its voting power is at peak).

Further details are availabe in @booster 's post. Do read it! Minnow Booster is still in beta and developing. I have used it. It gave me 0.5 % vote for 0.5 SBD. So, it does work.

4. Minnow Booster

Minnow Booster yet again is somewhat similar to both @randowhale and @booster but it goes one step ahead. While still in beta, it not only upvotes but also leases Steem Power for one week. Here's an excerpt from its own post.

The @minnowbooster bot project is the "Swiss Army Knife" for minnows, which can do a multitude of things. It is a vote bot similar to @randowhale, except with a predicible upvote return in proportion to your spending.

How to Use?

Using Minnow Booster for upvotes is similar to @booster and @randowhale . However, you can send any amount, as least 0.001 SBD. Here's how you will be voted.

At 100% voting power the bot will give your nominated URL an upvote worth 5 times what you paid in, with the received vote value decreasing proportionately as VP decreases, ie 80% VP yields 4 times and 60% VP 3 times, right down to breakeven at 20% VP and a loss if you pay in when the bot has less than 20% VP.

I will surely use this service when it has higher Steem Power but it does look interesting and viable because you can get 5 percent vote for 1 SBD. The most interesting part is the SP Leasing service. Here's how it works.

To lease Delegated SP, just send STEEM (at least 1 STEEM) to @minnowbooster and get 65 times the amount in delegated SP for one week. ]

The information above is just a little introduction. For complete details, visit this post.

5. The BlueOrgy Upvote & Resteem Initiative

This was announced by @blueorgy last week and it is already on! @blueorgy is on a mission to find great content, upvote it and also resteem it! What a generous human being! That is why I love Steemit!

How to Avail?

Here's what @blueorgy says about it.

Oh! And if you ever find a good worthy post and want to share it with me just shoot me a message on steemit.chat or reply to one of my comments.

Update

@blueorgy was very kind to support this very post and you can see it in the comments! Here's a screenshot for you.

The comment by @blueorgy

The @randowhale comment

You would like to read this post from @blueorgy as well. I am surely going to submit this post as the first test case.

This gif image is for you @blueorgy ! Thank you!

Conclusion - The Hopes are Alive

The hope is alive and there's so much more I have to share. This post was specifically for letting people know about the amazing community and minnow support projects and bots available for you to use.

The information contained in this post can benefit thousands of minnows get some considerable rewards from their posts. Please help this post reach all the minnows by resteeming generously!