I believe in this community, and I understand the importance of SteemPower, upvoting, and followers. Just like any business, you have to spread the word to profit. I created my first ad that was over a minute long and it did ok, but didn't do as well as I wanted. I found that because I didn't mention my personal link in the first 10 seconds, many people clicked to Steemit.com before even knowing who I was or how to find me again. When I made my 2nd video, I kept it to 30 seconds and showed my link early and again at the end. My video went from being watched 30% of the time to 92% of the time. I spent about $59, and I got about 20 followers, after over 20,000 impressions and views. Was this a waste of money? Perhaps...I could have bought about 48 or 49 SP with it instead, but as an original content creator, I felt it was more important to try and build my following base as quickly as possible while posting original content than to sit by and just post content hoping followers would come.
Advice to others who want followers:
I'm no guru when it comes to gaining followers, but my advice is to spread the word like crazy, but spread it with your link so people will find you when they do join. One of the biggest gains that @jerrybanfield gets from his advertising for SteemIt, which is even subsidized by SteemIt in a roundabout way (I know he spends his own money, but the idea is that you upvote his ad so he can spend that money on it advertising elsewhere) is that when people decide to come, he's the one they recognize, so he immediately gets 1) a new member, and 2) a new follower. The moral is, if you're the one telling people about SteemIt, you're likely to gain the same a follower (potential upvoter) and a new member of the community.
Now, my doubling was not a huge doubling-I went from 20 to 40 followers-but it did double and it will double again. From here, instead of paying for my ad to play, I will just continue to make good content both here and on YouTube and Dtube. As I post my blog link in the front of my normal YouTube videos, people will notice and we'll gain more steemers and hopefully, I'll gain more followers.
I hope you gain something from this experiment of mine. That's why I decided to share my experience. I feel it could be valuable to someone out there. Good luck and Steem On!
