Steemit Experiment: The Effectiveness of Promotion With Boosters. What You Will Get Using Them All?
The goal of this small experiment is to test the effectiveness of boosters in the promotion of a new post, using a fresh account.
It is difficult to become noticeable among thousands of other users of the platform, even producing quality content. A lot depends on luck. Interest in crypto currencies is growing, the number of users and content increases, so the problem only becomes more complicated.
And here, on every corner we hear the whisper Booster-Booster-Booster, and in the comments under the posts have strange replies with %. "Send 1 SDB and get effective promotion!"
I was wondering whether this method is effective and I decided to test it in practice.
For the experiment I used my inactive account ( @hits) , which was created almost a year ago (in any case, when it was still easy to do :). Probably It's the only factor that could affect the purity of the experiment. Agree it looks strange - sudden activity after year of silence.
It is almost clean account with a reputation of 25, with only 2 followers (which are inactive).
In the experiment I decided to use not just a dummy post, and quite a good article on a scientific topic with tags of medium popularity. How Space Agencies Colored The Cosmos
To promote the post I used two types of boosters - the first which vote, the second that make resteem. It was quite difficult to find them all (not counting the most popular), but then I came across these posts: 1, 2 , 3
After checking bots I have tried to exclude very weak, with SP less than 1000 or a small number of followers. I took a total of 17 voting-boosters and 4 resteem-bots:
| Booster | Price (SBD or Steem) |
|---|---|
| @minnowbooster | 3 |
| @bellyrub | 0.5 |
| @randowhale | 1 |
| @booster | 2 |
| @discordia | 0.1 |
| @lovejuice | 0.5 |
| @treeplanter | 0.1 |
| @buildawhale | 0.5 |
| @iamgrootbot | 0.005 |
| @drotto | 0.001 |
| @minnowhelper | 2 |
| @boomerang | 0.05 |
| @khoa | 0.1 |
| @nettybot | 0.1 |
| @steemthat | 0.01 |
| @polsza | 0.5 |
| @minnowsupport | 0.001 |
| @minnowpond (resteem) | 1 |
| @resteembot (resteem) | 0.055 |
| @resteem.bot (resteem) | 0.1 |
| @steemitrobot (resteem) | 0.1 |
The cost of transactions varies from 0.001 SBD/steem to 3 SBD/steem. I decided to use the minimum necessary for each bot (for several I was not able to find the exact numbers).
Task: use all the boosters in the first hour after publication, so that the post falls into the HOT category.
Not all of them work instantly, so I had to calculate the convenient time for the publication.
3...2...1... Launch!
Start: 25 Rep | 2 followers (inactive)
The beginning of the transactions.
I started with the most powerful boosters from the list (top-4) to obtain the effect as quickly as possible. Between large and small boosters I decided to use the resteem-bots (but something went wrong, you'll see...)
Got the first vote from @randowhale: + $ 1.78 | Rep: 34 (+9) | +0 followers
After 17 minutes I have used all the boosters from the list. @minnowbooster and @randowhale voted almost immediately, and formed the bulk value of the post $ 4.61 and $1.73.
Time to check the post in the HOT!
My post was at the end of the second page, in fact, outside the zone of active visibility. But, it is important to note that I still have not received votes from two powerful boosters: @bellyrub and @booster.
I decided to add one more way to promote the post, which is used by many steemians: chats-channels. I was hoping it might give me some live users and comments from them. In addition, I responded to a few comments from bots to increase the count of replies.
30 min. Chekpoint
Still have not received votes from @bellyrub and @booster. Small bots added only the voices and automatic responses, and virtually no impact on payout. It looks like none of the real user didn't even read my post.
| Stats | Value |
|---|---|
| Votes | 35 |
| Payout | $ 6.98 |
| Views | 17 |
| Reply | 5 (0 from live users) |
| Resteem | 0 |
| Reputation | 39 |
| Followers | 0 |
| Hot-place | The middle of the second page |
It is important to remark: half an hour passed and not one resteem-bot didn't repost my article!
1 Hour Chekpoint
I got the first (and last) comment from a live user (thank you @teks !). Several medium boosters ( @buildawhale , @minnowhelper) also added a nice amount of SBD.
1:30- I got the voice from @booster, it added me almost $4 and raised reputation to 41. It's a little raised me in the Hot list
| Stats | Value |
|---|---|
| Votes | 42 |
| Payout | $ 12.18 |
| Views | 32 |
| Reply | 11 (1 from live users) |
| Resteem | 0 |
| Reputation | 41 |
| Followers | 0 |
| Hot-place | The beginning of the second page |
Received votes from all boosters, except @bellyrub. @lovejuice did not accept my transaction (don't know why). 0 resteem from bots.
2 Hours Chekpoint
This is the last significant checkpoint, which could change something.
@bellyrub finally voted. The number of votes corresponds to the number of views, but still no new followers and live comments. Repeated the promotion in the chat - no effect.
Post was not able to rise above second page in Hot. Other posts with less payouts, but more fresh began to overtake it.
| Stats | Value |
|---|---|
| Votes | 43 |
| Payout | $ 15.12 |
| Views | 44 |
| Reply | 12 (1 from live users) |
| Resteem | 0 |
| Reputation | 42 |
| Followers | 0 |
| Hot-place | The middle of the second page |
In fact, the experiment is over. During the day a couple of times I used links in chats. The first resteem-bot ( @steemitrobot ) did a repost after 3 hours from publication. A day later i've got resteem from @resteem.bot - it did not give any effect.
Overall Results
So, I used all the famous boosters and spent $14.3 fot it. All bots have voted for a post within 2 hours. The largest income was received from @minnowbooster $ 4.61 | @booster $ 3.5 | @bellyrub $ 3 | @randowhale $ 1.73. The post was in the middle of the second page of HOT category for two hours.
| Stats | Value |
|---|---|
| Votes | 59 |
| Payout | $ 16.65 (max $ 17.04) |
| Spent SBD | $ 14.3 |
| Views | 92 |
| Reply | 21 (2 from live users) |
| Resteem | 3 ( 2 from bots) |
| Reputation | 43 ( +18) |
| Followers | +4 |
It has not received any votes from dolphins or whales. Almost did not attract live users and followers.
Conclusion
- Boosters don't give any advantages in the promotion. Even when using a good (notbad) content.
- The promotion with the help of boosters will cost 25% of the amount spent. Profit is almost equal to the expenses (If the exchange rate doesn't change!), don't forget to subtract 25% (curators award). So, technically, you lose 25%.
- A noticeable increase in reputation on new accounts (up to 43 from 25). But don't forget: each new reputation level requires 10 times more costs compared with the previous. So it has no noticeable effect on the accounts with reputation higher than 50
- You should have a small initial capital to start use boosters. Preferably $10 to use the most powerful top4.
Questions to steemians
As I noticed at the beginning, the purity of the experiment is broken by some nuances of the used account. Instead of guessing, I'd like to ask Steemit users directly about these nuances and about the boosters as a whole:
a. Do you pay attention to the date of account creation?
b. Do you check the user's wallet history?
c. Do you pay attention to reputation in the Hot category?
d. How often do you use boosters and for what purpose?
e. If you do not use boosters, how do you feel about using it by others? Is it cheat?
f. Do You use the chat channels to find good posts or just to publish your links?
I would be very grateful if you will provide answers in the comments. I think it can help form a rough idea of how people perceive posts from others.
***
Love your work! My responses for me personally:
a. Do you pay attention to the date of account creation? No
b. Do you check the user's wallet history? No
c. Do you pay attention to reputation in the Hot category? No, I just look at the content
d. How often do you use boosters and for what purpose? Haven't used one.
e. If you do not use boosters, how do you feel about using it by others? Is it cheat? I hate looking at boosters' posts. And in principle I'm opposed to people voting that have not even looked at the post.
f. Do You use the chat channels to find good posts or just to publish your links? Yes, but you can't just post the link where you did, too flooded. You need to interact with the people in a channel and it kind of works out longer term:)
Another tool I use is steemfollower https://steemfollower.com/?r=4362 though, which I think gives focused visibility to users of steemfollower. I'm on the fence on its effectiveness though. I'm not opposed to it because real people have to interact still.
A few other questions: Did you use steemit native promote button? It looks like not. Actually does that affect the trending sections?
Oh, thank you very much for your detailed review! :)
Well, i used official promotion button with boosters, but now it even don't give equal SBD, like few weeks ago.
You have to spend a really high amount, to get into the zone of visibility:
Thanks for link on steemfollower, will check it :)
I've found a few gems in there, but yeah don't expect too much from it ;). I'm basically doing the minimum effort to get a handful of votes. Found I should use my voting power for other great posts when I see them.
And yikes! That's a lot to spend in promote to get there
This is a great experiment and needs more highlighting. As well as be continued.
While it is technically a loss making operation it would be interesting to see what is the impact on account after 10 posts all promoted with bots, and then again after 50.
Aside from the accrued SP and (possibly) also improved reputation, will the account actually have managed to garner a real following thanks to only automated upvote promotion?
Because it is a way to cheat the system. But how far does it actually help one if continued bootstrapped promotion, affordable to most of us.
I agree, it would be interesting to test this approach with a few posts, to form the appearance of a successful account. Unfortunately my funds are limited :)
But theoretically: you will spent $150 (sbd/steem) on 10 posts, and $750 for 50. Maybe it will be better and easier transfer this money into SP. This will definitely attract more followers :)
This was quite interesting I think. I am not a fan of these bots but it is allowed in the system so people use. from an effort/return process, was it worth it for you?
Well, I don't feel the effect for my main account (this one). As I said this is a good opportunity to upgrade your account in the beginning. Otherwise, it looks like a waste of money+ it seems to me, intuitively, that a strong users (dolphins and whales) do not like boosters and don't vote, if they see them in the comments... maybe.
But the fact remains, even some successful users use these services and it doesn't reduce their popularity. For example: @buzzbeergeek
Keep going man.great content in your post
Thank you, my friend!