I stay out of politics as much as possible but I'm making an exception today. I'm interrupting my series on SMTs to talk about Jerry Banfield's witness campaign.
If you want to vote for his witness but haven't yet, go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses and upvote @jerrybanfield
Jerry Banfield's Promise
My job from Monday to Friday is as an advertiser and maybe that's the reason why I feel compelled to vote for his witness. Even thou he looks like he is on amphetamine when he does his videos, the guy know what he is doing to drive clicks and signups into steemit. He is a genuine and honest guy.
His promise, as a witness, is to dedicate 80% of his witness rewards towards Facebook and Adwords advertising to drive clicks and signups.
At current market price, that's about $200/day or $6000/month in advertising.
Note: You Can Follow His Ad Campaigns Live Here: https://airtable.com/shrXuoYTnODWA0QG1/tblUbJd2lY1XH5rmx
We have 20 witness slots. Some people work hard to develop tools for steem but from some...we haven't heard a cricket sound from them in a long while. Witnesses are suppose to work for us and add value to the network...not $7000+ a month for running a server
But I Don't Like His "Style"
Whether or not you like his "style" of advertising, is beside the point in my opinion. If it works and drive signups, it's a thousand time better than an ad that look slick yet doesn't convert.
We see it all the time when business owners want their dog in their ads. It sure make him feel good about his ads but generally those ads have horrific performance.
It's a personal pet peeve of mine. People having opinions about advertising when they:
- Don't account for results
- When they never ran a successful ad campaign themselves
Why His Ads Are Performing Well
What sets his ads apart from most ads is that they are content and personality driven. He is not "representing" steemit in an official capacity. He is in fact a "third party" sharing his opinion and experience. And THAT is very powerful and that's why his ads are performing well.
The Result I'm Looking For
Unfortunately, Jerry didn't know about the referral tracking until recently. But now that he does, he will track campaign for signup results. For now, I'm looking for a cost of $1 per signups. When the next hardfork comes in, I hope for a $0.20 per signup.
As the price of steem grows, we can capitalize by having someone running ads to capitalize on the attention that is already directed towards us. Without that, we are at the mercy of people willing to write about us on website like coindesk and cointelegraph.
Conclusion
Go ahead and vote for him here: https://steemit.com/~witnesses . From now on, I'll be campaigning for him to make it to one of the top slots because we need a dedicated witness to advertise STEEM to the whole world.