The either or that you proposed, copy vs fill a niche, is why I decided to offer a contest to see what my followers what to see out of a contest. We will see what everyone comes up with.
Thank you for the resteem. Hopefully that will give me a few extra entries to choose from.
If only 1 plankton submits an entry they will win, if that happens for 3 weeks in a row that same person will just get 3 sponsored spots. It's not what I'd like to happen, but as this is new to me I know it may not succeed. We will see.
When we did our contest for our logo and profile banner, we were looking to get a minimum of five entries. For the logo we had enough in the first week, for the banner we extended for a few days until we had enough entries. As it turned out, the winning entry for the banner came during the extension period. But we were clear up front that the contests would extend if there weren't enough entries. (:
I think a big part of success on Steem (and in life) is flexibility. You try something, you evaluate the results, you adjust as needed to keep moving toward your goals.