Well you did over 100 upvotes, which no doubt helped boost your reputation. Given you post got just over 200 views I think you did pretty well - I wonder how it would have done with little or no promotion? Perhaps you can do an A/B test as an experiment.
I really do think that so long as you get the tags right and post at the optimal time of day then it is mostly down to content and the size of your follower network which will determine the success. I posted lots of things that made less than $1 and then I wrote a big long post about shoes (of all things) and boom... over $120 in rewards.
IMO opinion promotion will ruin the site if the majority of content is promoted which sets a bar so that unpromoted content is hardly ever seen. At that point I'd want an option to just ignore promotions just like an ad-block. But that probably defeats of the point of allowing promoted content.
I appreciate your feedback...believe me...not in this for the money and don't really have the brain power to try and figure out the tricks of this trade in order to get recognized...I'm an old school guy who believes you spend a little to get a little...if it works great...if not...life continues...meanwhile I make a few contacts...practice my writing skills and add and get some nice life lessons from people all over the world...who knows if Steemit remains a long term player...time to come up with another idea for an article...
Well a reason to get money, okay STEEM, on this platform is to use it for the community good. Then when you vote on stuff it helps others, or you can loan it to various bots and accounts who help others. But yes, I agree it can be very confusing - and I'm a very technical person.
To be honest I really don't think it should be necessary to spend $100 to promote an article - after I got to 1000 STEEM in my account every time I upvote it distributes about $0.13 and that makes a huge difference putting it high up in the new posts listing, which is what drives new clicks, which is what drives "hot" and ultimately "trending". And remember people can re-steem your article to get it promoted later, and your post stays out there for way longer than the 7-day voting period. Adding links to previous posts at the bottom of every new post you make will help drive traffic to old posts. Just posting, posting almost daily will help too - again not to drive money but to get eyeballs on your content.
Good luck to you and keep on posting but don't break the bank doing it, it simply isn't necessary. I have 50,000+ followers on Google+ and never spent a dime there - just three or four years of posting and patience.
Once again appreciate your input...I understand if one makes time to become a regular poster...very active...one can achieve what you suggest...I am not yet at that stage...
Also...I believe having steem power provides some influence
But as someone who just put his first picture on one of his posts...it will be a while before I'm attempting links or video presentations...however...I will never say never...
Maybe my next article will be about socks!
LOL.... These are the socks that God gave me?
Yeah a picture definitely helps!