I found the #8 particularly annoying. I am among those people that won't use this method and totally dismiss anything like that.
My way might not be the best, cost effective wise, but it is closer to my goal on Steemit:
1- Interact with comments and posts so that people know you
2- Ask for votes
I haven't gotten so much votes, but I am not here for the money (if it can pay for the server that would be awesome but it's fine anyway). So for those remaining here despite the price crash, I would like to be an awesome witness.
That is a very good point cryptohazard! How do you interact when many upvoters never comment especially those with a lot of Steem Power? I tried step 8 because I noticed the majority of my top upvoters had no made a comment recently that I could respond to. I responded to all the comments I could beforehand.
I just don't do anything.
You know, since I didn't have much money I could in Steem, I decide to invest my time over my money. I might have taken your path if I had invested money. Overall I was pretty successful.
I remember some whales saying they won't reply to such solicitation. Rich people problems one might say. But you have a reason why people would listen to you.
Btw I really liked your video on EOS ;-).
Thank you and I appreciate your investment in time here because this is one of my biggest limitations! The challenge I see is to make it okay for everyone to work within their limitations and to accept that there are different ways of accomplishing the same result.