Need a Little Help

"One hundred thousand followers."

Lu Ban's face fell.

He checked his Old Days Video Network follower count: only 4,732. It looked like they'd even included his Weibo followers.

Going from four thousand to one hundred thousand wasn't a small undertaking.

As Lu Ban understood it, a video going viral didn't just depend on individual effort; more importantly, it relied on historical trends. Some videos just happened to catch the right wave and become popular by chance.

This statement could also be interpreted in another way: to gain followers and get more people to pay attention to you, one viral video isn't enough.

You need to make viewers believe that the Uploader has the ability to create excellent videos before they'll follow you.

"Good thing this task isn't timed," Lu Ban mused.

He tried clicking on the system's task panel and found a new self-select mode, but it was locked.

Hovering the mouse over it only displayed a message like "Please complete the career development task."

"No shortcuts, huh."

Lu Ban dismissed the system text and returned to the webpage.

He navigated to [Did You Get It?] and typed "how to increase Old Days Video Network followers" into the search bar. Before he even finished typing, several suggested questions popped up, indicating that many people were concerned about this issue.

The answers varied wildly.

"Just leave comments on popular videos, crack jokes, and maybe you'll get featured and go viral."

"It's simple, just run a giveaway for a few 648s, and your follower count will skyrocket."

"You could impersonate the official accounts of certain companies; you might trick a few blind people."

"If you're a streamer, join a streamer guild; experienced players will help newcomers."

And so on. Most of these seemed like crooked paths. While they might not necessarily fail to increase followers, they might actually have some effect. Take the giveaway for example. Lu Ban had seen Weibo accounts use this trick before, giving away a few hundred yuan in cash for tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers, then rebranding as marketing accounts and making money through ads – quite efficient.

But relying on such methods to gain one hundred thousand followers on Old Days Video Network seemed unrealistic.

He found another highly-rated answer.

"To accumulate followers, you need to establish a persona, letting viewers feel the Uploader's presence through your videos, making them like you as a person. The best way is to leverage your personal charm, relying on looks or talent, and tie into current trends."

The answer was lengthy. Before Lu Ban could finish reading, he first checked the Old Days Video Network account of the commenter, to avoid another "keyboard warrior" situation like before. After confirming the commenter had around 150,000 followers, Lu Ban returned to the answer.

He took notes as he read to the end.

". Lastly, I want to point out that there are many ways to gain followers, but only one is a dead end: making MAD videos! It's a path to ruin!"

Lu Ban clicked back to the commenter's profile and looked at their earliest videos.

They were all MAD anime edits.

Such painful realization.

After finishing his notes, Lu Ban looked at the not-so-large Word document and felt a sudden pang of melancholy.

"Just last night I was playing the suona in front of some unknown gods to survive, and tonight I have to worry about gaining followers on a video site. The contrast in my life is too drastic."

While waiting for his takeout, Lu Ban roughly outlined his future development plan.

His private messages contained contact information from several management companies; he didn't know if they were legitimate. If he could join a management company, Lu Ban might get initial resources and develop slowly, perhaps reaching one hundred thousand followers.

Regarding establishing a persona, Lu Ban felt he was ordinary, unremarkable. Besides being handsome, there was nothing else worth mentioning. Would viewers follow an Uploader just because he was handsome? Lu Ban himself wouldn't, so he reasoned it wouldn't be very effective.

If being handsome gained followers, his first video, which showed his face, should have gotten him tens of thousands of followers already!

However, concerning persona building, Lu Ban did have some ideas for the video he was about to edit.

"No offense, but figuring out how to gain followers is much harder than dealing with those weird things. I guess there's no fun without conflict, right?"

His takeout arrived. Lu Ban's dinner was a tomato and egg stir-fry with a small portion of stir-fried meat, costing just over 20 yuan after discounts, which was cheap for the expensive city of Jiangcheng.

While eating dinner, Lu Ban found some supernatural videos on Old Days Video Network to watch while he ate.

In the past, Lu Ban might have felt his heart race watching these videos, but now, he just found them fake.

But if fake things can scare people, why can't real things?

Lu Ban diligently studied the merits of these videos.

After eating, he even made it in time for the scheduled trash disposal. Lu Ban returned home and began editing his video.

He planned to edit his footage into an exploration-style video.

Exploration videos, as they were called, essentially imitated those exploration channel programs where a group of people would venture into abandoned factories, schools, hospitals, and other places late at night. This catered to people's curiosity to some extent. Some creators would even scout locations beforehand and use props to create a terrifying atmosphere. They had a large audience.

Lu Ban himself had explored the Jiangcheng Grand Theater at night, and his video footage already contained supernatural elements. He felt that producing a similar video would be very eye-catching.

More importantly, this would be his second video. Once these two videos were released, Lu Ban's account persona would be largely established: someone who had nothing better to do and liked to go exploring in dangerous places. Viewers who enjoyed this style would look forward to Lu Ban's future explorations and consequently follow him.

Of course, editing the footage into a satisfactory video wouldn't be simple.

Lu Ban had personally experienced the event and knew which places were genuinely eerie and which were actually uneventful. But the viewers wouldn't know, so sometimes he'd need to hint at things and add commentary.

He also had to consider that frequent switching between different camera angles would make the video feel staged, reducing the thrill.

After a week of busy work, Lu Ban finally finished editing a video that he felt was passable.

"I was right, making videos is definitely harder than courting death on an expedition!"

After naming and uploading the video, Lu Ban felt completely drained.

He ate a late-night snack and fell asleep to the sound of classic Spring Festival Gala songs.

The next morning, he opened the Old Days Video Network and checked the data for his video.

Clicks: 150, Fan Growth: 10.

"Normal. The video is over twenty minutes long and not something that grabs attention at first glance. It needs data accumulation."

The third morning, Clicks: 570, Fan Growth: 8.

"Very good, the click count already exceeded expectations. It's just that the fan growth is a bit low?"

The fourth morning, Clicks: 996, Fan Growth: 16.

"Both fan growth and video clicks have broken new records. This wave's advantage is mine!"

The fifth morning, Clicks: 1263, Fan Growth: 11.

Lu Ban pressed a calculator.

"It's over. Is this video going to flop?"

He felt that he might, probably, seem to, perhaps, need a tiny bit of help.

*

Come one, come all, don't miss the one-click three-likes!