"100,000 followers."
Lu Ban's expression fell.
He checked and saw that his Old Days Video Network account only had 4,372 followers. Apparently, the total even included his Weibo followers.
Going from 4,000 to 100,000 was no small project.
As Lu Ban understood it, a video going viral didn't rely solely on personal effort. More importantly, it depended on the course of history. Some videos happened to catch a wave and went viral by sheer coincidence.
This could also be understood another way: if you wanted to gain followers and get more people to pay attention to you, one viral video was far from enough.
You had to make viewers believe that you possessed the ability to create excellent videos. Only then would they follow you.
"Luckily, this task has no time limit."
Lu Ban sighed.
He tried clicking on the system's task panel and discovered that it now had a custom mode, though it was locked.
When he moved the mouse over it, all it displayed was an explanation like, "Please complete the Career Development Task."
"No finding loopholes, huh?"
Lu Ban erased the system text and returned to the webpage.
He went to Did You Get It? and typed "how to increase followers on Old Days Video Network" into the search bar. Before he had even finished typing, several suggested questions automatically popped up. Apparently, quite a few people were concerned about this matter.
The answers varied wildly.
"Just leave witty comments and jokes under popular videos. You might get tagged and become an overnight sensation."
"It's simple. Repost a giveaway for several 648-yuan cash prizes, and your follower count will shoot up."
"You can impersonate the official account of some company's products. You'll always manage to fool a few people who can't tell the difference."
"If you're a streamer, you can join one of those streamer guilds. Experienced streamers will help newcomers take off."
And so on. Most of them seemed like crooked schemes. It wasn't that they couldn't increase your followers—some might actually work. Take repost giveaways, for example. Lu Ban had seen Weibo accounts use that trick before, reposting a few hundred yuan in cash to gain tens of thousands, or even over a hundred thousand, followers. Then they would transform into marketing accounts and make money by taking advertisements. It was incredibly efficient.
But relying on such methods to gain 100,000 followers on Old Days Video Network wasn't realistic.
He found another highly upvoted answer.
"To accumulate followers, you need to establish a persona and let viewers sense the Uploader's presence through your videos. Make them come to like you personally through your videos. The best way to do that is to display your personal charm, relying on your looks or talents while staying relevant to current trends."
The answer went on at length. Before Lu Ban had finished reading it, he first checked the answerer's Old Days Video Network account by following their username. He wanted to avoid another mishap like the keyboard warrior Uploader incident from before. Only after seeing that the person had nearly 150,000 followers did Lu Ban turn back to continue reading.
He took notes as he read, all the way to the end.
"...Finally, I want to tell you that there are many ways to gain followers, but only one is completely hopeless: making MADs. That's a dead end!"
Lu Ban clicked back into that person's profile and looked at their earliest videos.
They were all animated-editing MAD videos.
What a painful lesson.
After finishing his notes, Lu Ban looked at the not-so-large Word document and suddenly felt rather wistful.
"Just last night, I was playing the suona before gods whose origins I didn't even know, worrying about whether I'd survive. Tonight, I have to worry about how to gain followers on a video website. The contrast in my life is way too huge."
While waiting for his takeout, Lu Ban roughly summarized his future development plan.
There were some messages from talent agencies in his private inbox, though he didn't know whether they were genuine. If he could join an agency, Lu Ban might be able to obtain some initial resources and develop gradually. Maybe he could even reach 100,000 followers.
As for establishing a persona, Lu Ban felt that he was ordinary and unremarkable. Aside from being handsome, he had nothing worth mentioning. Would viewers follow an Uploader just because he was handsome? Lu Ban himself wouldn't. Putting himself in their shoes, he felt the effect would be minimal.
If being handsome could increase his followers, then he had already shown his face in his first video. He should have had tens of thousands of followers by now!
Still, when it came to establishing a persona, Lu Ban did have some ideas about the video he would edit next.
"Not to put too fine a point on it, researching how to gain followers is much harder than dealing with those bizarre things. Is fighting with people really the greatest joy after all?"
The takeout arrived. Lu Ban's dinner that night was a set meal of tomato-and-egg stir-fry and sliced pork stir-fried with vegetables. After the discount, it cost a little over 20 yuan, 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 with his meal.
In the past, watching videos like these might have made Lu Ban's heart race. Now, he only felt that they were fake.
But if fake things could scare people, why couldn't real things do the same?
Lu Ban still seriously studied the merits of those videos.
After dinner, he even managed to catch the scheduled garbage-disposal time. Once he returned home, Lu Ban began editing his video.
He planned to edit his footage into an exploration video.
Exploration videos were essentially modeled after the programs made by exploration channels. Several people would visit abandoned factories, schools, hospitals, and other places late at night to explore them, satisfying people's curiosity about the unknown to a certain extent. Some creators would even scout the locations in advance and use props to enhance the terrifying atmosphere. They had a large audience.
Lu Ban himself had gone to explore Jiangcheng Grand Theater at night, and his footage contained supernatural elements. He felt that making it into a similar video should attract a lot of attention.
More importantly, this was his second video. Once both videos were released, the persona of Lu Ban's account would more or less be established: a guy with nothing better to do who liked courting death by exploring places everywhere. Viewers who liked this style would look forward to Lu Ban's future explorations and naturally follow him.
Of course, turning this footage into a passable video was not simple.
Lu Ban had experienced the events himself, so he knew which parts were strange and which were actually uneventful. The viewers didn't know that, so sometimes he needed to provide hints and pair them with narration.
He also had to consider that footage from different camera angles couldn't be switched too frequently. Otherwise, it would make the viewers feel as though they were watching an act and reduce the thrill.
After working on it for a week, Lu Ban finally managed to edit a video he found passable.
"I was right. Making videos really is harder than courting death on an exploration trip!"
After naming and uploading the video, Lu Ban felt as though his entire body had been hollowed out.
He had a late-night snack and still fell asleep to the sound of songs from the Spring Festival Gala's greatest hits.
The next morning, he opened Old Days Video Network and checked his video's statistics.
150 views, 10 new followers.
"Normal. The video is over twenty minutes long, and it isn't the kind that dazzles people at first glance. It needs time to accumulate data."
On the third morning, it had 570 views and 8 new followers.
"Pretty good. The number of views has already exceeded expectations. It's just that the follower growth is a little low?"
On the fourth morning, it had 996 views and 16 new followers.
"Both the follower growth and the number of views have reached new highs. I've got the advantage this time!"
On the fifth morning, it had 1,263 views and 11 new followers.
Lu Ban pressed the buttons on his calculator.
"Oh no. Is this going to flop?"
He felt that he might, perhaps, probably, possibly, need a billionth bit of help.
*
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