Hey @elricmoonslayer,
Here is my response to your question
I have promoted my posts a couple of times but I've never got any tangible results.
Promoting your post as a newbie to a limited number of subscribers has no value I understand now.
However when a friend of mine who has been here for four years promoted my post it got the eyes of a whale and so many other kinds of fish followed voting up. The pied piper is the one who draws the crowds.
I basically think that you need connections and a wider network to have your post take off - I mean quality posts. That works better than promotion.
Maybe promotions work better for people who've been here for a while.
I have been active only in the last two month after signing up, so I am practically a newbie.
I've never bothered to promote any of my posts after that fiasco of the first two times.
I think writing better quality posts and interacting with people produces better results.
Another thing that I've observed is the timing of your posts, if you post when the US and European regions are active your posts have better visibility.
That is my honest opinion on this.