However, it had a very little effect on Hive. They hardly even mentioned hive in their posts and videos.

Hive is a small pond and they can get the same benefits or more if they put their content somewhere else. It's a given that even if they publish content without any direct monetary value, they are still using a platform that has high traffic and makes their time marketing themselves more efficient compared to doing it on Hive where there's a low engagement rate and the learning curve for them and their future target audience maybe steep.

I see a much bigger potential for promoting Hive through the Hive influencers.

I'm 50-50 on this line of thought. I like the idea that people are being rewarded and are doing their best to give back the value to the entire ecosystem by spreading the word, but I've seen enough fair share of well supported people on the platform to turn their backs as soon as they no longer get the value of upvotes/support they think they deserve.

It comes with growth as more competitors for the same content, followers being inactive, and of course just an effect of being too complacent as they know the autoupvotes are coming no matter what they do and so they don't bother stepping up their game. It's multifactorial but those are the top reasons I think matter most. Doesn't happen all the time but it happens.

cross platform influencers are doing a great job in bringing new users to hive.

From experience, I found the targeted 1 on 1 guidance has led me more retention of users from my community than just spreading out the word to a broader audience out there. It's good to see some more people marketing the platform. Even a simple mention about Hive on their outside blog is a portal to our platform long term.