I joined in May of this year, unsure what I was going to blog about or how to grow my account. However, after a few weeks fumbling around I steadily started to gain followers. 2600 people currently follow my account and I received my Christmas wish last night of attaining a reputation score of 64. I have some great support on my blog and regularly receive rather tasty upvotes.
What is my secret?
Anybody who follows my blog already knows that there is no secret formula. The best advice I can give anybody is to forget how to spell 'ME'. That's right, stop thinking about what others can do for you. Think more about what YOU can do for others. Join communities and engage with them in a meaningful way. My particular favourites are @MinnowSupport and my own community, @TheWritersBlock.
Minnow Support, and their Discord Server PALnet, is where I learned about the benefit of communities. But rather than joining to see what you can get out of them, see how you can help and support others.
Gift Economy
Look at Steem as a gift economy. What is a gift economy?
A gift economy is one in which services or goods are given without an agreement as to a suitable payment or trade to be made in return.
Instead of monetary gain, gift economies often rely on intangible rewards like a sense of contribution, community, honor or prestige. The idea is that although gifts may not be directly reciprocated, broad participation leads to a system in which people give according to their abilities and receive according to their needs.
Source
The gifts here are upvotes and resteems. Like something you see? Reward that post. Think it deserves further rewards? Resteem it. Yet even this is short sighted: think about how YOU can bring value to the platform and communities. Maybe start a new community initiative, not for monetary gain, but simply because you can.
Tooting my own horn
While moderating at MSP, I regularly sent the required steem to new users wishing to register and sign up. Many others did, and still do. I never required repayment or anything in return. I, along with the rest of the moderation team, did our very best to welcome new users, point them in the right direction at the beginning of their Steem journeys.
I started up my @Muxxybot curation account in order to share minnow posts with my followers, in the hope that more eyes on their content would result in an increase in followers and rewards. My curation team has slowly grown to 22 members who now get rewarded with shares of the SBD payouts from the curation posts. I would like to think that by being seen as curators, they get further visibility and followers on the platform as a result.
In September I left MSP and, along with 
Being selfishly unselfish
Yes, that sounds like an oxymoron, but think about it: I go out of my way to help and encourage others. I hold contests like my recent 5 days of Muxxymas, pledging the SBD payout to lucky winners. I also have my new Introduce A New Steemian initiative, whereby I find an #introduceyourself post, share it on my blog, 100% upvote that new user and pledge all SBD from my post will be sent to them. I could simply keep the money earned and build up my own account, but chose instead to give it away. Why? Simple, I enjoy giving. But more than that, it puts my name out there. I get followers. Yes, right now they are 'plankton' with very little power, but one day they will not be, and when they grow into dolphins and maybe whales, perhaps they will remember that crazy Brit who gave away earnings to help them early on in their Steem journey.