I bought into steemit as a dolphin around 4 weeks ago.
Actually I bought steem earlier because I thought it will go up and wanted to sell it. When my steemit account finally got approved, I took a closer look what it is all about and powered up my steem around 2 hours later.
You can say I came for the money but stayed for the community. But to be totally honest I also stayed for the money.
I could give my own posts and comments some cents and my introduction post made something around 10$.
I was hooked and started to buy some more steem and powering it all up. At this point steem is a large % in my portfolio and by having it invested for at least 3 months I will go to the moon or to hell with it.
I have read mixed opinions about upvoting yourself especially after the fork, some say it is fine some say you shouldnt do it give back to the community and only upvote others people content and your own posts.
As much as I like the steemit community and becoming a part of it, share my thought and learn from others, it is still an investmant and I would say most if not all people having put a couple of thousand $ into steempower see it this way also.
I want to earn some money while I am helping others and I actually do with the curating system). I upvote comments and posts from others. I upvote a lot of comments of people who are commenting my posts to keep them engaged and hopfully come back to my next post also. I upvote introduction posts to make newcomers feel welcome.
And yes I upvote my own comments also. For several reasons.
As you can see in my blog my most of my posts doesnt make a lot of money (my vote is worth around 7$ now but I bought more steem yesterday before it was around 5$)
As I stated I am taking a risk here and I want something as a return. Upvoting myself is this kind of return I am looking for, it is my mining and my insurance to beat the inflation steem will have.
I usually put a lot of thought into my comments also, since I dont have a big following commenting is my tool to get my name out there and if it is a post of a prominent steemer I want my comment to be a bit higher so people see it earlier and hopfully engage with the comment also, since I am usually not just writting for the sake of it but I want to exchange opinions and experinces or add my 2 cents.
On the other hand you can be sure if I wrote a comment on your post that I upvoted it also.
I would love to give you an exact ratio which I think its fair but I just lack the experience and on some days there comes so much good content out I just make my 1 or 2 posts a day and the rest of my voting power goes to others people content. The next day it might be the other way around.
To sum it up I think upvoting your own comments is totally fine, especially if you starting out and dont have a lot of follower, since you wont have many people upvoting your content. By upvoting myself I protect my investmant and it can be stratetegly clever to upvote on certain posts. If we are honest everybody here wants to earn some crypto and how I see it, this will be achieved between a healthy mix of giving votes to others and yourself.
But dont make just a thread to waste your voting power for the day where you make 5 comments and upvote all of them with all your voting power. It makes you look like a selfish dick and you propaply are.
There is so much good content floating around which deserves some love.
Give and recieve is the slogan which will hopfully shape my experience here.
If you have a different opinion or an good article why I am totally wrong feel free to share it