Stop Asking People To Follow You In Exchange For You Following Them.
I'm referring specifically to the people who don't even look at post content, and just say something like "FOLLOW ME I FOLLOW YOU, UPVOTE ME I UPVOTE YOU!"
Reason 1: You don't want people who don't care about your content following you!
Think about it! You want people to follow you so that your content gets more views right? Well, those "empty" follows are not going to support your content. Do you look at their content when you follow them back? Didn't think so.
Reason 2: You will lose respect of people who genuinely want to follow you!
If I am following someone, and I notice them trading follows, I won't be too happy about following them. I will feel like they are cheap salesmen trying to make a quick buck rather than provide me with quality content.
Reason 3: You are destroying what you are trying to build.
At the end of the day, when you do this, you are destroying the quality of the network on which you are trying to build your following. This is just counter-productive.
Recommendation 1: Upvote people who post stuff that is cool.
Don't expect anything back. Just upvote the things you find cool and leave a remark. This way people might get curious and check out your stuff too! If not, oh well, you upvoted material you like.
Recommendation 2: Join communities.
It's nice to have a bigger following, I don't fault anyone for wanting that, especially on platform that let's you earn money. So do it the good old fashioned way by networking. Join minnowsupport or go to steem chat. 
FWIW, I write some amateur science-fiction stuff, and I found that minnowsupport has a fiction workshop. There, 
Basically, just be reasonable, and you will benefit more
All the stuff I said is super obvious, and should be self-evident. Don't spam the community. Sure expand your follow base, but be subtle about it. I think you will benefit more in the long run.
***Keep in mind, I have a tiny follower base, but this is just my 2 cents...
Thanks for reading.
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