One is up to you, the other is up to others...
Your reputation is very important. It helps others to know whether to trust you or now. If you behave yourself, produce interesting and original content your reputation number will increase gradually (faster if you end up with a very popular post or two.) If you piss off a whale through your behavior, it can go into negative numbers fairly quickly! Considering that you start off at 25, to get negative scores really does take talent, but I've seen a few here and there.
To whales, you are considered a minnow until you're around level 60.
Keeping your reputation healthy also helps to encourage followers. Without followers, you won't get very far in Steemit.
Whales will tell you about how you should follow only a certain percentage of your followers, etc. I'm not sure about that - especially at the beginning. To start with, I followed everyone who followed me, partly so I could have something in my feed to keep a watch on. Now, I only follow if I feel I don't want to miss your posts! After all, a full feed makes it easy to miss the very posts you wanted to see.
I have several main strategies for finding followers.
Facebook groups (and a related Google + Group) are a great way of finding followers, especially when you're still getting to grips with Steemit. Groups on Facebook include ones dedicated to "upvote for upvote" strategies (inefficient and ineffective in the long term, if you remember what I said in a previous post) and others dedicated to encouraging original content. Steemit Dreamit (currently DOWN) run by 
Be brave and join a few groups on Discord. This is the "social" part of Steemit. They also exist to help you find followers.
This one is really more important than any Facebook or Discord group.
Invest in people!
Check out the people who have upvoted you. Take time to go through your feed. Look through the "new" posts, even the "hot" or "trending" posts..
Give good comments including your banner if you've made one. Every time I've had huge increases in my followers, it's because I've taken the time to invest in people. Probably 1 in 5 thoughtful comments will yield a new follower for me.
Bonus... Contests.
Entering contests, especially those where you post the link in the comments (include a copy of the image in the comments as well for the most impact) - the others posting there or wishing they were clever enough to enter this contest may see your work and might choose to follow you as a result. Contests and challenges definitely help give you exposure. Be sure to carefully read and follow the instructions on the given contest or challenge.
Contests have been fun for me and have yielded in more SBD than my posts got on their own accord on several occasions now! For the newbie, you can't go wrong by entering a few contests. (Try the "contest" and "newbiegames" tags when checking out the article feeds.) Several bloggers cover the contests well including 
Second bonus... bots (well, the free ones, anyway.)
The jury is way out when it comes to the paid for bots (and defies the whole "organic following" thing anyway.) But there are some useful bots who can help give you exposure. (Others have covered this more in depth than I'm qualified to cover at the moment.)
Do you know another free and very-useful bot I should know about? What are your strategies for finding followers, especially some of the cetacean sort (i.e. whales)? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
I hope you find this discussion helpful.
(Logo found on Wikipedia Commons with Reuse licence - ownership remains with Steemit.com)
Lori Aberle Hopkins – photographer at Viking Visual, author, student-of-the-world.
Follow, upvote and resteem me here and on Facebook
Check out my work at: RedBubble, ImageKind, and CafePress.
Camera has changed from time to time, the photographer has not. :-)
Unless otherwise stated, all photos are original to me and © 2008-2018.
