Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'm new to SteemIt and I've noticed a lot of spam for desperate votes as well. I think for new SteemIt users, they should focus on a certain topic that they are passionate about, that way they can meet people with similar interests. For example, I enjoy photography and sports so 90% of my posts have been about that and all thought I've only been on steemit for a week, I can say a lot of my followers enjoy the same content. Anyways, great post. Cheers!