im not a huge believer in bots, but first off some of them are free, or relatively inexpensive for the payback. second, if i drop 5 sbd into a bot for one post and get 8 sbd out a few days later because of the upvote, thats a good short term investment. there are a bunch of scambots that just eat money. the thing is to look for cost vs outcome with good potential paybacks.

'follows' you hit that right on the head. look at who you follow. why should you follow someone writing about beaded macrame if you are never going to read their posts? or a person who only posts youtube vids? look for quality, look for activity, look for shared interests.