Good day everyone! I am once again participating in @legendchew's weekly contest and for this week the topic is...

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How Do You Build Your Followers In Steemit?

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Honestly, if one would like to have a lot of followers I think the best way is to get into the trending page. One can easily catch a whole lot of plankton trying to gain favor out there and they will latch onto people that looks promising.

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Take note that I used the term "a lot" because all you will get is sheer volume increase and if we are going to answer this week's topic: "How Do You Build Your Followers In Steemit?", then I believe that it won't be a fitting answer since majority of those people (including bots) are really not there for your contents but are only there to earn your favor. However I won't deny that having a large follower base is in itself a good way of attracting other people to follow you (not to mention that it is pleasing to look at bigger numbers) but I will stand by my idea of what followers are.

Take my case for instance, I have 400+ "followers" but that means nothing because if you will take a look at the average number of upvotes I am getting for every post I publish here, then you will see that it is just a highly inflated number, that is to say that it is basically just there for display. What I am trying to get at is that I don't consider the number displayed in the followers' section a true gauge of ones follower base, after all that number includes inactive accounts (a lot of them) and bots (a LOT of them). So who do I consider followers? Those that actually try to add value to the discussion, because if they are able to come up with a decent comment then that means that they at least took the time to read or browse through the article and for me it means that they are there for what you're offering and not just to enter into a mutual upvote agreement.

If you will take a look at my posts from a month ago to date, I can at least proudly declare that majority of them have active interactions now as compared to my initial months here. That may not sound convincing coming from a guy with payout of < $ 1 per post but I think the fact that I am getting at least a value that doesn't turn to dust by the end of the 7th day means that I have at least made progress and established, though little, real follower base.

So what did I do to build my followers in steemit? This might sound repetitive now but as how the popular saying goes, respect begets respect, the same could be said here. No, not follow begets follow or upvote begets upvote (though they magically work at times) for me it is interaction begets interaction. This was my first move.

My second course of action was to do what I really want to do. There's a saying that goes like this "Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life" or something along those lines. So if we are gonna apply it here then if you are writing about stuff that you are truly passionate about then the rewards you get at the end of the 7-day period will just be an incentive. Don't stress out about finding topics that doesn't suit you because it will show in your output, just be yourself and treasure those that appreciated what you've done here.

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I had to start from scratch since the anime community in steemit is virtually non-existent, though there used to be a lot of great people out there but most of them are gone now. The fact that the anime community here is small doesn't necessarily mean that it is a disadvantage, I saw it as an opportunity to be a pioneer and since there are only few of us here then it means that the bond will be stronger not to mention that it is easier to get into the trending/ hot page and get visibility since there are fewer people to compete against.

TL;DR if you want followers you must first experience to be one, go and find people that interest you or share things that you can relate to and make meaningful conversations. Don't talk like a bot, we have plenty of them as is. After that go and do things your own way, I know how disappointing it is for efforts to go in vain, I've been there after all, but if you are having fun then that at least eases up the pain a little.

That's it for my entry this week. Thank you for reading it!

Special thanks to @curie community for the support and to all of the people who has been constantly dropping by my posts and my anime comrades. You guys are making my days here fulfilling despite the plunge in the price lol. See you again on my next post!

Ciao~