To gain followers prove easy for some and extremely difficult for others. Here are some of my opinions and things I noticed while on my journey to eventually leave the minnow pool. Keep in mind I am quite the stalker here on Steemit, always checking everyone's following, join date and wallet. Here are some things I noticed.

The Good

Steemit is for bloggers, creators with good content can create while earning some Steem. There will always be writers and there will always be readers. Creating quality content that gain you a following is by far the best way to go. This is no easy task. Some people are only starting out now and the progress is painstakingly slow. This is not the case for everyone. There are people out there with such a natural talent for bringing new fresh material out, they don't really need to promote themselves. They just post and they post hard! Amazing quality that contributes to Steemians and leaving the readers wanting more. An example of these users who are Steemian rockets are @rafalgar and @jerrybanfield . @jerrybanfield joined on May 22nd and go look at the quality of content in his account. He is a true Steemit rocket!

Another good way would be to befriend as many new people as you can when they join, but is that really the way to go?? I feel welcoming someone is important to the Steemit community, asking them to following you is fine too. They are new and eager to follow someone for the first time, this does not mean they will stay on Steemit. We have lost a shitload of new users who come here because they hope to make a quick buck, not all new users are like this though. The easy money seekers see it's not as easy as they might think and then they bail. This leaves many users with empty followers. No use having 200 followers if half of them are not even on Steemit anymore or never upvote your content simply just because the topics doesn't interest them.

The good is to come up with quality content and post, if it's really good your following will increase. Coming up with this quality is hard though. Think and work hard, plan and then execute, most of the successful bloggers spend hours per post. See what works for you and move a way from what doesn't. If you are good you will get noticed.

The Bad

Many of the new users just come here to make some fast cash, posting everything and anything. Spamming the chats with their links of all kinds of random stuff. Some users have also started posting links from YouTube that isn't their original work, thus copy and pasting others hard work. I am still not a fan of this, even if it benefits the Youtuber and the Steemian. In the end I don't see it as a long term strategy. The users do get followers though, posting that cute cat or funny skit is familiar to the new Steemians and they follow. It is a way to get followers but for the long run I don't think that cute video or picture from the interwebs will get you to Whale status. You will only get minnows voting and following. The pool may dry up eventually.

Follow for follow, I still don't get this. Follow the people who's content you actually enjoy and then upvote . If those followers are going to post content that they don't actually want to read they will just skip over it fast and easy thus gaining an empty follower. This tactic might work if you have over 500 followers gained by follow for follow, some of your content might dribble through to interested readers. If you go for the masses, it might work, but I still feel it might not be the right way to go... Follow what you are actually interested in, the good stuff.

The Ugly

The ugly truth of it all is that there will always be the users who are here only to make a quick few bucks. Doing anything to get those extra followers. Resteeming every 2nd post they come across, follow for follow, greeting and following all the new users relentlessly. I'm not saying this is completely the wrong way to go, it really does work for some. But shouldn't we try to focus more on quality content and followers. Having so many empty followers spamming each other with links and depleted upvote strength votes... It just makes the minnow pool grow larger and larger, eventually they push each other out, frustration sets in and we lose new users.

In conclusion

Use any tactic you like, whatever works for you. Try to think about the long run though, the new users and the Steemit ecosystem. Instead let's work harder to create quality content, something that not only the minnows will vote on but a dolphin or whale as well. Some users are great at this and are doing really well. Others are swimming around in the minnow pool creating waves and flushing out some users...

Just my 2 cents, please correct me or educate me in areas where I might be wrong.

Thank you for reading! Steem on Stemians!