I do love steem-bounty though I don't often remember to go and look for posts that have a bounty on them. I've definitely played bounty hunter before. :-)
I try to keep my tags accurate. I didn't find much help in tagging communities (and with only 5 tags to use...) so I don't do that anymore.
Discord is very useful and though it's not a pure form of organic following, I actually appreciate the groups that ask for a certain amount of engagement before dropping links (but I find I can't manage that every post, so often, it's in a different group.)
I also drop links on Facebook groups for the purpose, though those seem to have very low engagement.
I even use my Google+ account to organize my links so they're not lost and gone forever once they're past easy scrolling.
But what's the best way to promote? Becoming engaged with others! That's my no. 1. Regardless of whether you do this through Discord, contests, communities or off Steem, it's the best way to let people know you care - and to get them to check you out. If you're down on upvotes/follows, that's the first thing to try. (If you don't have the RC, there's always Discord.)