hey @papa-pepper, you wrote 2015/16 in your post, I think you meant 2016/17!
I was also able to grow on STEEMIT the past year in a similar way, as I described in my last post, "HOWTO Get Attention on STEEMIT without PISSING PEOPLE OFF! 😱".
The key was to slowly and steadily build a following, never giving up (despite sometimes having strings of nearly 2 dozen ZERO payout posts!), sticking through the "tough times", and just focusing on writing high-quality posts (including commenting on other posts), regardless of the price of SP (yet still powering up). The end result sort of speaks for itself! 😊