Auto voting would be the death of us all. Let me just give my brief background: I am a red fish and the first time I became a member of the steemit world, there are a lot of updates encouraging me to join teams or groups that basically promises to upvote my content. Some are even demanding payment for their services either in steem, steem power or steem dollar. I did not join those groups basically because I wanted to be known for the quality of my work and not on which group I belong into. Another reason was that, I really cannot afford their services and, I do not really want to spend my painfully earned tokens for such a thing.
Sometimes, it gets really offending mainly because some of the trending posts would often turn out to be a disappointment. Whenever I try to look closely at any of those disappointing posts, I would often stumble links or tie ups to autobots or groups that demand to upvote your work if you do the same to them or, you pay them in steem, steem power or steem dollar.
What I just want to suggest is for the steemit management to stop this practice as people starts earning a lot for very discouraging contents. Also, I just want to give a piece of my mind for those who joined the steemit community primarily to earn a lot without contributing much: steemit is not a get-rich-fast gig. It takes a lot of time to build one's content, reputation and niche(I'm still trying to find my footing!). If you guys wanted to earn legitimately, why not try legitimate ways like doing a lot of steem bounty, steemit hunts or simply posting in your accounts?
In early days, weeks, months it is good to join (discord) communities though. They are often the key to find your earliest followers. How else will one get noticed.
No matter how long you plan to be here and how long you think the marathon is, networking is of utmost importance. There is no magic search service like Google which will eventually absorb the quality content and drive traffic in exchange. This is mostly the feed life.
But seeing you are active on Steemhunt... keep at it and after a while your level will increase and some rewards will be generated via it. Steemhunt is also a marathon, especially for new members. It takes a while to achieve those first levels.
thanks for the advise. I am frankly not against discord groups- I am actually a member in some of them- aside from those who have upvote for upvote or requires me to pay up to be promoted.