Self curation was originally my first leap over this hurdle. When I really thought about it, this platform is designed for you to do so. You have the option of upvoting your own post before you even post it. Thinking in that term make it very justifiable in my mind, although I don't do it all the time because I like to give my maximum voting power to others.
If you think about your content as your business, why wouldn't you promote your business? If you wouldn't why would anyone else?! So I feel it's mandatory for minnows especially to self promote.
I love what the communities are doing to keep it people oriented, bots help maximize efficiency and it would be silly not to capitalize on that as long as you're down for the rules and direction of the group.
Getting back to bots I think the biggest challenge right now isn't using them, it's how many of them are actually bringing in roi and how many times are you not getting what you invest? Which bots are better than others ?
Just found this post on bots! https://steemit.com/minnowsupport/@fuhreresu/6-bots-to-trust-when-thinking-of-upvoting-your-post