Great advice, resteemed. Hubby and I were just talking about this over coffee. He looked up one person we both enjoy following, and that individual has not upvoted a single thing. We both shook our heads over this....
Now that in person meetups are happening in my area, it is very noticeable that enthusiastic Steemians are well versed in "meaningful engagement "
Interesting point... and you bring up a whole new wrinkle in the equation: People are having meetups, and that can really jump start organic interaction; it's one of the "good" things from Facebook-- people there DO know a lot of the people on their friends list "personally," as a result of which it becomes harder to "fake" interaction.
Occasionally, it's difficult. For example, I have somewhat over 3,600 followers... there is absolutely no way on Earth I could possibly hope to check them all out, and still have time to sleep for the next four weeks. I can barely keep up with 1/7th as many (about 500) that I follow.
So comments become really important. I might not follow someone (and that doesn't mean I don't "value" them), but if I see their name regularly it's a good bet it'll turn into a spontaneous return visit to their content. But still, many days are like this one: I have already left about 30 comments today, and only TWO of those were on someone else's top level posts.