It is difficult to compete against bots as someone who joined Steemit in Jan it has been difficult to gain upvotes and support.
I want to be able to reward those who reward me but am finding it hard to grow my own account to be able to give out upvotes.
I'd recommend making a few friends and circling through with them. I have a few people I regularly comment and upvote and save my upvotes for them.
Happy to add you to that circle of friends if you'd like to join us.
As a newbi here on steemit you are going to want to join some discords like @thesteemengine or @steemitbloggers, so you can grow your friends list and become part of a community who will also support you. It all takes a long time on steemit to really get on top. There are also monthly upvote subscriptions available where they give u up to $1 per post so you aren't sitting with a few cents. I don't mind the idea behind bid bots at all. Its a great way to advertise your content but it has just gotten out of control with the size of the upvotes which is messing with the system.
I don't like to circle jerk my votes because it keeps me locked into one place and doesn't allow me to grow the way I feel necessary, but I did follow you and if I see a good article you will definitely get my vote :)