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Not at all costs though. Do it through actual work that is appreciated rather than buying it or self-voting. I'd consider 50% self-voting excessive.

That’s true.... I need to do better.

Well I mentioned you in my Follow Friday post to give you a chance. You have lots of followers, but maybe not enough are active.

Thanks. Much appreciated. I have a lot of new Steemit artists following me... I run a Facebook “Steemit Artists” Group as a way of bringing struggling artists from Facebook over to Steemit. Most of them have very little Steem Power and are trying to figure out how anybody earns Steem here.

Well I hope you will give them lots of votes. Give them more than you give yourself. The community will appreciate that. Promote them with re-steems and maybe a Follow Friday post. Those who work to build the community do get noticed.

I Upvote them but with my Upvote value so low I wanted to concentrate on increasing my Steem Power to give more..... and failed miserably,

You can at least give them a few cents. I'd suggest getting your work into a few contests. Use apps that vote up users, e.g. eSteem. These are better ways to earn something in my opinion.

I'd also suggest not posting too often. 3 or 4 times a day should be okay. If you have too much then people may not want to follow you, but see what works for you.