That's an awesome question, @peppernickle!
I think there might be a few strategies that have worked for people, but my advice is to keep to small, interesting posts for now, and save some of your best ideas for when you have worked up some followers, especially ones who like to resteem your posts. Outright asking to be followed kind of goes against the etiquette.
Gain those followers by making meaningful comments on their posts and resteeming them, however, you don't want to flood your followers' feeds with stuff they aren't interested in, so be selective. Watch how the successful people are structuring their posts and how they are tagging them, too.
I think you've been doing great so far with your content! People seem to like short, to the point, and personal. I feel like long, wordy posts are best saved for when you have an audience who already knows that it's going to be worth their time to read what you have to say.
Anyone else have advice for him?