The first hundred or so followers I got was from being part of newbie contests and initiatives like #newbieresteemday and #newbiegames, and from meeting people in #introduceyourself. The second hundred or so were from joining communities, particularly #teamgirlpowa. If you find a good community, that'll be a lot of friends by default. Of course it's your responsibility as a community member to participate and not just leech off everyone for their help.

I have to say that putting on a contest has brought in a ton of new followers. I expected that I'd make a few friends but so far I've gotten about 80 new followers and maybe 20-30 I've followed back (I only haven't followed the rest back because I haven't had time to check out everyone else's blogs and sometimes I miss when someone added me). But the prize I'm giving away is pretty large and I had a lot of people help me promote it, and I sort of turned it into a bit of an extravaganza.

The best way to organically and consistently bring in new followers is to create quality content and to add value to other people's posts through upvotes and comments. You should especially do that in the 24 hours after writing a quality post that you'd be proud to have as the first thing people see.

So I'd say the biggest things are participating in newbie initiatives that are specifically designed to get you those follows and get you up and running, to post great content, to contribute to other people's work, and one day, if you come into a windfall of SBD that you wouldn't mind parting with, hold a contest and have your friends help you promote it. Giving away #steembasicincome shares is great because you get one share with every one you give, so you get something back too.