RE: Why is it important to follow and upvote small accounts? - The key to a healthy community growth.
I've noticed that there are a lot of "dolphin" and "orca" accounts giving "follow for follows" and "upvote for upvotes", basically helping each other to grow, providing close to equal support, both ways.
This is an intelligent way to both help oneself (cuz, let's face it, we mostly act out of self-interest) and to lift the heart of the community -- the lower and middle class.
I tend to seek out authors who post similar content to what I post, or plan to post in the future, to try to develop this type of "relationship", if you will. I feel this type of "internal circle of support" is really the backbone of a strong and sustainable community.
The "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" is a key mentality for the lower and middle class of Steemit, if we really want to build ourselves up without having to depend on whales to do it.
Exactly! I mean, I think we all do this, myself included. I think It is something it develops through time and with the people i do it it is like an unspoken agreement as long as both accounts keep posting wuality content.
I like how you think. The thing is, if we engage in that same "realtionship" with other accounts no matter if they are similar in steem power or followers and we focus on the sole content maybe it will help some smaller accounts to become bigger. It might not sound like a "fair trade" if we do this with a really small account but also I think we (I include myself) should see the upvote as a tradeable coin in which where you upvote me I will to you.
And yes, I consider myself lower middle class hehe and that kind of thought trully is what makes us not so dependable of whales, let´s just share the love with the new and smaller accounts :)
I agree that helping build up small accounts is an important thing to focus on as well (for the higher SP accounts), because it's the minnow accounts that make up the highest percentage of Steemit users, BY FAR.
It's important to keep them interested in using Steemit, because they make up the majority of people who will advertise for and on-board new users to the platform.
That's why I make a special effort to find quality content by new users and upvote it at 100% (even though I usually upvote people that I follow at 50% to extend my voting power to include more content). But I can't do it too much or I wouldn't have any voting power left to support the middleclass followers who support me.
So, there's a balance that we need to meet, if we both want to grow our own accounts and help to grow Steemit.
I have to play devil's advocate a little here, I feel like there is some detriment to "follow for follow" style networking.
There are many examples of accounts, especially outside of steem, where "follow for follow" leads to thousands of followers, etc, but in a very spammy way. Soundcloud, a popular independent music streaming site, has a big problem with this.
I'd argue that it is better to curate and engage with great content WITHOUT asking for follows and upvotes in return. Be generous and give, give, give. In my personal experience, this has worked wonderfully and forces me to create great content to earn attention and income.
I agree with you for the most part.
Just to be clear, I've never asked for a follow-back and have only announced that I've followed someone maybe four or five times out of the 120+ accounts that I follow. As @anomadsoul said in reply to my comment to him, what I'm implying is: "it is like an unspoken agreement as long as both accounts keep posting quality content."
I don't simply go around upvoting and following everyone that uses those keywords and then ask them to return the favor. Rather, I find the authors who produce quality content for those keywords and try to develop the type of relationship with them in which we can essentially build off of each other's contributions and/or compliment/ reinforce them with our own style/ input. In other words, the type of relationship which is mutually beneficial, in which both parties grow.
So, while I will comment, upvote and follow certain individuals with the agenda in mind to help my own following (account) grow (acting in self-interest), it's not without real intention to also help that person's account, and the community itself, to grow. I want the keyword to grow and everybody who focuses their blog on it.