Good advice! When I was starting out last summer I didn't understand this and I wish I had not wasted so much time posting when it was clearly not doing much good. After 6 months of solid posting regularly, slowly building an audience and trying to do some investigative journalism I feel like I have finally hit my stride... I initially put in $75.00 USD to buy some steem so I did not start out with nothing -- and then I earned another $75 more while steem was still valued at around $1.00 --- But now that Steem has gone up in value so much that my upvotes really get noticed I have noted that there is more engagement with my stuff. I would encourage newbies to invest a little in buying some Steem so they don't have as long hard a slog as I did getting here.