Heya @jongolson! I have no idea how I missed this one, but you're right on the money with comments and engagement! A number of us have been "preaching" this since day one, bringing testimonials from communities long before there was a Steem/Hive.

Aside from the various Newbie Support challenges way-back-when, I think the most massive event we had happened in late 2017 when @merej99 ran the great "Community Engagement Challenge." As I recall, something on the order of 50 people participated, and it was something like 12 posts and 500 (real!) comments in two weeks to get a "completion certificate"... with daily prizes, whale upvotes, winners prizes. I think maybe 20(?) of us actually made it to the goal, but all of us ended up with significantly more active accounts and new friendships.

And, of course, let's not forget Asher's (@abh12345) weekly Engagement Leagues which includes many of Hive's most active community members... yet, surprisingly many people don't know about it, but it's definitely the next layer of the gamification of social blogging... and it works!

500 Comments is not a lot — says I, because I comment a lot — but it really does help. For those interested in doing this, you don't have to keep track of your comments... just head over to https://hivebuzz.me/ranking and make yourself a dated screen shot (kinda like this) as a starting point... and then just go out there and engage!

A bit late, but I'll reblog this for visibility.