Firstly I wanted to see if it is difficult to get started on Steemit with a new account. Basically, I'd say no it's not, but it makes things a lot easier if you can invest a bit of money in the platform from the outset.
500SP in your wallet means you get a vote slider and that makes a big difference to your voting. This can be delegated from another account, or you could buy it - at today's prices with Steem at less than US$1.50 that would cost under US$750, so right now might be a good time to buy with all cryptos being low at the moment.
I am predicting they will recover, but cryptos are always a gamble. So far I've mostly done OK, but we are all just one balls up away from getting spanked.
If I was starting out in cryptos today, Steem would be my first investment. Then Etherium, Etherium Classic, and Dash. But not Bitcoin or EOS.
Yes, you can make a small profit using bots - if you spend $50 buying upvotes you can make about 10% profit, so you make $5 in the end. Not being into maths I'm trying to keep this simple here. I have found the best bot for turning a profit is 
This is a complex subject, and there is a lot more to it, but buying votes is a quick way to get an account started. It makes you look like a mover and shaker with a huge dick. It does require more $ investment though.
Forget about trending - the trending posts are a bunch of bullshit and it requires hundreds or even thousands of $ of botvotes to get to the top of trending. Personally I think around $50 is a good value of botvotes to buy on a post, but I'm a boring middle class fart.
Bots also help to bring your reputation up - use bots with a high rep like 
To buy bot votes, this site makes things very easy - https://steembottracker.com
So I've played around with all the bots now to test them out (some are better than others), and from now on I'll use them more strategically.
I'm not using bots on my 
Another new (for me) thing I want to try is doing short posts - just a picture and a quick line of text - sort of like a Tweet, but a Steem tweet, so a SWEET.
Don't worry, I won't bot upvote those because I'd feel like a dickhead, but I will self upvote them 100% because I'm not really a whale, but I would like to grow this account into a big frolicking dolphin
So I could see what its like starting out as a newb on Steemit, I didn't tell my
Yes back in the old days it was really easy to get started on Steemit, so us old timers have no idea. Sort of like how old farts in general have no idea about how millennials have been oppressed and forced into being either male or female.
But the time has come, I'm coming up to my two year Steemit anniversary, and I'm going to start telling my followers about this account. I'm working on an announcement - this is the first draft:
"I have been two timing you all, I have a second identity. I am also called 
