SteemFollower is an amazing way to add value to your Steemit accounts, and reward yourself for each vote you place. And yes, there is real value to be had here.
I'm not sure if there's a better endorsement than that! I just hope I don't get yelled at for giving up the secret.
Unfortunately, owing perhaps to the very "Beta" graphic design, I still see far fewer users using it than they should! I hope I can convince a few of you with this post (and if I do, by all means, use my referral link from my signature for a points bonus.)
SteemFollower is a simple concept. Vote someone any amount, let's say 1 SBD, and you get 1 SBD worth of points out of that person's pool, let's call that 100 points. So, the more you vote on others without receiving votes in return, the larger your pool of points becomes.
That system alone is excellent at rewarding generosity, but Steemfollower goes further. To ensure that the most generous users are the first to be rewarded back, the "Trending" pages on SteemFollower are ranked by points, not on pending reward.
These users are raking in value everyday as their posts are seen by thousands more users on every single page load. You can only have one post visible on SF at a time (no need to submit, it's automatic), so high-point users are not able to clog the Trending.
Of course, another option that I showed above, is to sell your points. You can buy points on the internal market either to receive upvotes or to promote your posts passively by increasing your ranking in trending. SBD payments for points go directly to the buyer's Steemit account, thanks to @Mahidyari's work on the marketplace bot.
One final way to use points is to turn on post promotion, which burns double points when you receive a vote but stickies your post to the top of Trending (much more useful than Promoted on Steemit, which is actually a separate section.) This is very difficult to abuse due to the natural point drain from receiving votes - only the most generous users with large votes can regularly populate the promotion spots.
SteemFollower has recently been streamlined and improved in both end-user quality, and the quality it adds to the blockchain. The "Follower" side of the platform has been completely removed, after @Mahidyari determined it wasn't adding value for enough users. I agree with the decisions and I'm glad I don't feel obligated to look through it every day!
So, what's the catch? Well, Steemfollower requires you to vote 5 times per day through Steemfollower to have your posts visible, so there's that. However, 1% votes are OK. You need a non-zero point amount to be seen on SF anyway, so this restriction is not really an issue. Plus, this avoids the need to manually submit your posts to SF - your most recently posted (or edited) post is automatically the one shown.
The only real drawback to Steemfollower is you are dealing with a more Beta interface than Steemit, and therefore there is far less content. You have to dig for good posts sometimes. I keep a list of favorite authors that makes this a lot easier, and thankfully Steemfollower remembers your searches in the auto-complete. Steemfollower continues to add new categories to help, and the more users who enroll the less of a problem this will be.
Security is handled by SteemConnect, so there are no worries about giving up keys. You set your own market password.
Steemfollower is one reason I have to keep my auto-voter percentages so low (in case any of you were wondering, the other is I have 150+ authors on it...) I do most of my curation, manually, through SF! If you're on my voter, and you join SF, let me know in the comments or on Discord, and I'll add you to my voting list (I won't see your posts if my auto-voter is still on for them!)
If you have more questions, bug @reko, he's a nicer guy than I am.
If you have any additions or errata for this post, please let me know! I will see that they are voted to the top of the comments, and will make the appropriate edits (if possible).
We also have a Radio Station! (click me)
...and a 5000+ active user Discord Chat Server! (click me)
Sources: @mahdiyari
Copyright: SteemFollower, Google, CNN, Shutterstock, Aggroed for the moped joke "retread"