You would do very well to learn from @eric-boucher's success.
As far as up voting your own comment it is controversial. Keep in mind a few points!
1.)Some are investors in Steem and would like to create a return. Can we complain if they do a little self up voting?
2.) There are many on this platform who have given away thousands in SBD or Steem as prizes so the funds are still spread around.
3.) Some up vote there own comment if they think that it's important and they'd lilke it to be more visible.
4.) Some may spend half an hour on a detailed comment should they be allowed to pay themselves for their efforts?
My rule of thumb: I only up vote my own comments if they have already received an up vote from someone else and I never overdo it. I invest a lot of time in communicating with people and trying to answer everyone's comments and so the odd tip is helpful.
You can use this tool to see what percentage of self voting you or others are doing. www.steemreports.com
Also @jerrybanfield wrote an excellent article on this topic.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@jerrybanfield/self-upvoting-by-the-top-100-authors-on-steem
I hope that this info helps!
Thanks for elaborating. Very helpful! I like the policy of self-upvoting only if it's already received a positive vote from someone else.