Great posts like this (and your other wide variety of posts of course) are why I'm following you papa-pepper. Congrats on hitting the milestone!
Edit: Maybe you disagree, but I think one of the most effective way to gain followers is to simply remind people that they can follow you at the end of your posts. I started doing this before there was a feed or home page, knowing that it would probably be a valuable reminder for the future. I don't know how many followers I had before the feed was implemented, but it may have been over 100.
I use a sort of standard format for the end of my posts, but switch it up depending on the content. For food posts, I've lately started saying "If this post made you hungry in a good way..." For guide posts I have written "If you found this helpful..." etc.
Yeah I noticed that a lot of people do that now, but I never have yet...
Could I have picked up more by doing it? Probably.
When they implemented letting us see the number of followers, I was blown a way to have 50, because I knew of about 5. Now, I gain 100 some weeks, which is crazy, and another 13 or so overnight.
I think that you are right though, if you remind people that they can follow you, more will probably choose to click "follow" right then.
Great point @pfunk
I've been including a footer since I've been blogging - even before Steemit. It reminds people that there's more than that particular article. :)
I also added a follow link to the homepage before we had the feature. @pfunk's advice is straight on. it's never too late @papa-pepper to this. don't fall trap to the consistency bias, please :)
Ok, maybe I'll remind people that they can follow me...
Thanks for the encouragement @cristi!