First of all, as someone who apparently has some knowledge regarding this subject: Why do people like to make videos of themselves in their cars?
You and I seem to have the same train of thought when it comes to forging connections in this community. In fact, just yesterday I decided to give myself a small challenge. Nothing fancy, I just went and wanted to create 100 quality comments/replies to people in one fell swoop.
You can read up on that here, if you want.
I wasn't rushing doing it, it took about 3-4 hours to complete the challenge from start to finish. Within the same time frame, I usually can write 1-2 posts, depending on how indepth and lengthy it becomes.
Using that same time to actively engage with posters of all kinds of different schools of expertise was exciting to say the least. I managed to increase my follower count by a bit, whether these will be quality followers remains to be seen. I also got quite a few upvotes in the process and also found a lot of content that I actually enjoyed.
I am a fast reader, so that definitively helped. Overall, I think that this challenge is a good way to bring people back into actively making connections and creating actual relationships between the poster and the follower.
This is just my third week on Steemit and I am creeping up to 300 followers. By the time I have been around here for as long as you have, I hope that I will be able to reach the same milestone as you did. Perhaps an even greater one.