If you are a minnow and you have not bought in a considerable amount of steem, the best approach would be add meaningful comments on trending posts, upvote and resteem good posts until you cross 55 rep or have more than 1000 followers. This may not be always true but in most cases for minnows this is a better approach.

If you are not worried about the rewards and are writing for the sake of joy rewards are only an added benefit.