Yes, it's a lot like boosting a post on FB. I had dead pages on there for years, then at a certain point I resigned myself to the fact that if I didn't boost, I would not get my stuff seen. So when I came to Steemit I was already prepared to have to invest a little in getting traction. Thankfully I learned about the bots very early on.

I think you still have to prioritize creating good content, but also realize that putting even $5 into a little boost for a given post using bots will greatly decrease the time it takes to get that good writing seen by someone.