Yes steem follower has been a real helpful boost! Sucks it's down for now. I was lucky enough to have a whale autovote me some. Must have liked something I posted or a comment. I don't know of any good 3rd party tools. I refuse to bid or buy up votes. So right now I'm just putting out whatever to keep in practice. Perhaps if we can get enough followers to autovote that could work, but it's more of a voluntary thing where doesn't seem right to ask for the autovote. However I am considering autovoting some users.... But really I'd rather read it then vote than autovote.