What I did was allot at least 1-2 hours per day on Steemit
Steemit (or any other steem platforms) not only requires "decent to exceptional contents" but also "constant" social interactions.
In order for anyone to improve his/her Steem experience, one must go out of their comfort zone and start to interact with other fellow steemians with more or less the same interests as yours.
From what I've seen, people who don't bother visiting other people's blog are often unsuccesfull here on Steem
i think the social interaction is a lot more necessary at low level (monetary) than the actual content, ive seen really crud-posts go in the thousands , people explaining why steemit is the new bitcoin ... with no real facts underlaid, just looking in a crystal ball, telling everyone what they wanna hear, then make sure it gets pumped to trending or hot
i notice i get about the same for posting a picture of my dishes than i do for the fluffiest picture of my cat, the content really doesnt mean all that much in the beginning, not unless you have a nice master to roll over to lol
so the social interaction might get you some attention , and especially trying to reply to any comment thats more than "nice post, k thx" lol
then , unless you're a cryptonnaire before you started you might find your niche, (as you say) people with same interests
all too true, i spend a lot of time on it , it grows
SLOW but it does lol, if i could throw a few 1000 at it from the start id be marching on already, but i dont have that, sadly
people who say its all about the content and nothing bout the money or how "it should not be" are blinded to reality imo ...
pop sells , so does silly, just look at the frontpages of twitter and youtube ... its all total bs, right ?
same thing here, its all a mirror of real life