My advice is to alter your posts in the beginning to go along with daily challenges. The thumbnail and the first photo need to go along with the theme - such as BeachWednesday. Your text and other photos can be about anything. @kalemandra does daily color challenges and @uwelang always has a long list of what challenges are going on in any challenge post he publishes.
At least you get eyeballs with the challenges and can get part of your message out. i make more on those than any regular post I do.
Next - contests and giveaways are good to post in if they ask for links. I get all kinds of response on those because the person doing the contest is happy to talk to people who enter
I'm giving up and writing about steemit though in my next few posts :)
Wow, great comment!