There's a lot of good comments here and honestly I haven't read them all. I hope I don't overlap too much. Here's a few things I learned, participating for a few weeks.
I'm learning to go 100% power up when posting. Young steemers need to gather as much steem power as possible.
You can 'bribe' the system by purchasing steem power. It's always easier to make money if you spend money. Even in the crypto-currency world. I haven't done this yet, but I should. :-)
Finding a good content creator and following all of their followers (Any follower of yours, I'm willing to 'follow') is a great way to find like-minded steemers to connect with. Be diligent in replying to new and older posts on your feed and offer interesting or valuable or funny or even controversial replies. Strike up a conversation, people like to talk.
I learned that every upvote lowers your 'voting power'. I've been so generous and indiscriminate with my upvotes that they began loosing their effectiveness. I checked my 'voting power' and it was down to 25 percent (ouch). I cooled it with the upvoting and the next day it was up to 35 percent. I've heard it recommended to only vote about 20 times per day (might have to verify that one)
vote for @timcliff as a witness. Thank you for encouraging us little minnows and giving us an opportunity to share what we've learned so far.
Following, upvoting, resteeming, and voting. The works baby! @ironshield
This is great. I just joined today and I'm trying to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can before I start posting. This post and this reply specifically have made things clearer. Thank you very much.
Thank you! All great advice ;)
One extra tip - with the current price of SBD worth more than a dollar, if you do 50/50 payout, and then use the SBD from the payout to buy STEEM and power it up, you will get more SP than if you use the 100% payout option. It also helps to drive up the price of STEEM :)
Thanks, appreciate the addendum! Steem on! @ironshield