Nothing is guaranteed in the Hive. I guess your test confirmed that. Apart from automatic votes, I think there is a lot more people should do to get votes.
- Engagement
- Quality posts
- Posting in Right Community
- Using Correct Tags
- Good Thumbnail and Title
Ooops, I hope my posts are not concerned by all of your points!
I must admit that I don't have a single clue why this particular post performs so bad compared to the previous one.
I used a grammar and syntax app to check my English (first time), I made a special thumbnail pic, writing it took me a good amount of time, and the topic and the tags are comparable.
Concerning the engagement, I try... It's difficult cause I'm not the kind of person who's comfortable talking about a subject I don't know, and I don't like to do smalltalks.
I try to follow the Dev community, but I'm more a Data guy than a Dev guy, so many post are our of my area of expertise.
You don't need to talk about you don't know and you are doing good by not doing smalltalks because it's fake. However we have a lot communities and there are posts for everyone. For example travel, photography, general life, gaming, movies & TV shows. I am sure some of these topics are something you can talk about.
You're right, I probably miss interesting content here and there!
I'll look around to find more stuff I like!