Any kind of post attracts attention. I'm pretty new myself, so I don't have a lot of experience.
I've learned that most Steemit users (so far) are English speakers in the US and UK, and most of those people are active between 0700 EST and 2300EST roughly 7am-11pm Eastern.
HOT topics are the top 5 tags on the list to the right of your screen. Be cautious though because writing in a hot topic, just because it's hot, without having knowledge and passion about the topic won't get you any votes.
Write what you know, write what you love! Chances are you're not the only one with your specific interests. When you write what you know and love other people who love it will follow you.
Read and comment on other people's content (and upvote). Making friends on Steemit increases your following and in turn your potential earnings. It's also generally good to make friends!
DON'T GIVE UP! Write because you like to write, not because you get paid for it. Keep writing. Write for $0.00. Write for $100.00. Write until your fingers fall off. Very few Steem success stories put in less than 4 posts a day and many good quality comments.
Reinvest. Pump some of your "Steem" into "Steem Power", the higher your Steem Power the greater the impact your votes have on curation. People who notice that your vote earned them $2 are more likely to take an interest in you than people who see your vote was only $0.01.
Keep on Steemin!
I gotta say, that's a really good and extremely well explained answer! Kudos to you, I'd love to be able to upvote more than once so I could give more than 0.01$ lol
As for hours that's really interesting, I'll try to post between those hours as it shouldn't be an issue since I'm from Canada and I'm in Eastern time too.
English seems to be the language the people mainly use yeah, maybe I'll try to post in French too but I don't see a big French community on steemit yet.
Followed you!