Honestly, I do not think good content is enough.
You can have great content but the issue is the same here on Steemit as well as in the physical world; consumers. You can have great content/products all day long, but if there is not a consumer for your product, you are not going anywhere.
A great product/content is only have of the equation. If you don’t have a large following (large market), or a large follower(whale/distributor) then you won’t make much in the way of profits/up votes, and even good feedback/conversation about your product.
The “successful” equation in my opinion is a good product combined with a good follower base (market), where either one can fluctuate based on the other. So for instance, you can have ok content but have a huge following and you will be just as successful, if not more than someone who has outstanding content but no followers (market).
That is my personal observations thus far, the follower base size and the quality of those followers is what will determine you success rate. That is if you are going for profits as quickly as possible.
This opinion is excluding the use of bots; which I see you already have started experimenting with that market base.
I totally agree with you. I even you that an additional item to the equation: having good luck.
True, luck can also be a major factor.
The time of day when you post has been shown to matter... a lot... as another example. It's part of the luck.
If all the other things are being done (expert at something people want to know more about, good writer, etc.), you still need a decent amount of followers too.
Pennies add up. I've seen people who couldn't write well at all and that didn't have much expertise still do well by marketing themselves. When they do that, they end up with 5K followers. Those small upvotes add up.
I don't recommend people depend on finding whales to support them. Work on marketing, your expertise, and your writing ability instead. If a whale supports you, that's a wonderful thing indeed. Just don't depend on them. That's a recipe for disaster.
Yes, exactly. This explains why gaming videos on dlive do so well as one example, or how people talking about liberty do so well (on here at least).
It isn't just how well someone writes or the formatting of their post. They have to have a product that is desired by the market. If someone is posting about something that a thousand other people are also posting about, they had better be in the top 1-5% of that market. Otherwise they will not do well.
Gaming videos is another good way to explain that issue. I could post gaming videos, but I suck at them. Therefore, no one would support me no matter how well they were produced. Someone who's very good at a game however can easily profit from it. People will learn from them and be highly entertained by their content.
Being able to write well helps though no matter what your expertise is. Everyone can benefit from becoming a better writer. I write about private investigation and residential security. Those are my two primary passions in life, and I don't write about them to profit. I'm sharing my wisdom to help people instead.