Ok. Here are a couple of things to play with to help you succeed on Hive:
Do an Introduction Post. This will help more people find you (because there are people on here whose job it is to look after newbies and they deliberately look every day for introduction posts). Check out mine as an example. (Click on my Profile. Go to Posts. Scroll to the bottom to find the Intro post. See what I did. And if you want to check that I am a legitimate source of info on Hive as you scroll through the posts you'll see the frequency with which I've posted since I started and amount of money I've received for these posts).
Know that long form content is currently king on here. So a short post like your latest smiley face one is probably going to get mostly ignored and even frowned upon (even though your ability to find smiley faces in cool, unexpected places is a fun thing for us to see 😄), while posts like this one about Morning Blossoms, where you have several photos and at least one whole paragraph are going to be better received (... over time, even if they aren't right now; people are still finding you). The highest quality posts you can do and make them your semi-regular, somewhat consistent sharing, the better you'll do on here. It doesn't have to be hard or a lot of work. You don't have to do 1000 word posts like me, but maybe aim for a minimum of 1-3 photos + 1-3 paragraphs that link to the photos.
Follow some more people with high reputation numbers (the number next to your name, e.g. mine is 65 who also post about things that interest you. Here are a few great people you might like to follow and learn from who post regularly, don't get scared by market dips and that I think you might also like: riverflows, indayclara, phortun, traciyork, tengolotodo and my partner new.things.
@wannatrailwithme, I can see that there's a bunch of things you already know how to do and are doing well. Tags ✔️ Finding relevant Communities ✔️ Finding people to follow ✔️ Posting about things that interest you ✔️ If you can start to layer in just these three things I mentioned above, even over the next month or so, your following and your success will start to grow.
Hope you are well and may we see you thrive on Hive!
Thanks @consciouscat for spending time to write this and all the helpful tips. You are a fantastic writer, and getting your idea put to words well. I never know what else to add on to my posts, just some blips of fun I find.
You're welcome @wannatrailwithme. And writing gets easier and easier the more you do it. Just remember not to worry too much what other people think and just write about whatever interests you and you feel like sharing :)