First visiting Steem looking at the crazy amounts all these posts have mad! It really makes you enthusiastic about the whole thing, it's great! And its most likely what is still motivating me to keep posting here at Steemit, admit it :) But, the earnings don't seem to be such a miracle, or are they ? Let's start off by having a look at some trending posts:
So here's one of the trending posts at the time of writing this- I think I am going to pin point the key factors of why these posts are popular. With this post, it's not fairly long but it is different. This 'excites' ( hmm) people and of course they want to look at it and because it is a interesting post as well as a quality post it seems to deserve their up-vote. That was that post, let's move onto another one.
Now with this post there is not much to say other than it is a 'question and answer' post- if there's a lot of people with a certain question and they see this they are most of the time going to want to have a read. If it answered their question well they will want to give it a nice up-vote as a thank you! But then, don't try creating a post with a answer of two lines- that is not going to get your post respect from people, you want put some time in that is clear to the reader. Most of the time if a answer is one sentence long it is not going to be a very good answer...
One of the last points I am going to mention is the obvious quality and length- don't run for your life and right a bunch of gibberish but make it something reasonable. Nearly all the posts that do well, excluding video posts, are quality posts with a good amount of text. So take that in consideration, like I said before, even if you don't really have to write that much to get your point across it will give it value to potential up-voters and whales. Really though, your posts should be quality anyway, something that you are passionate about. It is a bit like me buying lottery tickets every day relying on it that you will win, you don't actually buy them for that main reason (???), they just are a bit of fun and have the potential to be good. Focus on what you are producing and not what you are gaining sums that up really :)
Now, there are more points but those were just some of the main ones. Well, I might as well just say that emotional posts seem to do good as well for obvious reasons. Let me sum it up for those of you that want a quick answer:
Doing Well On Steemit
Give it quality, it should not be a rushed post
Answer a question that lots of people have- and answer it well
Don't think that your post is going to do well, it then most likely is not going to do so
Be passionate with what your doing and stop being a greedy 'Steem monkey'
Have something interesting to speak about or share
Title your posts well, it is the core of getting your 'soon to become up-voters'
Lastly, put in some of your own touch and just be yourself
Now of course you can add other things you think of to that list such as the obvious like putting in reflective images and good tags... Tell me what you think, if you have had any popular posts do you know why ? I think I should answer your question as well: No, Steemit is not ALL about luck, it is about all the things I spoke about put together with of course some which are just pure lucky posts.