If you're new to Steemit, It can be overwhelming on where to get started and how you can find success on here. There's more to this platform than just getting paid but here's some tips that could help.

Interact with the community

The obvious way to do that is create posts but when you vote and leave comments and reply on posts, that can help you gain some followers and allows others to see what you're about. It's putting yourself out there and having that communication that can help with finding that success on Steemit. You'll most likely end up having your posts shared and resteemed by others to not only show how great of a content you created, but also to show some support.

You want to build relationships with fellow Steemians because, well... that's part of what social media is all about.

A couple of places outside of the Steemit website you can interact is https://steemit.chat or one one of my personal favorite that you can find me in is Steemspeak on Discord chat (I would recommend downloading and installing the app). You can share your links to your posts to get more exposure on your content and have conversations with your favorite Steemians.

Steemit.chat

Steemspeak on Discord

Use the many tools developed by fellow Steemians

We have some awesome developers on this platform that has built useful tools. You can check out http://steemtools.com to see a growing list of sites and tools to help you maximize your success on Steemit. A few I would recommend for new users would be:

https://steemd.com

Developed by @roadscape, you can see some information and the transactions that happen on the blockchain for a particular user. All you need to do is to add @ next to the username you want to look up in the address bar like so: https://steemd.com/@roadscape.

@roadscape is also a witness so feel free to give him a vote. If you are not familiar about what a witness is, you can check out this awesome post by @teamsteem that explains what they are and do for the platform https://steemit.com/witness/@teamsteem/what-are-steem-witnesses-and-why-you-should-support-them.

https://steemdb.com

This site is similar to steemd.com but has a bit more features like checking your vote power or data on your posts, followers, etc.

Developed by @jesta, also another witness you can vote for. He also has another similar site he developed you can check out that has a little different layout https://steemstats.com.

Again there's a long growing list of other tools for you to use if you check out http://steemtools.com.

Post Presentation

source

You can liven up your posts with learning markdown and html. You can do a simple google search and find the many sites that can teach you how to format your text and images on your posts. Here's a markdown cheatsheet I found:
https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet

Here's the example of the code to get the image formatted on the right and text on the left.

Code:

<div class="pull-right"><center><img src="http://www.emoji.co.uk/files/phantom-open-emojis/smileys-people-phantom/12299-thumbs-up-sign.png" /><br/><em><a href="http://www.emoji.co.uk/view/1338/">source</a></em></center></div>

<br>You can liven up your posts with learning markdown and html. You can do a simple google search and find the many sites that can teach you how to format your text and images on your posts. Here's a markdown cheatsheet I found:
https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet

Here's the example of the code to get the image formatted on the right and text on the left.

Create original content

You better your chances for a more successful post if you create your own original content than just copying an article from a website or sharing other's content on your posts. Originality is what users tend to reward here on Steemit and with good reason.

Try to create your own images and type out your own text. A lot of times you may need to find an image online to better get your message across so citing your sources can help.

Use the proper tags

This is self-explanatory. If you use the wrong tags, it can make difficult to organize the content users go through on Steemit and could lead to a less weighted vote on your post.

Keep posting

Some find success faster than others but when you continue to post your content, you will eventually get recognized. It can take time to build a following and earn a reputation among the community.

Learn about crypto-currency

Since you are rewarded Steem and SBD, you want to cash in on those rewards but this can be confusing for those that are new to crypto-currency in general. Here's a post from @contentjunkie that shows how to transfer your tokens over to Bittrex exchange to turn it into bitcoins!
https://steemit.com/bittrex/@contentjunkie/how-to-transfer-steem-backed-dollars-to-your-bittrex-account-and-sell-them-on-the-open-market