Steemit - more questions than answers?

As a new member of Steemit and wanting to make an impact, as well as some extra cash, I have read a lot of articles on what works and what doesn’t.

There seems to be many contradictions about the optimum ways of getting a large number of followers, upvotes and comments.

1. Quality content verses payed for votes what gets the most attention, and is there any truth to the notion that quality content will always rise to the to placed out there by the wealthy writers.
2. Quality content verses paid for votes - what gets the most attention, and is there any truth to the notion that quality content will always rise to the top above some average content placed out there by the wealthy writers?
3. Commenting in order to gain reputation and upvotes - can you become noticed by the major players merely by making comments often. It seems that many minnows comment and vote only when they believe that they will get reciprocal votes.
4. Following whales and voting for their content will get them voting on your posts?
5. The time of posting - it appears that this is quite critical in order not to get lost among the hundreds of posts per minute.

I woud love to hear which of these strategies have worked for you or any other thoughts regarding the process of becoming noticed and ultimately making extra cash through the Steemit platform.