If you're new to Steemit or have been around for a while and haven't been rewarded much do not despair. Keep posting your interests, engage in the community, build your reputation and you'll eventually be rewarded. Whatever category you're focused on, one of your posts should eventually get noticed and gain traction. Furthermore, when the payout distribution from the whales spreads to the dolphins who are greater in number and consequently have a greater diversity of interests, there will eventually be a broader distribution of payouts that you'll benefit from. That said, it's also smart to be strategic with your posts. If you can create unique content in the higher payout categories you'll have a much greater chance of making the big bucks. Below are the best categories to consider:

The Top 3

The hottest categories are ones that involve the Steem blockchain, or the Steemit website. Naturally valuable news, projects, ideas that inspire, help or motivate the Steemit community will be rewarded. In the past there have been grumblings from members about having too many Steem posts, but incredible value is generated in many of these posts. Steemd, Steemle, Steemstream, SteemImg, @xeroc's Piston, are among the technical projects that have been developed and rewarded. If you're a programmer this is a great platform to get rewarded for building something useful for the community. The community will also reward any well written posts about how to improve the platform. Lastly ideas or marketing initiatives to acquire users are incredibly important. Most of my personal success has come in the marketing category.

Here are just a few ideas you might think about:

What can you do to help Steemit? If you're a programmer you can build a useful project and be rewarded. If you're non-technical you can share ideas or lead an outreach initiative. If you have a huge social media following share/tweet/post about Steemit. Whatever you do let the community know!

Think of something creative to get some attention from large groups of people and online communities.

Reach out to a celebrity. The more publicity you can get Steemit the more you'll be rewarded! You might even gain the courage to do your own publicity stunt for Steemit! The next most important category is #introduceyourself where you should post your introduction. @cryptoctopus shares some great insights here: The Secret Formula to a Successful "IntroduceYourself" Post...And The #1 Mistake to Avoid. These days you need to verify yourself to the community. The more you share about yourself with photos or videos the better you'll do. You only have one chance to make a first impression. Your intro post is the foundation of your reputation on Steemit. A lot of people give short introductions without realizing how important it is to get this right. If there is one post to spend time and effort on it's the intro post. Don't worry if your intro post doesn't earn a high payout. It could get lost in the crowd and may not be seen by a whale. However having a good intro post will still set you up for success in the future because people will likely look back at your intro before being comfortable enough to put a lot of Steem power behind your newer posts. Steemit is about reputation and the bigger reputation you have the more likely others will vote for you and the more likely you'll achieve a high payout.

Next 10

The best way to know what works is to follow the top writers in each category. If you look at the Popular posts in each category and then look for the highest payouts you can identify successful writers to see what it takes to produce high quality and interesting content. For example in the very high payout Travel category you will see @heiditravels & @anwenbaumeister have a lot of great travel posts with pictures and fascinating insights. @msutyler joined about a week ago and seems to be doing the same in Travel. @masteryoda @pfunk do well in Photography. @guerrint spearheaded the initiative to bring females to Steemit with her intro post and had the highest payout in history for her makeup tutorial. Many here are from various blockchain/cryptocurrency communities so topics about the blockchain industry can achieve high payouts. Categories With Payouts Above $1,000

As you can see there are many other categories that have received some attention and good payouts. Trailblazing I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.—Strode Just because there have been high payouts in certain categories doesn't mean it will remain that way. If you write about what you're most passionate you'll most likely have a unique and personal perspective on a topic that will stand out. There was a recent martial arts tutorial from @andrarchy and @anwenbaumeister started a health blog. @stellabelle has a secret writer blog.

There are plenty of trails to blaze so you may be just as successful sharing your passions, interests and personal experience than trying too hard to fit in a high payout category. Conclusion The payout data shows that the best areas to focus on continue to be posts about Steemit. If you can find ways to help Steemit in any way there is a good chance you will be rewarded.

The next best category to focus on is the #introduceyourself post to build your reputation. The next high payout tier includes: Travel, Life, Beauty, Photography, Cryptocurrency/Blockchain, Money, Funny, & Philosophy. Finally there are plenty more categories in the payout list that have a decent chance of a high payout post, but don't forget to just share your passions. You may end up popularizing some new categories. Happy posting!