1.) If you want to help a creator with upvotes, be sure to upvote their content before 15 minutes after they have posted.
2.) If you want to earn more from curation, a good time to upvote would be after 20 minutes from the time of their post (it depends on their follower base).
3.) Pictures definitely help bring more awareness to your content. It catches people's eye (ironically I didn't upload one).
4.) Engaging directly with your followers or those you follow can help build relationships and could help you grow your steem reputation.
5.) Don't downvote people for petty reasons, or else you'll make unneeded opposition.
Bonus Tip:
Money isn't everything.