Lately I have been straying away from the theme of my channel to experiment a little bit and see what kind of responses I get from different types of posts. Here are my conclusions:
Softcore Porn:
On one of my posts, I asked a question about steem and steem dollars. I decided to conduct another experiment while I was at it. I placed a picture of an "attractive" woman in a skanky outfit at the end so that the thumbnail would be that picture. The increase in upvotes wasn't very significant compared to my other posts on average. I did get negative comments towards my experiment, and someone even muted me! What really stood out about this though, is that the picture completely distracted everyone from the true meaning of the post! No one answered any of my questions! Conclusion: Is this a good Steemit strategy? No, these pictures don't make a huge difference, but it gets people talking about the pictures themselves instead of your post. I don't think people want Steemit to turn into THAT kind of website, and I very much approve of this (and agree with the majority of the users on this website on a lot of topics -- one reason why I really like this website).
Puppy Pictures
My puppy pictures didn't blow up too much. It got somewhat of an average response (a little above average?). Conclusion: there aren't a bunch of teenage girls on Steemit yet!
Pretty Pictures
This experiment was successful. I needed a thumbnail on a post, so I picked a picture of a nice beach and a palm tree. I figured people were attracted to these images overall, and I was right. It didn't make a HUGE difference, but it did make a difference. The picture had nothing to do with my post, but it got more people to click on it. Conclusions: Images such as the beach are pleasing to the eye and have an overall positive effect on your post.
Tutorials
This was the most successful experiment. I have started posting tutorials, and their success is SIGNIFICANTLY greater than all of my other posts. Note that my tutorials are on topics related to computers, so that probably played a role in the success also. Steemit users seem to love computers. Conclusion: I am going to post a lot more tutorials.
I hope this was helpful advice to someone, and I hope my reputation wasn't damaged too much in the process!