I think a lot of it depends on your focus. I too am a noob (three months on Steemit), but my focus is on building up rather than milking every drop. I've gotten a couple of nice payouts, and had some posts that I spent a lot of time on go nowhere. Sometimes I don't have much to say (lately my writing spoons have been going into my second novel), so I'll do a #walkwithme post, which also gives me an excuse to leave the apartment and stop being a recluse. ;) I visit others' blogs and try and mindfully upvote (now that I understand about not running your voting power into the ground) and comment, and look for new people to follow/prune those from my feed that were spamming it twenty times a day with low effort content. I don't power down and use only my SBD to buy other crypto/cash out (it being high right now is nice!). So I'm getting paid but also keeping that Steem Power invested.
I'm interested in the long haul, and that matters, I think. I'm obviously not The Best at this, but I think people see that I'm legitimately trying to engage and give me a chance. Whereas if you just follow everyone and never engage because you have 36k people in your feed, or leave pat comments (ie "good information, upvoted!"), people will read that as you trying to make a quick buck (I would) and that you neither read nor cared about their content.