I've made it to "trending" just once! It was huge and totally unexpected! I think I peaked at number 4 on "trending".

I was in "hot" and "trending" simultaneously.

As you said, there are no sure fire blueprints to follow. Mine was a success story on a steemgig I got involved in. I would have said Steemians love success stories but there has been so many after mine that didn't make it anywhere close.

Making it on that scale did wonders to my reputation score and also have me some form of credibility on the platform so yeah, it does have an effect. Would be nice to have another experience like that 😊