The way I'm analyzing this:

• It depends on who is upvoting for you because popularity is influenced by steem power, so people with more steem power upvoting your content will bring the price up more easily than people holding less power but giving the same amount of votes.
• Till steem is evenly distributed/used around the globe, timing of your posts could influence success. Let's say steem is most successful in the U.S. then posting in popular moments in the region could make a difference.

Of course many other arguments posted in the topic above and the replies take a role in success.
My success isn't great but probably the posts aren't neither :-)

Did I already mention begging for votes? -- LOL