With about 190 steempower, my votes add 0.001$ to your payout, so the amount of steempower you would have to buy is huge.

Really, getting on the top of the trending screen is a bit of a lottery. I've ,ever been there, but things which will help are your reputation, and your followers.

Basically, if people follow you, they get your posts in their feed, rather than having to find it in the "new section" this extends the visibility of your posts. when will they follow you? Because they read previous posts, and they were good. You will notice that no matter what's the topic, if you write a good post, you will usually get a couple of upvotes. SOme of those people might decide to follow you.

Than comes your reputation. You have 30, which means you have just begun. Each time you get an upvote by someone with higher reputation, your reputation rises a bit. A higher reputation is a kind of community stamp of approval for previous contributions, meaning that future contributions are expected to be good. A post by a poster with 60 reputation is most likely good, because his previous posts were good. (it's kinda like a new book by a known author becoming a bestseller before it is actually available).

The best way to go about this, according to me, is not to focus to much on posting your own posts (ofcourse, if you have something to say, go right ahead) but by interacting. If you respond to a post, and that reply gets upvoted, it has the same effect on your pay-out and reputation as it would have on a main post.