"Retention is the single most important thing for growth." - Alex Schulz
(Vice President Growth Facebook)

When we talk about growth, we need to talk about retention. 

I'd even go one step further and say that acquiring new users wouldn't be a big deal for steemit. The key issue here is to find solutions in order to keep them. 

Steemit has a disproportionally high fluctuation rate. If these numbers don't change, the whole acquisition process wouldn't lead to any success. 

The following proposal outlines one idea how to improve user retention.

Introduction

First of all I'd like to thank the Steemit Inc. Marketing team (especially Andrew @andrarchy and Mitchell @zurvanic) for involving us in this creative process. 

There have been already brilliant ideas published below the #growth-ideas tag.
Today I'd like to share mine:

1. What is the problem? A missing retention program.
2. What is the solution? Increasing the amusement level on steemit.
3. How will you prove your project was a success? Decreasing fluctuation rate. 

Process Shaping  

A couple of years ago I was working for an event agency in Munich. That job was the very first one after completing my degree at the University, and I probably learned for life. 

"So now let's play Lego" my boss used to say. 

What we did during the conceptional period of every event we were planning was the following: we took a floor plan of the event location and started to position some tokens (Lego men). We imagined every single step the invitees would do during the happening and executed them by moving our tokens accordingly. 

Examples:

"The invitee arrives at the front door and receives a warm welcome by a hostess."
Check hostess. Check glass of champagn. Check catering plan. Check outfit and make-up artist hostess.

"It'll rain. Invitee arrives at location with jacket and umbrella."
Check wardrobe. Check enough space for 80% of people bringing umbrella and jacket.

Through analyzing all the existing processes an invitee (here: user) lives through you'll automatically find the weak points of the system.

Which are some of the weak points we'd find on steemit:

1. Welcome process is too functional and old school. 
2. Support is only given on request and not through a specific entity.
3. Learning is achieved through trial and error. 
4. Content is not offered, it needs proactive search.
5. Surfing through the content is an uninviting process.

steemit suffers a lack of emotion, entertainment and amusement!

The Idea 

Steemit needs to redesign these processes in order to make content consumption more attractive (and partly "addictive"). 

Let's imagine steemit as a theme (amusement) park and users as their visitors. 

What are essential characteristics of a theme park? People never get bored. There are so many attractions offered that they can hardly decide where to start their experience.
That's exactly how steemit should work. Instead of attractions (rollercoasters etc.) steemit has content of all colorings, formats, themes, interest groups to offer. Theoretically there is an attraction for everybody!

Contemplating the above mentioned weak points, here are some ideas how to fix them:

1. - The welcome process:

It has to blow their mind! Everything they've ever heard about steemit should be confirmed immediately. There is nothing more valuable than a new user who's just signed up to the platform, consigning his full attention and absolute time. Steemit doesn't need to meet their expectations, it has to exceed all of them!
Why not showing them a groundbreaking, state-of-the-art video as a start instead of leaving them with 3 pages of welcome text, uncountable links and many open questions?

After watching the video they will be at the top level of their emotional curve! Make us of it. Give them more. Ask them if they want to meet steemit's top 10 successful bloggers in person and offer them to follow their blogs.

Ask them if they are ready to start blogging by themselves or if they first wanna join a mentor program. Offer them different mentor groups according to their interests / needs. You like sports? Excellent. Join our sports mentoring group where an experienced steemit blogger will tell you how he made it to the top sports bloggers on the platform.   

That game could be played endlessly. I think the message is clear: keep them BUSY, involve them socially, provide them with connecting points.

2. Helping hands:

We all know how many questions one person might have when joining this platform for the very first time. That's not a weakness at all, that's a chance! 

Steemit is not as superficial as other networks, that's why its processes need some explication in the beginning. That's THE chance to build some social bonds between established and new users right from the start.

Why not offering a mentor program that automatically connects new users with established volunteers in order to transfer knowledge about blogging, socializing, improving visibility, etc.? Sometimes I have this sensation that on steemit knowledge is hold like a treasure that can't be shared with others. In my eyes that's a huge mistake. We rise by lifting others!

Why not offering training programs for new users? How to blog? How to gain attention? How to acquire followers? How to be a successful steemian? I bet there would be a LOT of volunteers interested in sharing their experiences and knowledge. Steemians are per se cooperative and helpful people. 

Important: Support may be actively offered and not only provided on request.

Their success is ours!

3. - Content experience

Currently steemit is designed to make content disappear. I draw this extreme view on purpose to make things clear. What happens to content that you've written 2 months ago for instance? Do you think anybody will ever scroll down the infinite wall of your blog in order to look what you've done in the past? Do you think anybody will ever accidentally type a keyword in the global search in order to find one of your hidden treasures? 

Content needs to be proactively offered! 

Why not having a personalized start page where every user is able to allocate content pieces according to their own interest? You like food blogs? Excellent, then your mentoring group will show you how to allocate the food blog window on your starting page, just in case you could't manage it on your own. 

The system should react on the user's behavior and offer content that responds to their actions. A user that constantly upvotes technology and science should find content that touches these topics directly without asking or searching for it. 

spending time on steemit needs to be an entertaining experience people can't get enough of! If it blows their mind, they will tell others, and then you won't need half of your marketing budget to acquire them :)

If you find this idea interesting, inspiring or even worth talking about then I'd be happy to discuss it with you in the comments section. 

Happy weekend to all of you ;)
Marly - 

PS: All the rumors about my steemit break are not true :D

Picture sources: Title: worldatlas.com; Animated GIF: pinterest.com; jumping group: familytraveller.com; Quote: spreadshirt.com