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Adding a Steem refer a friend scheme is a cost-effective marketing scheme expand the Steem Community. Whilst growing it's usage within real life social networks such as friendship groups and family. I believe that an idea like Steem is just waiting to integrate mass everyday life.

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How will it work?

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Steem's users will be given a referral key/link which can be given out to friends and family. A referral option should be put into the signup process. Users who's key/link should receive some Steem for every time someone signs up.

Referrers should receive a small reward for each post someone they refer uploads. Similar to curation rewards it should only be a small proportion of the total pay-out. This promotes the idea that bringing in people who provide valuable content to Steem are valuable assets to both you and the community on the whole.

Furthermore the idea provides the view that long term growth will provide much more value over time than a quick fix. Long term rewards add up and having referred multiple people over time these can be very valuable rewards.

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There are two types of refer a friends systems that could be used

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The first option is a one way reward system in which just the person refers their friends is the sole receiver of rewards from the system. For example they receive 5 Steem and 1% of post rewards indefinitely for each person who they sign up.

The second option is a two way incentivised reward system which rewards both the current user who has referred someone and the new user who uses someone's referral code. An example of this is both the existing and new user receive 5 Steem once the new users has signed up and/or made their first post.

The benefits of the one way reward system is current Steem users will be motivated to refer new users and grow the Steem community.Furthermore, this type of reward system provides more valuable rewards to existing users who refer new users who provide valuable content to Steem. Therefore encouraging the growth of value and knowledge within the Steem community. Whilst providing great incentives and rewards for early adopters.

Imagine the value gained to the community and the user as well as the exponential growth that could occur if someone could convince their whole school and family to join and use Steem on a consistent basis.

The perfect kind of system would be a semi-two way incentive which ads a reward system for existing users and retains current new user sign up bonus. New Steem users already receive some free Steem when signing up. So no further reward will be needed for new users to sign up as the current sign up process provides great enough value to attract new users.

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What will the impact be?

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A refer a friend system will enable Steemians to earn Steem whilst creating a great amount of publicity for the site through word of mouth marketing. This will enable great rewards for early adopters to earn.

The system will further contribute to the process of in adding value to the Steem community. By generating a larger pool of users who create content, this will in theory lead to more good content being produced leading to more value in the Steem Community.

The more people joining the community and know about Steem a high of the demand for Steem therefore pushing up the Dollar value of Steem leading to further rewards for valuable content providers and early adopters.

The eventually and inevitably Steem will expand and evolved into everyday life as such social media networks as Facebook and Reddit. Therefore I don't think it is a bad idea to speed the process up with a system that rewards people who help build and add to this great community. Personally I believe the key to a successful social media community is having a good mix of online networks as well as real life tangible networks such as friends and family.

I don't think it will be too long before you start to see some celebrities starting to use the Steem network. We are already starting to see some great personalities joining the network already from any social media.

One drawback of this system is Steem will have to provide new sign up and referral rewards out of the Steem rewards pool.

Furthermore this inorganic growth could provide problems for the server if growth occurs too quickly. Problems that may arise is lag across the Steem network due to high traffic causing issues for the server.

However, growing pains such as these are normal for are for companies with the ambition and potential of Steem. Likewise a bit of inwards investment into the back office systems and servers which Steem runs on can easily iron out these issues.

Another issue that may arise is that many new users also may be miss informed and think that Steem could be a quick buck rather than a long term investment opportunity and a community full of valuable content. One way to tackle this problem is an informative new user guide which comprehensively explains the manner in which people conduct themselves on Steem and how the network operates as a whole.

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Conclusion

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It's just a train of thought the idea is nowhere near complete. It will take a lot of discussion and thinking about before anything could be implement. However I still think it is that could help the community and benefit everyone.

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