Steemit Content Idea Discussion #2: Referral System?
What is a referral system?
If you don't know what a referral system is, or maybe have forgotten, it's a system designed to reward current members of a company or website for recruiting fresh members. Common examples of places that do this are credit card companies, online casinos, fiat currency banks, and many others. The main idea behind it is to provide small or potentially large rewards for converting non-members into active, contributing members.
How would a referral system work on Steemit?
I am a new member here, and I haven't completely digested the white paper for Steemit yet, which is why all the ideas I post for Steemit are discussions. They are meant to encourage positive and negative feedback so we can get a general consensus on how the community feels about certain things. For this one specifically, I'd like to call on the help of @dantheman, @piedpiper, and @berniesanders, along with any other whales to give their opinions and specifics. A referral system for Steemit could work a couple of ways, so I'll break them down:
Head Count Payments
This one is pretty simple. Let's say you've been on Steemit for a while, and you want to recruit some friends. You give them your referral link, and they sign up to join the fun. In this case you'd be rewarded for each person that used your referral link when they meet specific requirements.
Ratio Payments
In this scenario, you've already recruited some friends, and their posts and blogs are doing quite well. The rewards for this system could be a percentage of the rewards your referrals earn by authoring posts. If they earn $100 Steem Dollars for a post, let's hypothetically say you'd earn 1-5% of that (depending on what's decided if this system gets put into place) and so on and so forth. These would also be subject to restrictions, like Head Count Payments would be, and I'll list those possibilities below.
Possible Restrictions
- Only users with a specific Reputation Level are allowed to use the referral system.
- Only users with a specific amount of Steem Power and/or Steem Dollars can use the referral sytem.
- A limit could be place on the number of referrals you can recruit (5, 20,etc.).
- Referred users can only generate referral income on posts that generate a required amount of Steem Dollars ($20, $50, etc.).
- Feel free to discuss other restrictions below. :)
Benefits of the referral system
The most prominent benefit the referral system provides is an incentive to increase Steemit's user base and exposure. Bitcoin was a prime example of this in terms of exposure, once it was being mentioned on mainstream media, the price exploded. Exposure to new audiences is key to gaining new members, along with several other factors. An increase in exposure -> increase in members -> increase in active, contributing members -> increase in post quantity, quality, and more fun for everyone. Not only does it grant more advertising of the Steemit brand, but the veteran members doing the work also get rewarded for it.
Steemit has a pyramidal structure. That's the way it is and even if some people argue about this, take it or leave it.
That said, the referral program could emphasize the pyramidal structure, and amho, it's not a good thing.
True enough. But like I mentioned the restrictions are negotiable. So it could be a flat 5 referral limit per user or something to alleviate that problem. Thanks for the feedback!
Good response, same as the defender against not voting. People tend to have ~150 friends so they could be there limit.
I am going to disagree. It has a pyramidal structure only in the sense that there are accounts (founders mainly) that have a huge capitol investment in this. Already we are seeing them use their power less and less. Really even if they were to flat out stop voting I know several people still excited to be posting here for the revenue they already get which NEVER includes a whale vote. If the value is in the platform, the value of the platform follows. My noob rookie approach anyway.
I think a few people are in the throws of development on this sort of thing.
One has to ask, where the money would come from though..!?
The idea is good. The money can come from the income of the referred users, in a way that it not hurts the system and the referred users. Because os this, the amount must be very low as 0.1% to 1%.
And, only Steem Dollars can enter in a referral system and must only generate revenue for the referrer if the referral is active and produces content that generates the income.
Any other way I do not believe it would be possible or interesting. Refer a lot of people only to say "Ohhh! Steemit has 100 million users!" has no value for the system. The value must be generated by the content.
My 2 cents...
Exactly! That's why I mentioned having a restriction on when you can earn rewards. For example, a post has to reach a certain number of Steem Dollars earned before the person that referred them is eligible for rewards - to boost quality and not just quantity!
That's a fair point, and it was something I thought about, but to determine that I'd have to speak to some developers or whales and see what would be possible.
maybe from the liquidation rewards which are now disabled?
yes i would love a referral system too. but i am not sure if it would be good for the reputation of steemit
Fair point! Sometimes people don't like referral systems because there are some users that would just spam the link everywhere and damage Steemit's reputation. Thanks for your feedback!
I run a number of small novelty content websites that don't convert very well. A Steemit Referral scheme would be PERFECT!
I thought someone had done something around this. I'll have to find the post.
It's a good idea and I'm sure it is something the team are looking at. As @Kyle said I think funding would be the big issue. I doubt new people joining would be happy if you just got a percentage of all their earnings even if it was small. That would actually be a deterrent.
Ah, I think I misrepresented what I meant there. I meant the reward you get is a percentage, not you take a percentage of the author's rewards.
It would be a percentage of their reward unless you increased the reward, meaning increased inflation to compensate, meaning decreasing the various of their reward respectively.
That said, I don't think prior would mind some of their reward going to the referer, since it would be hard to notice. When you're rewarded for content and some commenter gets part of it nobody complains.
Not sure what you mean. It has to come from somewhere - either author rewards or curation rewards or both.
I too believe referrals would be useful, even if it's rewarded in SD or steem power!
I think so too! It all just depends on the restrictions and how it gets implemented.
As a full time affiliate marketer, the title of your article caught my attention right away. I've been saying to myself since discovering steemit one day ago, I wish this had an affiliate (referral) program! Because I know of 100 Million people who might be interested.
The obvious question has come up - where would the money come from? One way would be to have the option to opt in to the affiliate program for say, $20 per month. These people would earn cash from each person they refer who also chooses to upgrade. They would also earn from from people their referrals bring in - as many levels down as decided. I think I will write an article detailing how this would work. One program I am in operates this way with a 3x10 matrix maxes out at earnings of $88,000 per month.
So one could earn two ways. With their articles. And by marketing the site.
I like that idea, but in my opinion, if there was a referral/affiliate system, it shouldn't be for people to make a major source of Steem Dollars off of, that should come from posting and curating. It was just supposed to be a small incentive. But that's just my opinion, something like you mentioned might work a lot better. :)
It might be a minority opinion, but I'd rather there not be a referral system.
Here's why:
Currently there are good discussions. Get an influx of would-be marketers just looking to make referral money, and you'd have the Warrior Forums in article form. If people think all the articles about Steem itself are bad now (we've even got whales publicly announcing they'll no longer upvote those articles), they've seen nothing compared to what it will be like around here once the WF referral marketing crowd gets their hand on the site.
Just my $.02, for what it's worth.
I actually really like your first two points, they're solid. As for the last point, that's why I mentioned having referrals only count if they are a certain reputation level, AND you only earn income off posts that earn a certain required amount of Steem Dollars. Regardless of our differences, thanks for adding to the discussion and giving me some feedback!
Sadly this has been brought up dozens if not hundreds of times already!
Ah, I didn't know! It might die pretty quickly then, if that's the case. I at least hope people will discuss it though!
So give us a synopsis of these discussion to date please!
It has mainly been users on Slack and Steem.Chat complaining and trying to get devs attention. I think there have been a few posts on Steemit.com about it as well. I can't say for sure if the devs are working on it, I think they are focusing on the Reputation System and FOLLOW system right now.
Yeah, those two systems are definitely important to get finished and polished up first, rather than later on. A referral system would be pointless if the site's main features don't function 100% yet.