Steemit and Steemprentice Poll: Happiness, Success and Impediments
User retention has been one of the biggest issues on Steemit for a while now. The community itself found ways to respond to this by forming curation groups like @curie and @robinhoodwhale , @projectnewbie (who meets and greets on top of curation) and the Steeemprentice Mentoring Group. I've personally seen so many success stories of users who I could honestly tell were rather dejected a while back and seem elated and engaged now.
Before I get too into things here, I'd love for any user, Steemprentice Member or not, to take this very short poll I put together. What I'm looking for here is the trend of active users views/feelings of being here compared to a month ago (which is when Steemprentice and @projectnewbie started.)
Take the Steemit User Poll
My concern is that too many users are falling through the cracks as we have a limit of what rather brute force solutions can do. Brand new users have no way to know that these 4 community groups are there when they first sign in. In my opinion @projectnewbie is on the front lines for greeting and informing new users on Steemit, and we all know how daunting this place can be for many without a little hand holding. I don't mean this as a knock on the site in any way, but rather just something that hasn't gotten to the front of the development pipeline for a more permanent solution.
Personally I see really low hanging fruit to help ease new user shock and awe is to include @thecryptofiend's The Missing Beginner FAQ, the official Steemit 101 ebook or some kind of other beginner oriented FAQ or walkthrough in the menu tab itself, right under 'About.' Resources for new people need to be right in their face at the beginning, we can't expect them to just happen to find one or a community member to reach out and be informative. Having a guide or FAQ front and center can do wonders for user retention as well as relay information on how to contact groups that are there to welcome and help them along the way. There are small gotcha's that we all have experienced (leaving an extra space after your fifth tag for example, which throws a posting error) that we really shouldn't require newbies to fight through on their own.
Another low hanging fruit I see for a short term solution is better support for @projectnewbie.
This group is on the front lines, actively searching through the new and introduction feeds, and reaching out to our new Steemians. Just by them leaving a comment and giving some direction is immensely useful and important. While money isn't everything, we know the effect it has for motivation, we see this already with finder fee's for both @curie and @steemcleaners (another often unsung hero.) Without whale support, neither of these projects would have nearly the positive impact that they do (because SP is needed), nor would the community be as motivated to provide links without the finder fee's. (I know there are people who do this regardless of the $, but many get the initial and ongoing motivation from it, ideally becoming independent from the money.)
I do not want this to seem like I'm taking ANYTHING away from the importance of @curie, @robinhoodwhale and @steemcleaners, but rather draw attention that there are extremely important projects that don't currently have the backing of whales but are integral to the success of Steemit (in my opinion.) Users both in @projectnewbie and Steemprentice both donate their time and effort for the good of others and the community as a whole, sacrificing the opportunity cost of posting more themselves or dedicating time outside of Steemit (many of our significant others can attest to this.) Every person has a limit of what they can give before burnout sets in. Increased funding for groups such as these allows smaller, yet crucially important jobs be 'outsourced' to other users and free's many of the mods/admins of these groups to focus on larger and more difficult user needs (like one on one mentoring or manually seeking out those needing help for example.)
Limiting Factors is Exposure
Since @projectnewbie isn't solely focused on curation and Steemprentice doesn't curate, the need to create high SP accounts isn't as imperative in my mind in these cases, but the current impediment for these two groups is community exposure. There is no way to individually find all users that are new, struggling or frustrated, and I hate to think how many have left simply because they didn't know these groups existed and we didn't find them. I view funding provided to these two groups as being used for better outreach, staffing and advertising of the non-curation services that users are offering for FREE.
When I was a frustrated minnow a while back that 'kindness' of strangers (who tossed me a few SD's at the time with an 'at a girl' type statement) is what helped keep me going at the time.
Having the curation groups has drastically improved this since then, but there are still some who either fall through the cracks or are still improving their skills, that could use that little boost. To them it's not about the money, but the appreciation and notice, so even being given 2 SD's goes a long way.
We need people who are Excited about Steemit to be our Ambassadors.
To anyone that's not been a part of cryptocurrency, they will only take Steemit seriously from someone they already know and trust. If I'd heard of this place from anyone other that @winstonwolfe (or a very few select others) I would have instantly discounted this place as 'too good to be true.' This is how I'd love to see any further funding used, is to use passionate newbies to be our grass roots marketing. The allure of coming to Steemit and making thousands of dollars is unrealistic for most people, and is a cause of the retention issue itself. In my mind, were selling a growing and caring community, where realistic compensation (for many is) currently can be around $100-$200 per week payout totals, with roughly $30 - $60 being liquid (i.e. can be cashed out.) If we don't set realistic expectations in our external marketing, we're just setting new users up to be disappointed. I want to see our public marketing have a real, human face and story. And what better way to do this than having people who are truly excited that spread the word? (I have seen a downward trend in Steemit meetup, or other Steemit marketing related posts in general for a while now.)
A Small Bonus for Many vs Livable Income for Fewer
This brings me to my final thought, on the overall direction of Steemit. Before the curation groups really hit their stride there was a SLEW of 'frustrated minnow' and leaving Steemit posts all over. Since then I truly feel that a huge number of quality authors are getting curated by these groups in particular providing about a $30/post average..which in my mind achieves the user retention goal. For someone to feel their efforts are worth it, $30 is just as meaningful (emotionally) as $300. I have recently heard good points on the flip (or practical) side of things that with the way things are now, more people are being rewarded, but the amounts aren't enough for somebody to live off of.
Personally I'm on the fence here, feeling that there needs to be a good balance struck. Being a minnow advocate with small user retention in mind, that spread of $30 across tons of users is a good thing for the site, but not necessarily life changing in the financial sense, yet very impactful on effort the users put in. I can easily view this as a success and also remember that a $30 payout today would've easily been a $150 payout a month or so ago when Steem price was high. The other side of the coin here is that I can potentially see importance for Steemit to have it's icons and success stories who ARE able to make a living off of this site in the sense of empowering and motivating others to do the same. While I'm sure everyone would love to have a full time income by Steeming, there is a limit to our resources, and there's only so much Steem in the 'daily prize pool' to go around. Especially with the share price of Steem being where it currently is. (The 'daily prize pool' is based off the current market cap, of which share price is a major factor.) I'm not mentioning this in regards of where the share price 'should' be, but rather knowing we have limited resources, how does the community feel it should focus/spread what there is to allocate.
Final Question
Does the Steemit community as a whole feel that it's more important to focus on individual motivation and emotional gratification (paying out smaller amounts to more people) or to focus on users being able to use this platform to sustain full time incomes for a smaller number of users (who ideally are a draw of new users to the site?) Or some combination in between and perhaps to what extent? [NOTE: This question is NOT in the poll. Please leave answers in the comment section below this post.]
I solely wrote to better the site itself and to get some community feedback. I know I don't have all the answers. And besides this is a perfect instance where **it's about being BETTER, not RIGHT."
And Just to Ensure Nobody Leaves without a Smile...
Image Sources:
Good Design
Steemit 101 Guide
Cute Kitty
At this point in the sites development, paying out smaller amounts to more people is the more effective way to go.
I think this is the best option too. Smaller amounts to more people should even out the voting more making people feel like their votes counted for more. It also might help keep the price more stable.
That tends to be my view as well, but I'm admittedly biased.
I think that professional content creators should be able to reliably make at least the USD equivalent of 500/week (of which only half would be liquid) AND anyone who puts real effort into creating good content/making the site better should be able to count on some level of meaningful compensation for doing this.
Even with a lox-quality UX, this would guaranty user retention and drive new user adoption as word got out. And when all of the bloggers currently writing for HuffPost, etc. etc. (for extremely low pay) quit to blog on Steemit, their audiences would come with them leading to mass adoption.
And this is exactly why I was on the fence on this issue! This is a great point on being able to provide enough for a modest living (depending on where the individual lives of course.) You have great points here!
Now that you mention it, why aren't we targeting more for underpaid HuffPost or other high profile publications bloggers! And if at least some who come over here are comfortable with it, this would make a great piece of a marketing strategy. On one side you get to use either 'Bloggers with or formerly with the HuffPost', on the other you can market that everyday authors are able to make a Modest living here. There's no way everybody is going to get rich, there just not enough resources for that (even on the best of days) to happen.
Let's end the campaign of targeting crypto related people (I'm all for them to come of board) but if Steemit is going to 'make it' they have to reach the pop culture, non-crypto, most have never thought/heard of anarchism or libertarianism. FB started targeted on students, people with edu (and i think org) emails only. I can not imagine a scenario where they would have survived had they only targeted that niche.
In reality what we need right now are CONTENT CONSUMERS!!! We need people who are here to Read and Comment. Soooo, maybe we should start a discussion on targeting readers? I've heard about the inability to be seen on other social media sites, so lets take a different route. I want to see the trend of steemit ambassadors come back. We need to put together a collection of materials for people to be able to go out and 'preach the word of steem.' It can all be digital, so really not a huge cost. The biggest thing would be getting a top notch powerpoint presentation together (which ambassadors could trim down so the talk fit the audience), ideally some 'mentor' available to help better prepare the ambassador the for presentation and questions (ideally.)
What we need is to reinvigorate the word of mouth campaign. Let's make a contest looking for the best such and such (pick an underserved tag) and have an $500 SD first prize (or however much) that is ONLY eligible on first time posts. We ALSO need buy-in from the community on things like this not to just sock-puppet accounts to acquire funds that fundamentally defeats the stated purpose. At some freaking point we have to find SOMETHING the whole community can agree upon.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text here. Obviously this is something I'm passionate and concerned about!
I share your passion on the subject. For the last several years, the bulk of my income has been earned from online writing, and Steemit pays far, far less than that at present. I have personally been signing up four or five new users a week - a few of whom are really taking to the platform - and a small but growing portion of my regular readership is now reading my stuff here. But most of my regular readers will not create accounts until there is far more clarity about how Steemit works on the landing page. They just click on direct links to read and then move on to other, more familiar websites. (This is standard, in my experience. The weekly news report I edit has 14K subscribers and nearly fifty times as many readers.)
Simply providing better pageview and other metrics on steemit.com would go a long way to clarifying the actual reach of steemit posts. This, in turn, would make the site far more attractive to investors as well as to prospective active users.
The bounties are great, but we still don't have a good incentivized referral system. And the people I know in media will not do more than dip their toes in the water here until content creators are paid industry standard compensation.
IMHO, we are under-capitalized and poorly marketed as a whole. People like me are helping with the latter issue, but I feel there is strong ideological reluctance around here to discuss the former issue in any terms that non-crypto investors would find familiar enough to pay attention to.
Through conversations like this, though, I imagine that these problems will likely be solved sooner rather than later: )
A question we might be missing here: should we make a community effort to retain ALL Steemers?
We are looking at a matrix with 2 scales:
1- Quality content -> poor content
2- Interesting to most people -> small niche
(There is a third scale of popular producer to non popular producer, but we are really looking at non popular Steemers for this discussion)
Someone that puts out quality content that interests most people should eventually rise to the top.
Someone that puts out bad quality on material that IS interesting to most Steemers MIGHT rise up.
Someone that puts out quality content that nobody really cares about will not rise up
Someone that puts out boring and poor work will not rise up.
Should all these folks be retained? Or should the same effort be spent in attempting to retain them?
FWIW, I put myself in the third category, as I think my work is quality ( don't we all? ;>), but that I understand doesn't appeal to most folks. Should the same effort be spent to retain me as someone whose work contributes more to Steemit?
I hate to say this, but no. From what I've seen @curie and @robinhoodwhale do a good job of curating and bringing attention to new Steemers whose work should be given a look; those Steemers who I would classify in my first group. So the effort we have at the moment is definitely targeted at the right group.
But does Steemit as a community want to or need to retain the other three categories?
I don't know. The time and resources of the community are finite. Since so many Steemers are voluntarists, those who want to retain everyone will certainly work at that.
Thanks for a well-written piece.
I definitely get your points here.
In my view I want to retain the 'good' users who have a drive already behind them to become better at what they do AND how they can present it. Sure there are going to be certain topics that are so pigeon-holed that it's going to be hard to get a whole lot of attention without having a pre-existing following (which can be built.) However, every person has a myriad of topics they also care about. I don't expect people to be phenominal writers when starting here, especially after the decades of facebook, text lingo, etc. But they can be taught and trained.
Imo everyone has something of value to bring to the table. With help someone that is having a hard time here can find ways to personally connect through a post. Most people sell themselves short, with support and discussion, great stories have come from very unlikely users.
So to answer your question on who should be actively retained...
I want to retain the users to are working hard and making progress, regardless of how slow that may be. I want to keep those willing to put forth the effort simply to improve. I really can't ask for much else.
On the flip, I am happy to see go those users looking for a quick buck, trying solely to maximize $/hr, those that bitch and moan after their first post, while having no followers, while putting in no marketing, made them no money. I'm not out to help retain those who are driven by their sense of entitlement versus passion.
Ty for the great response!
everyone has something of value to bring to the table
ah, but there is a difference between market value and intrinsic value ;> joking aside, I do see your point.
and what do we mean by quality? for me, that means well researched and organized, not necessarily with perfect grammar and spelling (which also happen to be my own weak points).
the compliment to everyone has something of value to bring to the table is that everyone has different tastes that those bringing the value satisfy. What is boring to me is interesting to someone else, and vice versa.
so now I understand the value of of retaining those Steemers who aren't making a pain in the ass of themselves.
I came to check out steem after reading a lofty and inspiring philosophical essay about it on a blog somewhere. I don't recall where but that's not really central to my point. What I've found thus far has fallen miserably short of my expectations. For one thing, the UX of the site is very lacking. There's no intuitive way to browse the material. This is a problem because from what I've seen, steem has mostly just become another internet repository of mindless drivel. I've come across and read some very interesting ideas on here, but honestly, wading through all the worthless garbage to find them is to much effort.
As a newcomer I agree with what you have to say about the lack of introductory material to help orient new users. I had not heard of the groups which you mentioned. I'll be sure to check those out. Users like yourself are the only reason why I still have any interest in trying to figure steem out at all.
I'll completely agree in the site's UX being an issue. Specifically the ability to easily search has been lacking since I've gotten here myself. Even google can only go so far to find a specific post I've looked for when I didn't remember the author name. The feed did help to a degree (I've kept my follows rather thin to do this..I'm not a fan of follow for follow) but it alone isn't a full enough fix. The best idea I've seen come out (not my own, but don't remember who's) is to be able to search across multiple tags at once. (i.e. filter for articles with guide, steem dollar, AND cashout tags)
I do disagree on the quality of work here, but I'll admit my feed being full of awesome stuff makes a difference. Since I joined the quality of reading, art, and honest soul sharing is has been mind blowing to me. I flat out gave up trying to get much out of FB myself.
Feel free to join our channel at https://steemit.chat/channel/steemprentice or direct others there. There are dozens and dozens in there just to help to get used to the site, answer questions, give feedback/suggestions, etc.
One thing to keep in mind too, is what you see today is nowhere near the final product. The site is still in its initial beta stages, and they are planning to add a lot of new features and updates over the next few years. To give you a preview of the types of things they are thinking of, you can check out The Steemit Wish List.
I would say the main thing to look for right now is the community. Behind the crude website, there are a lot of cool people here interacting with each other. If you like the people and think the site has good potential, then its probably worth sticking around :)
Oh I completely agree! I merely see these things as very low hanging fruit, especially just adding a guide/faq button in the menu. I'm more the willing to be patient for whatever the long term solutions of the devs, but with this being a problem NOW, intermediate solutions are important to get in place.
Not to mean any disrespect to the overwhelming amount of work on the devs plate and pipeline, but often these solutions come to late on their own. Imagine this place the last month or so without curie or RHW.
I'll also admit I wrote this before I saw the latest github issues or ned going on steemspeak.
Wow, this is very insightful. I am still new and learning my way so input from new people plus more experienced people is really welcome on things like this! Voted/shared on my SM/resteemed. Ty for this article!
Thank you!
And feel free to hop into the #steemprentice channel in steemit.chat if you have any questions or searching for things. Everyone in the groups is there just to help out. :)
How am I to vote on these things first when no one tells me about it and votes as they post it? XD
Keep up the great work!
Hehe, sorry! I pretty much needed break from the computer after this post. I'll make sure to DM you next time :P
No worries, was kidding. Thought it was funny to just happen to catch it and vote second. :P
Hey, @virtualgrowth! I know it has nothing to do with this article, which is an excellent one, by the way, but I had to tell you I LOVE your animated signature. So cool. :)
@stephmckenzie
Thank you very much! :)
Another cool graphic. You've got some amazing graphic talent. I salute you.
I've read this proposal few days ago. What do you think about this: https://steemit.com/steemit/@ellamaeamor/a-reward-system-proposal-that-will-make-everybody-stay-in-the-platform-and-will-invite-more-signups
That's very interesting! I'd heard a few of having reputation worked into the payout algorithms in various ways, but not so much giving a flat reward for the rep level.
I'm def gonna have to think on it. One one hand I love the idea of being able to have a little more consistency, especially for then newbies...on the flip I'd be curious the total cost of a flat payment, since there's a fixed amount of $ rewards per day.
Just brainstorming, I like the idea of 'achievements' where flat, scaling rewards can be earned. For example on the newbie side,
Idk.. I'm a fan of gamifying things, I'll keep thinking.
Thank you for the link!! :D
Looking forward to more of your ideas to improve the community.
I think that smaller amount for the wide range of users is beter in the long run, because it grows the number of people who have nice significant weight. If there are some success stories, it is even better.
I suspect that this is currently more or less how the situation with, although there are quite a few people posting really cool stuff and getting pennies.
One user I can think of is @cryptomancer. I understand that his writing is niche, but his writing and analysis is second to none!
Another thing that I feel is weird, is people chasing the trends. The origami craze is actually pretty fun, as well as all other weird trends that appear, and are supported.
Makes this experiment a ton of fun, I guess. :-D
I'll definitely keep an eye out @cryptomancer. I found his posts fascinating myself and really think he's got an interesting perspective on things. I'm sure there's things we can do to get him a little more exposure to share his stories.
I view trends like power...it's all defined by how their used, by themselves they're morally indifferent. On the one hand, I watch trends for when my current 'category tags' fall out of favor so I can simply prioritize other stories already in my 'to-do list.' I don't feel bad about this because I was already something inside me. Similarly I can't fault an 'art and craftsy' person thinking about giving origami a try, because they honestly think it would be fun, after a bunch of knitting or painting posts. The other side of this is a new trend often is the generation of a new category or sub-category. For instance food and recipes were hot, then died down, until a high paying post featuring the smoothie tag. Or after that high paying MMA/UFC post that started filling in that area. Personally I did that myself with the LGBT tag a while back (and continue) but now have been doing the same for boardgames and cardgames (this post will be up in the next few days.)
On the other hand, trending areas are where some of the most plagiarized material is found (origami was horrible about this for a while) which really only makes sense. Any view of jumping on trends just for 'easy money' I'm not a fan of personally.
I was reading this post by @profitgenerator a bit earlier where it mentioned a curation penalty for the same person in X amount of time as well as a curation penalty for voting on the same category tags in X amount of time (idk how it can be teased out for 5 different tags to determine this, but It's still an interesting idea) which I would see having an impact in minimizing trends a bit.
I don't even pay attention to the tags I upvote in. I just look at the article, and if I like it, I upvote it. Putting a tag penalty on curation wouldn't deter me, since I only make a small amount of SP in curation rewards, anyway. And, it would be confusing. I prefer to just be able to vote on what I like. I don't even use my slider. It's too complex. To me, EVERY post I vote on is worth just as much of my meager voting power as every other post I upvote. I'm an equal opportunity upvoter.
I can completely understand that. I believe it was geared more for whales. Honestly, just by applying it to the category itself and not the voter would be easier and just as effective. Imo the goal is to motivate curation into undeserved areas. This could also be a curation bonus (just for minnows and dolphins). It won't effect many of us, but there are a good portion who seek curation rewards.
I like to get curation rewards for sure, meager as they may be. :) But, I also like the feeling of upvoting a truly deserving article, especially one that may be by a new Steemit author, or one that is not yet getting the attention it deserves. Both the curation rewards and the nice feeling of upvoting good posts are good things.
Oh I completely agree. I split some for all 3, curation, just good, and a motivators. :)