So I've been writing down some ideas for the past few weeks all over the place. The truth is that I'm trying to brainstorm something potentially huge that could help with the main challenge (in my view) we face on Steem, USER RETENTION.
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We got 99 problems but..
On a serious note, I know I'm not alone on this particular observation. I've personally invited dozens of users to the platform, even created accounts using my own funds and it pains me to see those accounts just "existing" there, inert, with the tiny fractions of Steem I sacrificed in expectation.
Some of it is my fault, I'm sure. Maybe, I could have done a better job coaching a friend, setting the right expectations for them, as to not lose them to the hands of disappointment. But, I also think most of the enamorment was lost by the inability some feel to be part of an established community.
Communities and User Experience
Go hand in hand, and without one the other one is like pizza without cheese or cheese without pizza. In other words, pick your dish of disappointment. I've written extensively on the subject and It might not be too productive for me to pound the idea anymore today. However, I'm here to ask some questions to my fellow Steemians and see If I'm failing to consider other important aspects.
In other words, help me help you and others.
I need to know...
Just yesterday I was drawing some circles (current project requires it, I promise) with some intersecting areas, attempting to think of the right balance for implementation of a solution to our big problem. All of the sudden, @omitaylor sends me a private message asking me to pose a question on this blog.
As someone who I expect to be very much involved in the project we are attempting to launch, I tend to listen to her crazy but bright little mind, even when It flirts with chaos.
write a post later asking what your readers think brand new steemians should know. Not the regular comment, network, advice. Not advice. But what they need to know.
She of course elaborated much more on the subject, but this is the meat and potatoes of today's conundrum. And because at the end I want to make sure I'm not attempting to push an idea that won't interest the masses, I think following her lead is very important.
Brand new Steemians
- What do they need to know?
- What will help most stay?
- What is the thing that frustrates new users the most?
- What can a community do for them? Can it even do something?
- How do we level the playing field? Can we even do it?
Tell me, I want to make sure I'm not failing to consider something crucial because I'm about to embark on a big project and I don't want to waste anyone's time. Honestly, that is my biggest concern on the matter. I happen to believe we are getting together not only some great minds, but also the right kind of attitudes, which to me is probably more important.
So there, the comment section of this post in an invitation to a conversation. I would love to enlist your brain into the task at hand, and hopefully together we can come up with a great solution. It may not be the only one, it may not even be the best, but if we don't try, failing is guaranteed.
Other posts by yours truly
• I'm going to name him
• Free bread, Resteeming services and a mathematical journey
• the entrance to our farm
• Fishing for None Fishes - Promoting outside of Steem
• Songwriter Shop Talk Steembirds Full Recording
I do understand the frenzy about bringing more users that stays on Steemit. Is too early for mass adoption, that's all. But just to answer your questions:
We are at fault when getting way too enthusiastic about Steemit in front of them. They grow some huge expectations, the fall is bad enough to make them quite.
Or, simply, is not for everyone :).
My two cents
Too early for mass adoption, maybe... I'll grant you that, but we also have to take into account that inaction works against our best self interest.
You could say, I want more users because im selfish... I want steem to go up in price, and you would not be wrong. That's not the only reason of course, but its no doubt accurate.
That would make two of us, but facts are facts. And the red market doesn't really help either :D!
How to get notifications. (Gina or SteemWorld)
Posts only earn for seven days.
The little number at the bottom of other people's posts contains no information.
If your voting power is 100% you're wasting money.
People love to complain about nonsensical things here just as much as they do anywhere else.
Enough early rewards to justify learning how to earn more.
Enough social interaction to convince them there's somewhere to build to.
Good examples of socially-successful users who've put in the time.
The interface. Not understanding how to get notifications easily. The confusing nature of a system that runs on three related currencies.
Those of us with SP can do something about keeping a base level of rewards for posters we want to keep.
All of us can interact with their posts on a meaningful level and give them something to think about above spam.
We can't, but we can turn some of its non-level features to our particular advantage.
great input Poly... I hope you actively participate in the conversations we are soon to have on helpie!
I'm about to be totally swamped for three weeks IRL, so we'll see. I'm definitely interested but my time machine is in the shop.
When you fix it, please stop by my place, I need to borrow it.
Your comment sums up all the newbie questions/problems just perfectly imho
I'll just add a bit from my personal experience. At the beginning, what frustrated me most was that I would put work into a post, then nothing happened. Not just no money rewards, but also no response in upvotes or comments. Like posting into thin air. Made me feel a bit stupid, as if I obviously wasn't posting good content or didn't know how the platform worked.
The zero response part was the worst, and I think if a community could add a bit to newcomers feeling heard, then that could help. Not just a bot giving a reply, but someone who actually read the post and gives some feedback. Maybe even a tip and a top, something that's cool about the post and something that might help increase the quality and/or visibility of it.
Actually making that work would involve a lot of effort probably. Or maybe there are smart ways to go about it. Anyways, that's just what comes to mind after reading your post :).
I think your experience is very common. As a matter of fact there is a post made by @whatsup that I'm sure she will be happy to share. She shows how 95 of her posts made 0.00 - Now, thats not a pretty number by all means, and most would have given up at half that number.
Thanks! Your comment led me to one of @whatsup posts that had an amazing thread, so many comments that helped me get connected to others on Steemit who are doing what they can to grow their accounts and support the community. Was an awesome find. Gave her a follow for more posts and experiences she has to share, thanks for the tip!
And thank God I didn't have to go through 90 posts with zero payout. I was actually really lucky to get curated a lot by curie, from the very beginning. Which I had no clue of at first, then the difference in payouts made no sense. But definitely initiatives like @curie made all the difference for me to stay put on this platform...
I think my problem is that I don't have a clue to how to get people to keep interacting on steemit. I think some of it is a lack of manual curation and commenting. When people feel like they're not being seen by anyone, they start to wonder why they're bothering to post. I mean, let's face it, you can be ignored just as easily on facebook...
Exactly Amber, I got ignored on facebook a lot myself.... Mostly because of my anti political rants.
It also made people unfriend me, but point is... i never made money there either...
hahahah
Yeah I feel honored and happy to be on some people's voting trails, thats like a nice vote of confidence in me... but one sad result of the voting trails is that some of my favorite people never stop by my blog any more to say hi , or read what I write. Voting trails make it easier to support your friends via upvoting but it actually has a side effect of creating just a little more disconnection. Which in turn leads to less posting. Because we all want to be in actual conversation with one another.
Which, I think thats why the preference for long posts, and the pressure and rewards for super long posts, should be reconsidered. I think long and short posts have their value. But in order to really stay in touch, its kind of nice to just be able to say a tiny blurb sometimes, and have people generate a conversation from there. All things have their strengths and I don't think short posts, or just photo posts, should be frowned upon, especially if someone's blog also has regular length posts, too.
its specially hard to take breaks... i think its connected to the poor content discovery system we have. I've never taken one, probably out of fear of losing momentum, but i know great authors who have, and they've voiced how they felt affected by them.
I agree with you about the voting trails. I am guilty myself of scrolling through my feed and seeing that I already have an upvote for a post and just scrolling on by. I also think that shorter posts have their value too and think they can sometimes be easier to digest and engage with for readers.
lol.. metoo
I've been active on steemit for the past month and the most discouraging thing so far is hearing about how great and amazing the community is, but feeling like you have zero access to it as a new member.
Fortunately, someone did mention that A LOT of the interaction happens on Discord so I have made an account in an attempt to meet more users. Even that has its cons because out of the many channels I have looked into I have only found one with active users who are engaging in thoughtful conversations with one another.
So in the meantime I will continue to browse post looking for interesting people to follow and attempt to build relationships with everyone through comments and the occasional discord group chat.
Great input there... Well, Let me ask you this.. Are you participating of the big communities? the landing zone communities as I call them.
Like MSP/Palnet or ADSactly ?
Yes I recently added both of those. Thanks for the suggestions.
Your balance is below $0.1. This is your 2nd notification that your account is running low and should be replenished.
Things to know:
Life isn't fair and many don't think SteemIt is either.
Freedom isn't for everyone.
Code is law
Your success is totally in your own hands. Nobody owes you anything.
Your content probably isn't really worth money, it is speculation of the coin Steem that is inflating the value.
No matter how many times you make yourself sad looking at the trending page payouts, your content is probably earning way more here than anywhere else.
Steem is for adults that can handle the idea that life isn't fair, who would rather earn something than nothing and regular retention rates of social media sites are terrible everywhere.
I know it all sounds cold and could be worded nicer. That is my view. :)
Most don't like to hear it. In my opinion we do not have a retention problem we have an expectation problem.
I like that, that's a great way to put it.. it really does sum it up.
That's wisdom @whatsup
I'm excited to hear more about your upcoming project!
Reading through the comments that are already on this post, the issue of new users's losing interest due to incorrect expectations seems to be a common theme.
Thought I'd share how I explain this to people... in case it adds to the conversation here:
If you just started posting videos on YouTube... would you expect to be a YouTube star making lots of money in the first few months... first year? What about blogging? No one will know about your blog until you start networking and growing your audience. It's the same on Steemit. You have to be actively working towards building your community if you want to attract followers and be successful.
I try to keep expectations as low as possible with people so if they do get a @curie vote or Dtube/Dlive vote if they are posting videos - then it's a huge and pleasant surprise.
As soon as I get back from this trip I’ll get back to work.
Learning curve is so steep! It's very helpful for people to ask the hard questions and then create solutions.
Thanks to @ecoinstant, this post was resteemed and highlighted in today's edition of The Daily Sneak.
Thank you for your efforts to create quality content!
Hmm, a few things:
This is basically the focus of what we are trying to do.
:)
You'll burn out if you start seriously blogging to a tiny audience.
Spend an hour studying successful #introduceyourself posts; then spend 3 hours writing your own.
Fill it with honesty and candid photos of yourself.
This may be the most exposure you see for a while, so cram it full and make the most of the opportunity.
Then just comment. Comment insightfully, supportively, cleverly, on hundreds of other people's posts and don't blog again until you have at least 200 followers.
I like those tips Matt... That's part of mentoring, no doubt.
I've shared similar tips with users and some of them got it, some of them did not. But I happen to think that plankton have very little to gain out of posting myself.
They need to network and comment like crazy.
They want to aim for at least ten comments for every post.
^ That's you.
https://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=meno
Hahahahah that might be the right ratio... maybe.
Maybe we can ask sql gurus to make some awesome charts about that, i think it would be interesting.
I am a minnow working my way up, I do more than 20:1
Smashing it, mate. Excellent recipe for long term success here.
I think the importance of discord cannot be understated at this time. Until steemit is richer in features, discord is still the best way to get notifications, communicate with other steemians, find community, and help spread the word about your posts. And these are all areas that I think can be frustrating for new people. I have seen multiple newer people who were unaware of how big of a part discord played and how much it added to the overall experience and they petered out pretty quick. Maybe some of the features that currently exist on discord will be integrated into steemit in the future, but until then, I feel that discord is really a must-have if you want any sort of longevity on the platform.
This definitely speaks for the need of mentorship and guidance.
In other words, you wish new users would learn asap about discord. Is this correct?
Yeah, but not just learn about its existence, really be informed about how important it is to navigate the steemit world and the different 'features' that only exist on discord currently. When I first joined, @dflo told me, "you are probably going to want to get discord and by that I mean you really need discord." and she told me about the different groups and gina and all that sort of stuff. It was evident to me from the beginning that it was almost imperative to be successful. I don't think a lot of new people get that memo.
In addition to discord, there are a lot of other little features that make the whole experience more pleasant that aren't immediately evident to everyone. You recently turned me on to @steem-plus, which is absolutely amazing and really improves the overall experience and eliminates a lot of frustrations around the somewhat barebones interface provided by steemit. I have been on here for almost four months and somehow its existence completely eluded me.
I think the awareness of a lot of these third-party improvements could help retain people who otherwise might drift away.
@meno @veckinon Yeah i fully agree with this! Also I have been here six months and i have never heard of @steam-plus. And I will speak as a six-monther here and say that my enthusiasm and love for Steemit is still all here, but my engagement has indeed waned. I have gotten extremely busy in a good way in my real life, but when I think about it, thats not 100% the reason my engagement is waning. I posted about this a little bit today on my blog... which made me think about it more deeply... so I am seeking ways to again integrate steeming into everything else that I am doing , like I was before. None of what I am writing right now fully touches on why my engagement has faded a little bit either. Some of the loss of engagement has to do with not wanting to stare at a screen when I am "off work" because I look at a screen for hours every day . I mean there are a ton of reasons, and I bet there are interesting solutions and suggestions we could brainstorm for every single one of them.
The number one BIGGEST thing that is bringing me back right now is I am starting to really miss the connections and inspiration I find here.
But the flip side of that: I think another thing is there is just a flood of cool shit here and its so. freaking. hard. to keep up with all the new things. You have to search and study and spend hours here to really find all the advantageous things to join and use. That can be incredibly fun when you have time, but othertimes it feels like a firehose of information when my brain is already kind of flooded from my day to day life. How to curate and filter this is beyond me. I used to listen to the radio shows to get that, but now I don't always have time. I have fallen so far behind that some days I get discouraged about where to start picking it all back up again!
Anyway I am not complaining just trying to give a little more insight to another user experience that is probably common. Thanks for asking this question and trying to get underneath some of the current and common user experiences related to retention! xo
Hi @nemo or @meno I am trying to bring people of the Hispanic communities to Steemit but is a little difficult for them to stay because they and I do not have support about others communities, the only one who has supported is @comedyopnemic thanks to them I am here on Steemit writing and commenting your post, we have a little community called Winterfell that is giving 0.1 on vote to the new ones, they do not now about anything about markdown, anything about discord but we are here for helping them.
• What do they need to know?
All people are value and every time you spend on another social network has to be paid.
• What will help most stay?
Just be themselves creating their content to our network and sharing it.
• What is the thing that frustrates new users the most?
They do not get paid and do not believe it is true that this network pays content.
• What can a community do for them? Can it even do something?
Helping them at the beginning and they can help another minnow when they be powerful.
• How do we level the playing field? Can we even do it?
Steemit is hard to get at the beginning but we can handle it, this the future and we are starting it.
Hi
I read your post and because I just finished my second month in Steemit I will give you my newbies perspective.
What do they need to know?
They need to know a lot but they need to learn it in small pieces. This is a wonderful platform with really positive goals. But it’s parts are complex and the vocabulary extensive. Newbies need a brief intro into Cryptocurrency and the blockchain 1-2 sentences max. Then a brief explanation of how this platform rewards them for content in relation to how much they have invested in it monetarily and how much their followers and their patrons have invested in it.
Newbies need to understand the rules about posting, plagiarism, photo credits and cheetah.
Newbies need to know about the 75-25 split author and curator and about the 30 minute rule.
They need to know about dust, dustsweeper, Steemit basic income and vote buying. They need to understand these things to make a little money and not run a foul of the bots. Finally it would be helpful for them to know the relative futility of having large numbers of ghost followers versus the value of building your following by personal interactions one on one.
What will help most stay?
I think people need money and recognition to stay. They need to see the proof that this platform pays for their content or proof of brain, and they need to know someone reads their posts, even if they don’t upvote much. I think the second may be more important then the first, but it’s individual.
What is the thing that frustrates new users the most?
That’s complicated and I am sure varies from user to user. But I think it’s learning the essential information as you go along. It would be nice for people to know the core essentials from the start, so they can avoid finding out important things after they are hurt or lose money on things like no curation rewards because they were voting to soon or lost all their rewards because they were dust payments.
What can a community do for them? Can it even do something?
Yes😀 pair newbies with mentors and/or provide them a small list of essential facts with an attached glossary of terms. If the community could mentor newbies I think it would help newbies stay. Also start setting realistic expectations that this is a long term commitment and people who make hundreds of dollars on each post as a newbie are rare. This is about engagement and building relationships over time, not a get rich quick vehicle for most individuals.
How do we level the playing field? Can we even do it?
I don’t think that’s possible and I am not sure that’s what we need or that that’s right or just. The people who benefit from early investment in Steem or a long term commitment to Steem deserve their success, so any solution that removes that is in my mind wrong and unjust. People need to know that we all have an equal chance to learn about the platform and invest time, effort and money into this endeavor to be successful. That’s about as fair as life gets. This platform can’t fix all the worlds problems, but it can help people and communities profit from investing in and engaging with each other.
Those are my thoughts off the top of my head.
@shortsegments