User Retention: This is Our Community
Recently user retention has been a topic of discussion and I've been giving it some thought and also reading some other posts on this topic.
I've been considering what the community can do to help. This post is about ideas and brain storming, hopefully there will be an active comment section. The point is to focus on our responsibility as a decentralized community.
IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY
Many feel that 60k daily active accounts is a bad stat for for 1 million created accounts. Remember SteemIt is the wallet, so many accounts might have stake and be inactive for a reason. Not everyone wants to blog/write/sing, create content. There are many reasons including stakeholder wallets, squatters, bots, accidental sign up, scam networks, etc that could cause a person to create an account and not post or vote. In fact I own one for a little light hearted trolling and haven't used it.
As a Decentralized Community we are ALL responsible to do what we can to fix issues and support the growth we want to see.
If Retention is Low, We Don't Know Why
Lots of people have stated reasons, but I haven't seen any data or exit interviews.
I would be curious to know how many accounts have signed up and posted 4 or 5 times and then went away. It would be fun to look through a list of those accounts. Were they scammers and spammers or legitimate accounts trying to blog, were they flagged? We don't currently know. In any case I think social media in general has a high churn rate. At this point we don't even know what problem we are fixing, regarding active users.
Let's assume we do have a retention issue, for the most part the active community doesn't control the Interface or a huge share of the rewards, but we do play a major role in setting the culture. We all have limited voting power and rewards are what they are, my thought is the best thing we can do for new users is to give them some visibility, engagement and encouragement. If they have financial goals and aren't wanting to invest, I am not sure we either want or need to retain those accounts. (feedback in the comments please, why?) I am fine with them digging in and becoming successful, but the expectations many of them are coming in with are insane.
There is one thing everyone can do for new users; engage with them. Make more comments, be welcoming and answer posts that ask for help.
If one user doesn't know the answer send someone to a favorite chat channel on discord or steem.chat. Link the FAQ to a struggling new user. It is fine to let minnows figure out how to earn, but we could at least be kind and helpful.
SET REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
I like the saying, Promise Less Deliver More.
For End Users:
I think we should stop telling new users to fish for whale votes, most of them aren't getting them and it creates disappointment. Stop telling people they get free money, it takes a lot of work or a financial investment to earn. As the volume of end-users grows, there will be fewer large stakeholders to go around. New-Users need to gather together and build a growth networks just like most of us who were not blessed with delegation did. The vast majority of them will earn WAY more here than they would anywhere else. If they can't accept that, why should we retain them? Some highly talented content creators will do great, as it still can be easy to stand out on the platform. We can give some talented users a resteem or make a post, try to help the best get some visibility.
Stop acting sad that money isn't raining down on us, that is not how life works. I have a twitter account that everyone ignores also, and they don't even pay.
If we reach $100 STEEM, perfect money will rain then. :) For now we are building a base and end-users who are mature and realistic will expect to have to put either time or money in.
Internal Expectation Matter Also:
We might never see mainstream, ir fast growth might not happen until HF20, when sign ups improve. At some point SteemIt, Inc may decide to advertise and surely some of the dApps being built on Steem will do their own marketing and growth plans.
We are seeing steady growth that rises and falls with price and interest in Cryptocurrency. So far, I don't see any serious competition although several are in the works. With the complexity of the site, our current user-base and herding cats, our growth may come slowly and it is possible as a new tech many will sign up and find it too hard or too complicated to stay. I think we should be okay with that. This isn't for everyone. Rough language, conflicting agendas, flags, and money, it takes a pretty mature person who is fairly comfortable in their own skin to be successful here. That is okay.
Myspace still isn't dead for all the talk of Facebook. They still have employees and end users. I am not saying we will be MySpace, but who cares if we are?
On the other hand after HF20 we could hit the jackpot in end-users, but be prepared that slow growth is sometimes the best growth.
Anyway, I would like to hear your thoughts on how WE can help with retention.
If you want to tell me what SteemIt, Inc can do that is fine, but I don't have any sway with them and frankly I think it is in our capable hands.
Let's talk about in the comment section
What can the community do to help newusers? What should we consider a reasonable rate of churn, if we worry about it at all?
when i was new i i also too depressed because i couldnt find any improvement to me . but i got patience and had some improve and now some to little . in future it could be more .
i find some steemit friend like you and you all support me by such kind of post. thanks for share
Thank goodness....
I think people mainly leave because they make little to no money. In addition I think they have low expectations for Steem. I think eventually these two problems will somewhat sort themselves out but we might always have low retention.
They may have low expectations for STEEM, but I would bet that was not the case when they first arrived here!
Yeah so far this platform has been a lot about patience. lol
You might want to sign up for @dustsweeper. FYI
why don't we launch a survey and find out. let us ask people why they came on, why they are staying and why on earth they would consider quitting. then we can drum up things to do to retain users.
I have five accounts but three of them post, so I'm not sure if I'm part of the solution or part of the problem. (The fourth will post eventually, the fifth was created in error because of the SteemConnect bug.)
When it comes to retention, the question for me is who are we retaining? A lot of those new accounts are just spammers, plagiarists, and phishers. A big chunk of the rest are people who either have nothing of interest to post about or want to treat it like Twitter or Instagram.
So to me, we need to be hunting down the new accounts who are interesting and/or community-builders, and making sure we get most of them enough support of one sort or another to inspire them to stick around and grow their accounts. We're not yet very good at this but I think we're a lot better than we were even a month ago as more of the minnow/dolphin community has picked up on this.
We're never going to be able to guarantee that everyone good gets found, but as long as we're bringing along new classes continually, and can convince those people to do some of the same work, the growth can be exponential.
Mass adoption anytime soon scares me, though. We don't have enough of a support network to lift up more than a few dozen good new posters a month at this point. If we have tens of thousands of 15 SP legitimate users at a time, I don't know how that ends well. I guess the people who can make friends with dolphins will do ok and everyone else will leave.
Well, the fact that new users come and goes doesn't change the fact that there aren't some good content creators. I think we should try as much as possible to create schools / classes for minnows, educate them about all the huge expectations they carried along to steemit and make them more focus knowing well that patience's and consistency pays off.
And again I think when bringing new users to steemit we should stop this lies of "COME TO STEEMIT, POST AND MAKE MONEY". It doesn't work that way, I personally was told that lie and it made me had this huge expectation of seeing Steemit as a quick making money scheme. It hasn't been easy for me and other babies on the platform so far but with the help of @whatsup and others I feel not been only.
So lets always try to encourage the new ones coming, educate them and lets see how it goes.
Thanks at all
I belive what might really help is if Steemit adopts a "categories" UI. That way bloggers can blog and Meme'ers can Meme, jokes can be shared,and photographers can post their art... all in their unique little corners of Steemit!
Well, what we also see is some start and stop and start and stop. Which I am fine with as long as they don't complain about the time and earnings they missed.
Your post also made me think we should try to find ways to explain the compounding growth of an account. For each steem you earn the next one becomes easier. At some point around 1000 sp that increases really quickly.
Or even if they complain for a bit and then get down to work again. I'm all for giving people some time for self-indulgence as long as it's temporary.
I know about compounding growth but since I skipped that range completely by buying Steem I'd be interested in hearing about how that inflection point has worked for people.
It works well as long as the price of STEEM is up! Personally, I become discouraged with posting when the price keeps dropping or remains low.
People coming in with high expectations is the biggest factor for people not staying I believe. They come in enthusiastic having read articles like this, and think that it will be easy to earn $1000s of dollars per post - when in reality the first few weeks/months are pretty dissapointing where most peoples post are lucky to make a few cents.
I think part of this is the medias fault, but also partly the way people who have been using Steem a while talk about it to potential new users - I know when I tell friends I probably make it soud easier than it is in reality.
On top of that Steem can be complicated and some people cant be bothered to stick that out or dont agree with all the politics (bots, bot abuse etc...). It really takes a good month to 6 weeks to even find your feeton here and by that time ,oads of people have already left
For the most part I think people are setting really bad expectations. It is hard to undo that.
I guess we just have to start being harsh messengers. You will not be rich by next week. :) lol
I so much love this part, its a pity that its the bitter truth.
I have been on steemit for 4 months buy actively for 2 months now and I must confess its not as easy as you are told when convincing you to join.
I have made nice and quality post but ended up with less than a cent. You know how depress that is? Lolz
But I just have to continue knowing at the long run I will be successful.
Since I have planned to be here for a long I have already started investing the little I can afford even though it is not up to what you can spend on a meal.lolz
I know with time I will be noticed for my works.
Thanks at @whatsup
Currently we haven't got Western People to buy in and see the bigger picture. That is why we are seeing many leave. When we see Western People get real buy in then we talk about a massive worldwide adoption. The question then comes how you can influence them faster? Since currently they hang around Facebook. We need to know their deeper desires and wants. And how we can make their life easier.
We have problem with new users engagement because most of them are coming on Steemit with idea of quick bucks, then they get disappointed and leave. I tell everyone to treat Steemit like any other Social network and to have fun here. Huge advantage of Steemit is that for having fun you can be rewarded. When we achieve that people are coming here for fun, active user growth will explode...
Yeah, I tend to agree.
Sometimes!
If I can add something - I made a post here Skyrocketing the price of Steem
Something I wish to highlight is the fact that since there's more advantage to Steem in a 3rd world country, it's going to compound.
If I work 1 hour on a post, minimum wage here big 11, and cost of living requiring 3x minimum to live in my city; I have to make 33 hour to just maintain my lower middle class lifestyle with 3 kids. If I made 5 dollars less an hour, I'd qualify for an emergency social welfare check. I would be considered, below the poverty line.
Now my aunt in the Philippines makes $10/day usd, and is living a better actual quality of life than I am. $1usd (.5 sbd) per post is a totally reasonable use of her time. So what happens?
She signs up 100 people and they all do what they do and don't power up and cash out every Friday.
I do what I do, take a mild loss for some intrinsic value, power up so I can give with nothing in return, with no ability to cash out without losing that influence to give.
And anyone I sign up, quickly realizes they can meet their needs on Facebook, Tether, and at work like normal people.
Hm.
Then when the occasional westerner does stay, they are met at every angle with pressure to do what's best for steem, or not do what's best to maintain their own stake. And as guilty privileged westerners, we comply.
And we wonder WHY the social and content dynamic is what it is, and why the cost of steem is shit? Doesn't seem like rocket science.
updooted this from the bottom. hope to get some feedback
Living in the Philippines, I must add that quality of life there is very subjective. For me to have a better quality of life than I had living in the USA, it takes a little more than $10 per day. For the many who can live well on $10 per day, I commend them... although they do not have much to compare their lives with. I got my nephew on Steemit and after 3 weeks, he realized he was not going to get rich quick and his focus shifted elswhere and went to Manila for a real job.
I like to compare it to YouTube. The top 1 percent make a ton of cash and most accounts get a handful of views. There are a few more options to get you video viral though. YouTube it's about clicks from anyone here you need whale votes.
I got people to join and they all quit. The whole blog for crypto slogan isn't exactly honest. Your blogs can be great, you could be a Pulitzer prize winning writer, you are still going to start out with 2 cent blogs. Everyone goes through that though so I don't have a ton of sympathy. People who complain never seem to have 2000 posts.
I got a few big votes from people who bought a ton of steem and never wrote a blog or comment, those people exist. Not sure if inactive status still applied to accounts cashing in big curation rewards
Agreed. Some are thinking steem will rain down on them for typing. Shrugs, it has even worked for some, but I think those days are ending.
Ya we know everyone is going to pass through the less than 2cent reward for their post when they first start. I have passed through that and am still passing through it.lolz
But I think what we are trying to address is how we can help by encouraging them(the good ones who loves to stay) and giving them tips from your experience for been here for a long time.
Personally I don't blame people who get discourage along the way.
For instance, am from a country where my economy is bad "I spend roughly $12-15 for data subscription in a month and ever since I have been on steemit for over 4 months I have never made half of that. So imagine how can I cope?
It's not as easy for everyone
. What we should be looking out are possible ways to keep people like us with quality contents and desire to promote steemit.
Thanks for understanding
I see no problem with low retention rates. The get-rich-quick crowd burns out. The spammers get flagged into oblivion. The bots fade. Meanwhile, the core of content creators who stick with it are the ones who will build Steemit into something serious. Keep the wheat and let the chaff blow away on its own.
Our real struggle is finding the minnows who will become new content creators.
I think we just really need to find them.
The biggest problems now is the tending page.
Thousands of minnows with good content but no visibility.
My suggestion is if there is a way we can organize a platform for each niche to get the attention of the minnows with quality post maybe through contest etc.
Or what do you think?
We need to find a way to end the bid bot distortion of curation, or at least encourage people to read more minniw posts.
The best solution I have found is to encourage minnows to make substantive comments. I meet new users to support when they write comments on my own posts.
Resteeming can also be a powerful tool when used judiciously. Someone who has a reputation as a content creator in theirbown right who occasionally resteems something interesting by another user gets more attention from me than all the "resteeming services" combined.