After being part of this great community for a couple of months, it seems to me there are a few basic "social tools" we need on Steemit if the platform is to ever grow beyond the hard group of pioneers currently here.

So I'm going to toss this out there in the hope that "the powers that be" ( @ned, @sneak, some of the developers?) might take a few moments to consider this idea.

Boat
Sailboat at Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival

Bringing new people to the world of Steemit... BUT...

As our little community continues to grow and features are added to make this an ever better social content platform, I have the sense lots of current users will be interested in getting friends from “off site” to come join up.

I have poked at the idea half-heartedly (so far, only my wife and sister-in-law have joined, that I know of. Oh, and one dude who signed up only so he could comments on one of my posts), but haven't yet put a lot of effort into it.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that Steemit is in need of some kind of referral system.

"Referrals" are NOT always what you think!

Now before you launch into a tirade about how referral systems “kill web sites,” and cause clouds of spam, let me take a moment to paint a more specific picture of the how and what.

Also, giving credit where due: this post was largely inspired by a recent post by @good-karma, and the ensuing discussions. You can read that original post here.

Boats
Sailboats at Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival

Referrals for TRACKING—NOT for money or rewards

For me, the primary purpose of having some kind of referral tracking (for all "versions" of Steemit) isn't really about getting rewards, but about a serving a social function—specifically, knowing whether anybody is "listening" when we mention or market Steemit, outside the Steemit framework.

Let's hypothetically say I write a Steemit post called something like "Why I'm no longer hanging around on Facebook, these days" and use it to write a nice introductory explanation of Steemit for the "average" social media user. Then I distribute it in the usual spaces I use to promote my writing, as I did with a "non-Steemit" related post a few weeks back, which ended up getting about 1300 reads... so I at least know that my offsite followers are willing to read my stuff here.

So, let's say I distribute this article and include an "if this sounds interesting to you, click here to come join me!" link at the bottom of the article. Most likely a few people will take a chance and click on the link. Let's arbitrarily say five people think this is a groovy idea...

Coast
Coastline near Kingston, Washington

...so they go to Steemit, create an account… and…?

That’s all nice and good, but how do I know that somebody actually signed up as a result of my efforts?

Again, this is not about “money.”

My issue is that I just want to be connected to these folks, somehow... because we're "selling" this platform as a community, and as a community member, I should at least be able to automatically follow these new people. That makes sense, right? What's more, it would be nice if they were "auto-followed" into a separate category called something other than just "followers."

So that I know that they joined. See the point?

A lot of content creators have "followers." These are like actual people I have interacted with, elsewhere, not "random strangers." I have blogs; I have Facebook pages; I belong to large active groups.

Which brings me to the next point...

Sailboats at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, Washington state

The need for an internal Steemit message system

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but it would be really nice if we had a message system here on Steemit (Yes, I know, busy.org has one... but I'm on Steemit, right now) so I could actually send new joinees a personal message to (a) welcome them and (b) help/encourage them to start posting and become active community members and (c) answer potential questions.

Again, that's what a community does. These are typical features in Social Media... even twitter has direct messages.

Doesn't have to be anything "fancy;" very basic, in keeping with the pretty basic user interface we already have for blogging.

I'm a Content Creator, not a Developer

Now I put these suggestions forth from the perspective of a “regular content creator.” Sure, there are external apps, or I can go on busy.org… but speaking as “an average user” that already makes the platform “too complicated.”

We have a lot of developers and "tech-y" people here on Steemit. These good folks really know code, and that's a beautiful thing. But code doesn't build communities, PEOPLE do. And-- in order to get this community to truly take wings and fly-- we need some better "social tools" not only for those of us already here, but for the many who are yet to come and join us.

Sailboat at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, Washington state

So finally a few words about rewards

OK, so let's discuss the other side of referrals; the side most people are familiar with-- “referrals” being something you do to get a reward.

I feel somewhat ambivalent about that. Speaking from 20+ years of experience contributing to user-generated content sites, the SINGLE BIGGEST ISSUE with "referred members" tends to be "dead accounts." That is, people who sign up, confirm their accounts, and never log in again.

Generally, the reason so many accounts end up dead as a result of referrals is that rewards are given simply for getting someone to sign up.

That is an absolute no-no!

Sunset
Winter sunset, Washington state

There are numerous groups out there, on Facebook and 4chan and Reddit and beyond that exist for no other purpose than to be a mutual backscratching service where people sign up multiple referral accounts just to earn rewards from each other.

You can even hire people to do so, through places like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk or Fiverr.

Functionally Speaking, that means...

Sooooo, the net effect would be that I persuade 300 people to sign up, solely so I can get my "rewards" and none of them ever post anything... massively stupid... it's a financial drain and a waste of space.

Limited Rewards that COULD make sense

IF there were to be rewards attached to Steemit referrals, I would propose that it should be something along the lines of the referrer getting a 1% "royalty" of the referree's active posting rewards WHEN, and ONLY when they reach 1000SP (or something like that), and that reward is issued only as Steem Power, not as a "liquid" reward.

Sunset
Winter sunset, Olympic Peninsula Washington state

Intended result: I would only get rewards for someone who (a) posts regularly (or invests cash) and (b) doesn't just come in and cashes out every time they have $2 to their name... which is another "plague" that often falls on reward based sites. In addition, my rewards for referring people would be locked up in Steem Power for a while before I could touch them...

Who IS this guy, anyway???

Now, do I actually know what I am talking about?

Well, my experience base is approximately 20 years, contributing to about 60 "for rewards" sites. During those two decades ALL BUT ONE SITE focusing on this type of “user generated content" has shut down. In many cases over the issue of mismanaging referrals (usually in service of wanting to grow too fast!).

That dismal track records tells me referrals and rewards are something that has to be carefully planned and implemented with the utmost of caution.

Steemit is an awesome venue, so let's not shoot the goose that's laying golden eggs!

What do YOU think? Would Steemit benefit from a referral system? Would you like to be able to stay easily in contact with those you encourage to join Steemit? Does it make sense that we should be able to send each other personal messages here... even if they are only short, and not rewarded? Leave a comment and share your ideas-- I'd love to hear what others think, on this topic!

(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)