So I've been considering for awhile what I can do about the issue of retention.
You've surely seen posts about the poor retention rate on Steem. People come, set up an account, and then never come back. They become dead fish. If you want to look at the research, pay a visit to @paulag's blog where you will find all sorts of back up data for the retention issue.
So what can I do? How can I convince people to stick around?
Welcome to my new Retention initiative, My daily Pick 5.
The basic idea is that I will spend some time each day going through the introduceyourself tag and looking for genuine introduction posts. I know there are other Steemians who curate the introduction tag. I'm not sure how they do it, if they just go through and give some upvotes, but for my purposes, I am upvoting, commenting and following. The goal is to pick five brand new Steemians each day. People who put together a compelling introduction post. People who show promise to be contributors to the platform.
Today I picked 6, tomorrow I may choose 4. It won't be consistent. And not everyone I follow will remain on my list. If they don't continue to put together original content, or fall prey to the dark side of spam posting, they will fall off my following list.
Ultimately, if I can help one of the five a day to have a positive attitude toward Steem, then I will feel like I have done some good. 35 people a week is WAY more than I add to follow currently, so if some of them stick, and grow to be valued contributors, that helps me too! Growing the Steem community grows the value of Steem!
Now this is not entirely altruistic. Most of the things I do have some sort of room for personal gain. As a Curie Curator, I am constantly looking for exceptional content from new Steemians. If I already follow a bunch of people from their introduction posts, I may just find curieable content in my feed. That benefits me quite a bit!
Still. Hopefully it helps the community more than it helps me. Because new, engaged, and invested Steemians are what we need to get Steem moving in the right direction.
Join Me!
There are plenty of people joining the platform every day for more than one person to find five people to follow. So I invite everyone reading this to invest some time in the introduceyourself tag, find someone that resonates with you. You don't have to commit to five, you don't have to commit to every day. But find someone every now and then who speaks to you, and follow them. You may have a brand new friend in the making!