Improving Retention on steemit - Exploring ideas for a Mentoring Sy...

A couple of weeks back I wrote a post entitled Homesteaders and Preppers on steemit : ideas for improving retention.

The continual dropoff of members on the list of Homesteaders and Preppers on steemit prompted me to come up with a starting list of ideas to help improve retention of members in the Homesteading and Prepping community - and on steemit generally.

One of the key ideas on the list is some sort of mentoring / buddy system to help new members when they first join.

Alongside the obvious disappointment at the initial low level of monetary rewards, the complexity of steemit is likely to to be one of the key causes of the high dropout rate of members on steemit in the first couple of months.

There are a number of initiatives on steemit to support new minnows - for example the Minnow Support Project. And there have been various attempts to take this one step further with the setting up of more structured mentoring systems.

However as far as I know there is no full-on successful structured mentoring system on steemit so far.

It is difficult with the tools at hand to provide anything beyond an adhoc, informal arrangement for mentoring.

Entropia - Mentors and Disciples

A few years back I was a keen player of Project Entropia, the first real cash economy MMORPG. This had an inbuilt mentor and disciple system which encouraged experienced players to take on and train new players as disciples. Mentors were rewarded with skill additions and gifts when disciples reached required levels.

While we obviously cannot replicate any such formal mentoring system for Homesteaders and Preppers on steemit I believe we can certainly put together a worthy substitute system based around the Homesteaders Online Discord server.

1. Finding the New Users

The starting point is finding the relevant new homesteading and prepping users as they join steemit. A number of us from the Discord group keep a watchful eye for new homesteaders and preppers. @goldendawne takes it a step further for us and systematically scans a number of relevant tags such as homesteading, prepping, gardening, bushcraft etc looking for new recruits.

2. Recruitment to the Discord

Once identified we invite the new users to join the Homesteaders Online Discord server. Without any inbuilt chat system in steemit it is vital that a suitable means of communication, such as Discord, is established to allow any effective form of mentoring to take place.

3. Recruiting the Mentors

Within the Discord we will need to identify experienced steemians willing to act as mentors. I don't believe we need to restrict this role with any exact requirements but I would think mentors will need to have been on the platform for at least two to three months and to have a reputation of at least 50 - 55.

Hopefully enough willing volunteers will come forward to act as mentors. I cannot unfortunately think of a way to encourage and reward people to take on the mentoring role. Perhaps if we had a central HomesteadersOnline account with sufficient SP it could be used to preferentially upvote the mentors.

4. Matching Mentors and Mentees

Once we have the mentors in place, then we would be looking to allocate new recruits to a suitable mentor. If there is sufficient mentors available then it would be best to pair up mentors and mentees by interest and timezone.

5. The Role of the Mentor

The role of the mentor will to a large extent be obvious - answering questions about the mechanics of steemit, giving advice and assistance on post creation and formatting, encouraging mentees to get out and comment and network, providing supportive upvotes and resteems as appropriate.

I'm sure there is more to add to this list. It would probably be worth documenting it in some form as well.

The primary goal for the mentors will be to help the mentees progress, become fully engaged in steemit and to stick around.

6. Measuring Success

What might be a suitable measure of mentoring success?

Maybe when a new user has been continually active on the platform for say 4 months, with a reputation of at least 55, and a slider level steem power of over 500.

7. Rewarding the Mentor and the Mentee - A Graduation Post Contest ?

It would be good to have a way of rewarding both mentor and mentee when these 'graduation' marker points have been achieved.

Alas I don't think we can provide the 'graduation gifts' of Entropia - unless a kind sponsor wanted to step forward to provide a graduation gift fund...

One idea for a substitute for this might be to have a monthly graduation post contest.

Once mentor and mentee have reached the graduation marker points they should each write a post describing how the relationship worked, the best bits, the weak bits, what could be improved etc.

Then once a month the best pair of posts will be chosen and the winning pair will be awarded a prize of say 5 or 10 SBD each.

To make this not too costly to fund, then perhaps if there are less than five entries in a month they are rolled over into the next month.

Would this be a worthwhile reward incentive? If so I would be willing to put up the prize fund for the first couple of rounds to get it going.

So these are my initial ideas for a mentoring system. This is put forward in the context of the homesteading and prepping community based around the Homesteaders Online Discord server. But it could equally be taken up by any defined and established community on steemit.

QUESTIONS

A. Do we need a mentoring system on steemit?

B. Do you think the mechanics of this mentoring system are workable?

C. Do you consider that such a mentoring system is worthwhile?

D. Do you have any better ideas, or refinements to this proposed system?

A recent study on steemit users in Wales showed a retention rate way down at around 20%. This really must be improved.

Any business knows it is always more cost effective to work existing customers than to keep recruiting new ones - cost of acquisition and all that.

I think a working and workable mentoring system would play an important part in improving the retention rate on steemit. It is just one part, but a significant part.

You might also be interested in some of my other posts :

[ graphic by @pennsif ]

Improving Retention on steemit - Exploring ideas for a Mentoring System