Today was a good catch-up day and I was thrilled to see everyone take initiative and start games and contests to get attention for our project and to help the newbies and minnows feel welcome. I haven't even had the time to scroll through our hashtag #newbieresteemday and get all the stats yet, but I know I've seen the following:
In just the first 3 days:
- at least 10 different members gave up their feed to resteem for newbies in the last 3 days
- at least 4 different contests/games where members are encouraging the small guys to put out a good post or response and earn SBD funded entirely from their own wallets.
- at least 6 different donations of SBD in direct support of these contests and games
- a logo contest that has approached $30 upvote and has drawn the interests of more artists with each day (I'm guessing we will have a dozen entrants?)
- @mudcat36 and my posts on announcing the program launch have now collectively surpassed the $30 upvote total which all the SBD will be given in some fashion back to the newbies directly.
This doesn't even include all the conversations and activity that is occurring under the radar and not quantifiable. Its a lot and its growing. Which leads me to the question that I'm asking today.
Do You Believe in Partnering Up With Others?
I had an idea that we can also work with already established steemians that already have infrastructure and processes in place. By using their knowledge and experience it will enable us to not only work together, but also get more accomplished as we have many exciting things coming together (stay tuned this is just the warm-ups). ;)
Obviously as we grow our capabilities will also grow, but in the beginning our goal is to enrich the experience primarily for the newbies, yet also secondarily for our members. We are trying to build a community within a community and networking, sharing, playing, and communicating are all facets to building a solid and vibrant core. That is how we get stronger together because we learn, grow, and help each other as we move forward and "grow up". I've seen it first-hand in my first 30 days, and it works.
We have a chance to work with (or partner) with a first candidate if you want. He (@danielsaori) runs a weekly game called Steemit Comment Challenge and he has a good following. He has a weekly prize pool of $20 SBD where he encourages thoughtful comments on a post of the week that he selects. So the game is simple, people go read the post of the week that he selects and you enter your answer in the comment section. Sometimes they are serious posts and sometimes they are just fun. He mixes it up.
Again the goal is to get people to share and make comments and basically interact together. (Note: exactly the advice I give out every day to people about how to get more followers/views on their posts)... Plus they usually earn something on the good answers because their answers get upvotes too.
For an average newbie that spends hours and hours to create a "good post" and then only get a $0.02 upvote, they can sometimes get dejected pretty quickly. (I know, I was there myself 3 weeks ago). By opening up their eyes and promoting the gaming concept they will naturally learn they can do "other" things to make money and get friends to boot. The faster we can put together an ecosystem that supports the newbies, the better their experiences and the more they connect and grow. And games and contest are one such way (as the non-newbies already probably know).
How We Could Help The Newbie (in this case)
My thinking is that if you were interested (as members) in encouraging newbies to join we could ask for "volunteers" to help these newbie in 2 different ways.
#1 tell them about it. If you run across someone with less than a 40 reputation chances are they are either new or need help figuring out how to "engage" more into the system. You can tell them about it in a post of your own where you tell your followers about the game (and note you can even earn money by doing a good thing). Or you can just do it one on one when you see someone or it comes up in conversation. But basically the goal is to get them there.
#2 go to the game site and support the newbies that make a genuine effort with your upvote. And if you also feel so compelled, making the effort to comment on their post too. Everyone likes to hear they did a good job, so this would basically be a cheerleader function.
As with resteeming, this isn't going to be a perfect "fit" for everyone (there are many many ways to contribute so no worries we WILL have at least one plan that suits you). Some people like to save their upvotes for other purposes and that is perfectly valid. Others want to help newbies by promoting them to do better content, and that is cool too. So this isn't something that you do because you feel obligated to, this would be something you would do because you like doing it and support the cause of getting the newbies more immersed.
How We Could Add Incentive To The Newbie's That Participate
If the newbie (40 Reputation score or lower) enters the contest at #steemitcommentchallenge and puts our hashtag #newbieresteemday at the end of their comment, then the newbie would have a chance of winning the normal prize of $20 SBD total from @danielsaori. But they would also get a bonus too...
We could offer another prize of $0.25 SBD for the TOP 10 newbies that enter our hashtag inside the comment box. (Note: I will contribute the total of $2.50 from either the money I will get from my posts about this project if approved by mudcat36 or I will donate it personally). Also if anyone else want to contribute we could either give the $0.25 SBD to more people or increase the amount for the top 10. I'd take suggestions as the argument for both ways is good.
Also we could guarantee an upvote on their comment reaching at least $0.05 by some of our more altruistic members using their upvotes to make a newbies day or just having at least 5 (of the little guys like me using my $0.01). Remember many of these newbies spend hours trying to do something that yields them $0.01 or $0.04 and they would be guaranteed something more than they usually get just because we pay attention to them.
So if we partner with an established player we get to use his infrastructure and following and experience. But by using our power of connecting with the newbies and encouraging their participation, we could deepen their involvement and improve their satisfaction levels.
On top of all this, it would give our awesome community members that have already jumped on board here with such drive and passion, ideas of how to also do our own games and contests too. I have already seen the creativity and enthusiasm that our member possess, and if we create templates of ways we can work together then it keep us tighter knit and working to make everyone successful.
Are you in? Would you like to do either #1 tell them about it or #2 go to the game site and support the newbies that make a genuine effort with your upvote.
Be honest too. I think it is a good win win win, but I am just one person, it needs to be something that you really like.
So let me know your thoughts in the comment section. And of course if you are in, tell me in which way you see yourself contributing.
Thank you for your attention and I look forward to seeing your responses.
As always, be humble and...
