Last week Hiver @demotruk was the main guest of the #hivethrive community hour, this week hosted by @alessandrawhite, @shadowspub and @buttcoins.
For those who don't know Hivethrive shows; they are held every Tuesday at 8PM CEST. Every week the Hivethrive team invites a guest involved in Hive-related projects to talk about their work. Other Hivers can follow the interview live via the Voice Channel and ask questions in the chat.
Check out the official Hive Discord Server to see when the shows are and tune in next Tuesday!
A few weeks ago I recommended @demotruk to the Hivethrive team since I think it would be interesting to hear some more about his projects. And that wasn't a bad idea at all. It was a great show where @demotruk explained about his recent posts focusing on statistics on user retention.
User retention on Hive
We all know it's difficult to keep users on the Hive platform. Especially in times when the price of Hive and thus the rewards are low.
But the following stat presented in demotruks blog still shocked me!
@ocd has the highest user retention of the large onboarders with 46% or 36% after 6 months (depending on whether the new user created an #introduceyourself post). But on the other side of the graph is Leo.voter with 28% retention, or just 2% for users who didn’t make an #introduceyourself post.
But what amazes me is the effect of the user of the #introducteyourself tag (later more on that!).
The following stat was also very interesting. The user retention after 6 months increases significantly when the rewards increase.
It might sound obvious, but it also reignited the discussion about whether we should support our newly onboarded users a bit better.
Interacting with posts from new users and giving them some upvotes will surely help increase the user retention.
During the show some Hivers mentioned initiatives to follow posts of newly onboarded Hivers.
The discussions during the show made me reflect on what I do for newly onboarded Hivers. And I must admit: it isn’t that much. But the show definitely inspired me to do better!
In Dutch we have a saying that translates to: Change the world, start with yourself! And that is what I did; I started exploring some of the initiatives that were mentioned in the chat during the show.
I will share these initiatives and my experiences in this blog.
New user feeds
The reason that I hardly see new users posts is that I mostly use my 'Following' and 'Community' feed for finding interesting posts to upvote and/or comment on.
During the show a couple of people mentioned initiatives to support new Hivers. I'll first list them here and mention who posted them in the chat.
Clicking them will redirect you to the feed immediately.
- Lovesniper (mentioned by @palomap3)
- Pioneersupporter (mentioned by @starkerz)
- Swarmpost (mentioned by @demotruk)
- #introduceyourself (discussed in the show)
Lovesniper
Lovesniper is an initiative by the @ocd curation team. In their retention curation post they explain it as follows:
The Lovesniper Retention curation initiative aiming to retain those quality content creators after making their introduction posts. It was observed that after newbies made their introduction posts, their succeeding posts are often ignored. This initiative will hopefully encourage the newbies to continue posting quality content and interact with anyone in the community. As compilation posts are also done, this will highlight the newbies and will give the community an idea which newbie to look out for.
OCD's Lovesniper team will follow everyone who made an introduction post and @lovesniper's feed will be the place to scour those quality content from new authors. Curators will check all the posts in the feed to find under-rewarded posts and recommend them for curation.
So, the OCD curators can nominate posts in the stream that they think deserve an upvote from OCD.
But we can use this stream as well to find interesting new users as well to support and/or engage with.
Pioneersupporter
Another initiative is the Pioneersupporter feed. The account doesn't have a lot of information about what it does (maybe you could create a short post in this account @starkerz), but it does have one comment saying:
"Its a full feed of users that have a high degree of trust."
If I remember correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong) these are users that are onboarded 'in real life' by other Hivers via checkinwith.xyz. So you won't be seeing many bots in this stream.
Swarmpost
This initiative was created by @demotruk. Just like Pioneersupporter, Swarmpost works with trust. You can become a member of the trust network and vouch for a user you brought to Hive or sponsor a user if you believe they are a real person, which makes you responsible for that account.
Both newly onboarded users as sponsors can win rewards in a lottery.
How to Help New Users Enter the Lottery
If you're part of the trust network, you can help new Hive users become eligible for the lottery:
Vouch — If you know who onboarded a new user but their on-chain creator is a service account (like @hiveonboard), comment on their introduction post:
!vouch @realcreator
This tells the system who really brought them to Hive. The attested creator receives the onboarder's share of the rewards.
Sponsor — If a new user has no trusted onboarder at all but you believe they are a real person worth supporting, comment on their introduction post:
!sponsor
This makes you responsible for that account. You receive the onboarder's share of the rewards. Sponsoring requires a higher trust score than vouching.
If you are onboarding people you know, it might be interesting for you to use this service.
I personally don't onboard users I know, but I did register my account via https://hiveinvite.com/trust/ so I'm able to sponsor newly created accounts that I trust are human.
And I will keep an eye on the swarmpost feed as well.
#introduceyourself
The #introduceyourself tag exists for a long time. New users are often encouraged to create an introduction post with this tag. If you open this tag on your favourite front-end you get all the introduction posts.
If you're using the @PeakD front-end, you can even 'bookmark' this stream by clicking the star (it will turn blue). This way you can easily access this stream via the "Explore" menu in PeakD.
By default the stream is sorted by the most trending posts. By clicking the sort button you can change it to 'Recent' to see the most recent introduction posts.
My first impression
I've been checking these streams for the past few days. I must say there are quite a few new users being onboarded on Hive and a lot of them seem to be genuine people that want to add something to Hive.
I'll keep on checking these streams for a while to see if I can support some newly onboarded Hivers.
PeakD lists
One other dilemma I had while engaging with the new Hivers was how I keep track of them after their first posts. I don't want to start following all. I don’t want my following list to grow too large so I can keep track of the people I follow.
But PeakD has a neat solution for this, which is lists. In PeakD you can create multiple custom lists and add accounts to those lists. The lists show up under the "Feeds" menu in PeakD.
By clicking one of your lists under the Feeds menu, you are presented with all posts of the users on that list.
So what I’ve done is create a “Newbies” list where I add newly discovered Hivers I’m curious about, to see what they’ll be posting in the future.
Adding a list and accounts to that list is really easy in PeakD. When you're reading someone's blog you see their profile on the right hand side which has on option "List". When you click that button you can create a new list or add the account to one of your existing lists.
I will regularly check my "Newbies" list to see if they have created any new blogs. These personalized list feeds can also be opened via the mobile version of PeakD as you can see below.
Automated comments
During my experiment with the feeds of new users I've discovered something else, which is automated comments.
Several new accounts automatically receive replies from some accounts. Most of them are (or at least seem) automated. I have some mixed feelings about it.
One of the accounts is certainly creating automated comments. Rafiki is an AI controlled account that replies on newly created posts via Inleo.
It does mention it is an AI agent in the comment itself, but I doubt if we give a good signal with these comments. Especially when it's the only comment a post gets...
Another comment I noticed a couple of times is from a particular account telling people to power down and sell. Also not a good thing when there are just a few comments.
I did see another positive initiative recently, but I can't seem to find it anymore 😬
It was an autoreply that scanned the blog with AI and suggested both Hivers as Communities to follow based on the content of their blog. I found it very interesting since it guides new users and shows them users and communities that they might like.
If anyone knows which initiative this is, please share it in the comments. I also wonder why I can't see these comments on all recent #introduction posts.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on user retention and engagement. Are you engaging with newcomers? Do you have something to add to this blog? Do you know of any other initiatives perhaps? Please share it in the comments!
I completely agree that user retention has been abysmal on Hive, and anyone that wants to know why I think that is can look at my posting history, or ask any of the biggest downvoters, because I discussed it with all of them at least once.
One of the most successful user retention programs was called the 'Stewards of Gondor', and it required only modest delegations (~5k Hive IIRC) to trusted curators, which they then used to upvote good posts from new authors. When the curators proved to be unworthy of trust and started self-voting or circle-jerking to profit from their delegations, all that was necessary to end their scamming was withdrawing the delegation. No actual DHF or fund expenditures were required, simply a sponsor with a phat sack.
This was a great success, so of course the sponsor was flagged off the platform.
Anyway, that's really all it takes to create a formal program to recognize and encourage new creators that create quality posts.
Speaking of new creators, here's the first post on Hive by @drjudywood, author and activist of some note, onboarded by our very own @mes. So folks that want to encourage Dr. Wood to stay on Hive and contribute her professional quality writing to our ecosystem, now's your chance. Dr. Wood has a considerable following and generates interest in her content constantly, so I consider her perhaps the best new user to join in terms of generating interest in Hive in a long time, because her content published here will generate more new users, great engagement, and benefit the platform with her every post.
Thanks!
Thanks for your feedback!
I didn't know about 'Stewards of Gondor'. Sad to read they abused the delegations.
I don't think we need a service like that to improve the spread of votes. And I also don't think we should rely on whales to solve it either. I think if more a matter of us, dolphins and orcas to diversify our votes and have some eye for newcomers.
Thanks for mentioning @drjudywood. I'll put her on my newbies list to follow.
I don't think we necessarily need way more users. I think it would be better to have a few users that a either have interesting things to share or a following already.
Writing extemporaneously sometimes lacks precision. Only one of the Stewards self voted IIRC. I should have stated that more clearly. Most of the Stewards did exactly what the delegator wanted them to do, and didn't do anything shady at all. I only meant to convey that scummy scammers were easily and quickly dealt with by simply withdrawing the delegation. I vaguely recall they were flagged hard, but I might be fantasizing of the perfect world I wish Hive had created.
I think if Hive were done right, everyone in the world that can type or dictate would be a happy user. That's a world I'd like to live in.
Thanks for doing what you do.
Your reply is upvoted by @topcomment; a manual curation service that rewards meaningful and engaging comments.
@hivetrending is the one suggesting communities your bot?
That is @love-scout, I think it was @acidyo idea.
Which reminds me. I was running it manually every couple of days and I forgot about it. Napping
We feel like we need more dedicated platforms built on the tech instead of just trying to promote the community itself. We are using other parts of the tech to try and onboard new musicians and fans and putting focus on music minted through NFTs on Hive-Engine, not posts.
It's been a problem since inception. Most Hive developers are pretty lazy, only wanting to make forks of the same front ends showing the same content as all the others. The users need to just be attracted to the platform, not the blockchain running it. As a matter of fact, we are about to expand to EVM chains because the Hive community is so bare, but with Hive @keychain bringing EVM wallets to the HK wallet, that is going to be a game changer on it's own right.
The problem is the toxicity with the top whales and the censorship on the platform. That's a huge problem that honestly will never go away as long as they are still running the chain, so we just have to figure out ways to use the chain in ways they can't influence near as much!
And then there is the account creation process and onboarding... That can be difficult for average people to get through.
I think there are more and more different dedicated platforms on Hive. I see more and more sites and apps being developed, which is really cool.
I didn't know about blocktunes, but it sounds cool (pun intended 😉).
We actually started in 2022, but right at the top of the hype, so really bad timing... haha. That's when most of the music on there now was minted. Plus the infrastructure and development wasn't there yet. Things are much different now!
Stop downvoting interesting projects would be a smart first step
Which interesting projects are you talking about?
@solarcoach and @cleanplanet are two i have in mind but i saw other people leaving because their project have been downvoted
Thanks for this ! User retention is something I've been thinking hard about. While I appreciate it shouldn't be all about the money, I think that author and curator rewards is something that is new and exciting for those who (like me) come from legacy social media where you get nothing from a post except more adverts. So leveraging that is definitely worthwhile.
I didn't realise that the onboarding post thing was such a huge indicator. Perhaps what is needed (and I appreciate I'm suggesting something which creates a lot of work for other people !) is to try to persuade the main front-ends to have a kind of onboarding tutorial. Hivebuzz does something like this already, but of course you have to know it's there.
I'm thinking that for new users, there could be the kind of guided tutorial similar to the way video games do it. So once you click "yes" to the guided tutorial, it takes you straight to an onboarding post screen pre-populated with tags and with bubbles explaining what each thing is and with some suggestions on what to put. Once the onboarding post is done, it could move on to "here are some suggested communities. Join a few you like" and then "read some posts, and here is how to upvote them". Effectively, it would teach new users all the key functionality as well as pitfalls to avoid.
Perhaps the front ends could even auto-join new users to a "New User Community" for a period of (say) 6 weeks, or highlight their names in green or something to make it easier for us all to spot them.
User retention is hard when there are so many things competing for our time !
The problem with a tutorial is that Hive is quite complex for 'normal' people. All the different front-ends would need their own manual.
In another comment a simple front end was mentioned. Stripped from keys, wallets and earnings and with simple email logon. Maybe that is the way to go.
Personally, the way I want to onboard users is to bring them into a certain community and get them hooked onto that, not to the other aspects of Hive(no need to learn about rewards). Once they have a community here and people they come to talk to, they are much more inclined to stick around! If you look at the site I'm working on for that(https://youarethe.host/) you can see that it doesn't show rewards, has email login, and is as simple as possible to help people just be on chain without really needing to know they are on chain.
Interesting! The email login and hiding of the rewards make it easier for onboarding and adaption. But what happens with the rewards they gather? Do they actually get rewards when their posts are upvoted?
It looks really clean!
Yup, it’s just a normal Hive account under the hood, just with the rewards stuff hidden. Users who log in via email aren’t able to do any active key functions without “ejecting”(managing the keys themself and using something like keychain), but it’s all collected and waiting for them for the day they learn more about Hive. But by that point, even if they have earned very little, they’d have other reasons to stay rather than just the rewards.
Great points on users retention on Hive and this is something we as one need to try to improve.
Thanks!
Gorgeous post, @friendlymoose!! Super helpful.
Thank you for being at the show. I love seein’ ya there!
#hivethrive #cwh
You're welcome!
Who's on next weeks show?
It would be great if there's a tan in #ecency or #inleo for new users so we could identify them.
The onboarding-to-first-payout gap is where most people drop off. A new user posts, gets nothing for a week, leaves. Something like a small guaranteed curation reward on first post — even 0.1 Hive — would bridge that gap psychologically.
Is it? People often don't know how the platform works and need to be explained the basics. If they know payout always comes in 7 days, they will wait for it.
I also get one paycheck a month at my job, but I don't quit 😉
I think we as a community should be able to manage thay every genuine newcomer gets at least some rewards on their first posts.
Fair point. The 7-day delay is not hidden, but it is not exactly explained either. Most platforms pay instantly or not at all. That gap between posting and seeing anything happen is where doubt creeps in. Maybe the fix is less about explaining the delay and more about giving new users some visible signal that something is happening during that week.