Recently I looked through many posts promoting steemit on different platforms like youtube, facebook and twitter. Then I got a random thought of referral system, which we have in Uber and Airbnb.What if we all start referring our friends and could earn something referring them on this platform. I did my research to find any platform working on a referral system. Didn't find any so I thought why shouldn't I build one.
THE IDEATION
The idea was simple if one person registers on Steemifer and he will receive a referral code (unique code-like "XCDET5") after verifying his/her email-id and account.I was thinking about OTP verification it would take a lot of time and I didn't know how the community would take the referral system, so I dropped. :)
Few things to check though-
- How could one stop old users from using referral code?
- How would one be keeping the track of people referred and how referrer going to keep the track of his/her referral recipient?
- If money for promoting is needed, how we gonna raise it?
- What if people still find a way to play around the system, if it is introduced?
So brain-storming a little, I got the answer to several questions.
If we could use the referral code as last tag and "steemifer" as the second tag. Our bot or we could easily referral recipients. But what about the old users. So I thought of limiting the age of user to 2 days and 1st post, which could be tracked from steemd.com/@username. Thanks to @zord189
In beta stage capping the maximum people who would be given referral code to 50, looks like a valid idea to me so that its easier to track and learn how people are responding towards the referrals!
About raising money, I got an additional account @steemifer which could raise money from announcements and delegation by whales.
- Why will the Whales delegate?
It for the simplification and followers, when we have the e-mail address of users we could segregate by their interests and could send a list of whales blogging to those tags. Like @netuoso in programming in development similarly @kerlund74 in photography and @soundwavesphoton in music :)
Once we could track referral recipient, it will be easier to know, survey and channelize what/who is bringing more users to Steemit Platform. We could do more and more advertisement based on the surveys. We could see people advertising steemit on facebook using referral system in the process to earn SBDs and raising the power. I think it's going to help the steemit grow fast with word of mouth underplay.
The Youtubers or bloggers with high audiences could write the post mentioning the number of users they brought to this platform, and we could resteem and upvote so that their efforts to grow this community could be incentivised :)
THE ROADBLOCK
After discussing steemifer on chat groups I got to know about the negativity surrounding referral systems.
1.Negativity around the referrals.
I started talking to people, for some referrals are scammy, those who were tired of bots took it as something similar. Some said you may get flagged for introducing such idea to people because it's about producing good content. I understood their perspective but it was something which I wanted to try. They are a lot of people who are getting some kind of help by steemit, some could now fulfil their passion, some could pay for bills, some fed up of government schemes are dependent on steemit as a source of Income. This platform is doing a lot for steemians and could do wonders for people who are still struggling. And I couldn't give up on giving back to this community. So I started discussing it with @sykochica, she asked me to just try.
2. As a minnow, am I reputed enough to start something like this?
We all need some kind of reputation of the real world as well to start something. I was thinking that this community is helping enough to push the people. But what I missed was a group of right people, who are willing to start something on the steemit platform and are willing to try. I tried getting in touch with @surpassinggoogle but that didn't work out!
3. Fear of getting flagged
Yes as a noob it always there, you start building your reputation brick by brick and took a lot of time. I don't want to be a victim of flag war going on steemit!
I think flag sometimes takes the creativity away. You need to be crazy and weird to try something new. If sane people start flagging things, we won't be able to try something new.
Luckily we don't have a flag system on the Internet. If it would have existed, there are people who would have flagged steemit because they take steemit as some pyramid scheme and we wouldn't have been the part of this lovely community.
THE WAY AHEAD
I wrote this post for looking into your views and suggestion for steemifer.com and referral system. If the project is for the community, then it better to take suggestions from the community. I had stopped working on steemifer.com after hitting the roadblock, to start with steemifer again I am looking for suggestions, support and collaboration with projects in place and users. I would need some witness to keep an eye on the project so that money coming through upvotes could be distributed to referrers and it doesn't look like a scam.
If the community thinks it's not a good idea starting then I have already dropped the idea. :)
Working on Steemifer I got to know about the problems that minnow faces to introduce his/her idea to the community, and I know everyone got some crazy idea which they want to introduce/implement on this platform. But it won't be possible if we as a community are not supportive of them. I am tagging @utopian-io, as I think they are right people who could get developers along to work on different ideas, even if not developers, someone to discuss the possibilities of the ideas.Which is more important because I'll be working on more ideas on steemit.
If you are reading this then please resteem, to help it reach more and more people.
Hi im the Exchanger Bot I just upvoted your post.
Follow me for more upvotes :)
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great thinking
thank you @dckurani
This post has received a 83.33 % upvote from @sleeplesswhale thanks to: @tanishqyeverma.
This post has received a 4.28 % upvote from @boomerang thanks to: @tanishqyeverma
You got a 16.40% upvote from @upyou thanks to @tanishqyeverma!
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by tanishqyeverma from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
This is an awesome idea! Hmm now where is my reward for the friends and family I already recruited to the platform.... 🤔 haha only kidding. Steem on!!!!!