I'm back with another update on the state of the site. Today we'll be looking at the level of active accounts over the past three weeks. Still a small set of data I know, but I feel it's best for all interested parties (investors & bloggers) to stay informed. So without further notice,
Daily Active Users
It's safe to say, and rather obvious, that the growth we felt at the start of the month was far superior to the space we're in now. If we proceed without any new growth our active accounts will likely become very predictable, spiking on days where our users have more time to browse the internet. Unfortunately this isn't where the bad news ends.
Percent of Active Users
We're seeing a downward trend in the amount of users active out of our total (which thankfully keeps growing). This likely means we're bleeding users as fast as we're gaining them. For whatever reason this space isn't feeling user friendly. Whether its the community, the content, the psychological factors of posting here, or just the style of the site, we're not doing so hot.
In fact today marks our lowest active user percent (7.3) for the entire month. I decided to put together a daily moving average over the last two days. As you can assume it's trending down, but still a whole 2% (9.45) above where we are today. It's when that gap closes that we'll really need to worry.
Weekly Active Users
Of course this is trending down as well. By it's essence it must. The important thing to note is that it's movement has had a much clearer trajectory than our daily active users. This trajectory likely notes that our core users are who remained after the peak we saw earlier this month. Having a solid base is great, it's how sites thrive. But steemit is in a unique position and will need to attract new users for the payout to blog here to be worthwhile.
This graph gathers data from the previous week. It's why we see the peak almost a week after it occurred in our daily use.
Total Accounts
While growth is always good, in these terms it's indicative of an underlying problem. Linear growth is nearly meaningless if we end up bleeding user's as fast as we get them. We can only take total accounts as an expression of growth if those accounts are engaged in and promoting others to use steemit.
Conclusion
While I'm immensely enjoying my time on the site and getting to interact on a lot of topics that make me think it's looking like we'll end up receiving less exposure to new content. It's up to us to determine if we're satisfied with the content we currently have access to. If not, we can collectively push this brand further and further out through our personal channels. Or, even convert the steem we currently have to advertise into the real world as I've seen a few do.
Our lower retention rates and the seemingly disinterested investor base around steem itself do not bode well for the site. I hope things change, but, as it stands, the data I have is not positive.
Author's Note:
I'll be releasing state of the site reports on things like retention, engagement, comparison to competitors, and internet impression every few weeks. Retention & Engagement will be the most consistent as they are the most important for bloggers, like myself, to understand.
So, if you're interested, please follow!
Data for these charts is available through google docs. All data comes from steemd.
Thank you for reading!
As a new user who signed up 6 days ago, I would like to provide some feed back.
My intention was to invest. I have delayed that intent, it wouldn't have been a huge investment, but...
So here is my feedback, this place is stuffed with posts regarding "Excellent or Quality" content. Well, unless we are aspiring authors that is not what social media is about. Is is about interaction, which this site isn't big on... Because it doesn't pay to chat, bond, help and get to know each other.
In addition to the focus on quality authorship, new users can't get any steem. ;) Intended on the pun.
fyi, 5 days about 12 hours of day of reading, commenting, posting ... watching the new posts go by.
When you tell people to try harder and they do... And even the people trying to encourage them are getting flagged, it just doesn't feel like home.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatsup/steemit-day-5-whales-minnows-and-robinhood-oh-my
I tend to agree with this. Not enough user interaction. If more people, rather than post a story, would post topics of conversation like on Reddit, I think we would see more lively discussions. I'm ok with long stories, but a bigger mix of conversation "topics" would engage people more.
EDIT: Also the ability for users to select their favorite tags and topics for display on the home page would go a long way to getting conversations going. Now you have to weed your way through every tag before you finally find a tag that might contain something interesting to you.
It does, but the problem is the positive dynamics of doing actual socialising isn't readily apparent.
Another problem is the spread of voting power and the limits of the current system. Unless new people get some more voting power within first couple of weeks the situation won't change. That is the idea about #spreadthepower. If you are an active user, if you do post meaningful and interest stuff, if you get involved, there needs to be some incentive not in the current form, but with increasing SP. Currently the visibility for the stuff by new users is low and sheer ammount of noise to content, to current SP holders it is not viable. There is also a thibg with UX. Hopefully the changes will come soon enough. But, the userbase is better do their part also.
Follow "new" posts, those users are following all the directions to write their content just right. Format their pictures, use bold... blah, blah. It is interesting or it isn't. But they/we are trying to follow the direction leaders are giving.
The direction from leadership and whales, if there is any, would be a serious problem. If people seemingly in charge are telling people how to post and those people are investing time into their post, and then they fail... That's going to annoy, aggravate, and drive people out.
Why follow one format when it does nothing for you and you could have used your own voice?
Agreed. People are frustrated, and when you give people advice and it doesn't work. Stop listening. Yet, keep trying new things.
Then it just boils down to, will they try new things jn the place that frustrates them or somewhere fresh?
Very good point.
Thia is one of the biggest problems and why we don't see engagement moving much. I'll be doing a post around that shortly to try and tie together my negative sentiment.
It not feeling like home is going to crush engagement long term. I appreciate your feedback and hope this helps you decide on any future investment you make into steem and your time on steemit.
(1) The blog platform is not easy to use, (2) the financial structure is difficult to understand, (3) the big names coming to the site are getting tremendous rewards (not saying they shouldn't), and other newbies are getting lost, (4) there have been a lot of stories about people making thousands from one post, and new users don't necessarily understand what makes a post or a person posting worth that kind of money, (5) the flagging option should have check boxes for reasons, (6) information is contradictory, and a lot of it is written for an audience that understands the jargon, rather than a lay audience, but to grow the platform is going to require a larger lay audience.
I have to agree @steemerpat. Some of the posts raking in large sums of money aren't even well written. I came across a poem that has collected hundreds of dollars and it's simply dreadful (speaking as a former editor at a publishing house). It's one thing for well written and interesting posts to collect hundreds of accolades and votes but quite another to see drivel rewarded in the same way. Are the whales illiterate? Are they even reading these posts? It's very disheartening and I can understand why people are dropping off the platform.
Yea, this site has a huge focus on anarchy and coins. Honestly not a surprise, but it does limit a growing user base
Just managed to know that steam power takes 2+ years to get converted back to steam tokens, that is "blueprint" I know... but people is complaining about being able to withdraw for a reason. Asking people to simply "Read the whitepaper" helps a bit but you can improve a lot. For example, in the registration form add a link to "how this economy works" language, explaining what to expect and when. Also, a link to the FAQ in the sidebar is not a bad idea.
-- develCuy
Steemit currently has a problem and that problem is in keeping the new users that come to the platform, it has great potential and more and more new people will come, but will they stay... this is something that needs to be worked on. Encouraging people to stay and continue doing what they love doing and post about it, if they don't find a reason to do that, then they will just leave.
The potential is very high. I just really question their attempt at getting quality content. Why is that a thing? Let's get interesting content and talk it up. That builds blocks too! We need to focus on becoming a community, not content.
I'm building a social network that is tied to Facebook, we launched a month before your site, so I have some feedback. Steemit has some strong points that move me to bid long term, yet there are things that should be fixed soon.
For example Retention, it is a great metric, yet it would be discouraging if not measured correctly. So what is your definition of "active user"? Or even ask: What kind of user activity fuels this platform? So you can report high user activity, but if users don't contribute value, then you got a worst problem.
Other big issue you guys have is to make it more clear how exactly people can spend STEEM, otherwise it will all keep feeling like a SCAM, the easier you make for people to spend their money, the stronger you'll get. That is a mistake I see happening in many other crypto projects and social networks, which only leads to frustration and miscommunication.
Hope this helps!
Active user is merely tracked as someone who logged in. That doesn't tell us much about engagement, it does tell us about who's leaving and not coming back. In and of itself that lowers engagement through attrition.
Thanks for the comments
You are welcome :D
-- develCuy
For a part of my life, I was in the digital advertising space so what yo are trying to do speaks to that part of me. I would say that the churn you are seeing (I have a post planned to speak about that metric in the future) is disturbing, but you are looking at a product in its infancy.
What would be a great metric to see is how much of the blog space market share Steemit is acquiring because a product this early in its life cycle needs to focus on that first. I get that retention is important, I am not dismissing that, but when you have heavy hitters with large, built in audiences move into this space, you are acquiring market share and mind share.
I think another aspect that is missing is a consistent marketing message from Steemit. The association of Steemit being "get paid thousands for your travel blog" smell so much like a "get rich from real estate with no money down" think William McCorkle, Tom Vu, etc. The message needs to get on point to set expectations, create conversions and retention.
I have a blog I am hammering out about my concerns with Steemit and US Tax reporting and withholding requirements because it is a US entity. There are issues related to collection of taxpayer info, bacupwithholding and reporting I don't think are being addressed and that is a concern. Is it a killer? I don't think so if it's resolved. Could it be? Yes, if it's unresolved.
At any rate, I loved the article. I have upvoted it and will feature it in my daily hidden gems blog. Looking forward to more content from you.
Thanks for the feedback!
I think that if you take a look at your own words and combine the portions around this being a site in its infancy and consistent marketing you can look around the site and see that the churn we're experiencing in the infancy won't change without direction at the top.
So in essence I just flat out agree with you and look forward to your post.
New users understand that effort is not worth the money you can get. Therefore, to remain in this pyramid some whales. They will pump all the money.
The concept of the site is interesting, however, it is still missing so much. Users like to be able to personalize and unlike sites like Facebook steemit doesn't have many options for this. It's missing the visuals that pull people in. Steemit is also not very user friendly because of how it is set up. Instead of having a long list of topics it should be organized kinda like the Dewey Decimal System where you have a category and then break that into more specific categories and so on. For instance, after you click on mathematics it should show it divided into the different areas of mathematics.
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