Currently, Steemit has over one million users of which an estimated 60,000 are active on a daily basis. The growth rate of the platform has been spectacular since it has been in existence for only a few years. Imagine the number of users at over one billion! If we assume the same ratio of users to active users, the number of active users will increase to 60 million.

One billion users mean more articles and more steem tokens, higher capitalization, more curation and author rewards and above all a higher value for steem dollars. More users indicate more competition and higher specialization on the part of users. A more intense competition is healthy as it boosts the quality of material posted on the blockchain.

How do we attract more users and retain them? The question has come up many times and a number of suggestions given. I want to add one more idea: find a way to expand the number of tags.

There were about 250 tags at the time of writing of which the following 20 were the most popular based on payout:

1. photography
2. blog
3. steem
4. art
5. cryptocurrency
6. travel
7. bitcoin
8. busy
9. writing
10. kr
11. story
12. food
13. money
14. news
15. nature
16. blockchain
17. funny
18. introduceyourself
19. dtube
20. cn

We can attract more users by introducing new tags to cover a broader range of subjects. The popularity of the above tags is changing daily depending on the payout on posts. Currently, you can be able to create a tag if you have very many interested followers.

Members have already mentioned spreading the word. Currently, there is no incentive when you introduce new members. Steemit can peg an incentive scheme on the progress of the recruited member. For example, the recruiter can be given some free upvotes when the member he introduced reaches a certain reputation, say of 30. The incentive scheme can be geared to encourage new members to stay active on the platform.

I am not an expert on Steemit platform and may be suggesting something that is not practical. Please do not hesitate to make suggestions to improve the idea. Our aim should be to grow the Steemit platform and attract even more members. I believe Steemit can grow and reach one billion members.