I could share more on the attraction of new users of the "right" kind than could possibly fit here... but I strongly feel the approach has to be "community" and "content creation" rather than "money." You can bring people in with the money angle, but it creates no lasting value...

Xanga was the most popular social blogging site, and it peaked around 27 million users before there was MySpace and Facebook. Diary-X was smaller, but also had a dedicated following. It's a pretty good bet that 10% of those would at least look here, because they are sick to death of memes and pictures of people's dinner, and "tailored" content that limits what you get to see.

Only... right now, we need some more "social features" on Steemit (messaging, photo albums, video, maybe a crowdfunding utility, a Steem based peer-to-peer marketplace, communities, better sorting/presentation of content) in order to make the platform "stickier" to newcomers. If we HAVE those, the rewards can become more "coincidental."