I think we should work on user retention levels first. As new accounts are being made everyday but most of the new users leave the platform within a month. This is really alarming.
If we are able to retain new users then they will tell 10's of their friends about the platform and the community will automatically grow. And everybody knows that word of mouth is the most powerful. But if new users are leaving the platform, there is a huge possibility that they may spread negativity about the platform.
Why new user leave after a few days is a completely different question. There are a huge lot of different reasons for that, but the biggest is that posts by minnows are not getting any audience, even if they write some good posts.
I wrote a complete post about this topic, and if anyone is interested, they may go to my profile and read my most recent post. I didn't include the link here as then people would think that i am spamming. Thank you for reading.
RE: A simple trick on how to raise awareness of Steemit on other platforms such as Reddit