Although Steem (as a blockchain) is not owned by anyone, Steemit, Inc. has a major role in its success or failure. IMO, Steemit can do a lot of things to make Steem more successful. If I were the CEO of Steemit, I would do the following:
I would Attract High-Quality Content Creators
The core value of Steem comes from content. The new Steem tokens that are created should be proportional in value to the content created. Therefore, high-quality content is crucial to the survival and flourishing of Steem.
To achieve that, I would launch a campaign to introduce Steem to content creators from all sectors. In addition, I would give such authors many incentives to join. I think it is fair that well-known people get a head start in steemit so they don't have to start from scratch. Moreover, I would give them incentives to convince their followers to sign-up with them too.
I Would Make Steem The Definitive Destination For Anything Crypto
An obvious sector that should be targetted is the cryptocurrency sector. Steemit (not Reddit nor Medium) should be the definitive destination for anything cryptos. Let me give you an example:
Do you remember the debate between Vitalik Buterin and Dan Larimer?
I don't want to go into that, but I just want to quote a sentence from Vitalik's response:
Following along with my rebuttal to Dan (I do not have a steem account and so cannot post there) ...
If I were the CEO of Steemit, I would immediately have taken the opportunity and offered Vitalik an account in Steem, and asked him to post his response here. I would have given him a warm welcome too. This would have attracted the attention of the whole Ethereum community. I know is the co-founder of Steem, but it is not our job to pick sides here. My job as the CEO of Steemit is the prosperity of Steem and Steem alone, and the presence of Vitalik can help a lot in that. The same logic applies to all of the technology leaders.
I would Get Involved With The Community
I would post every day. I would keep them posted about all kinds of developments we are having.
I would discuss with them our plans and problems.
I would listen to their needs and criticism.
I would read and curate a lot.
I would welcome new users and interact with them and upvote good posts every day.
I would participate in community projects like Minnowsupport.