This is a very interesting concept
Discussion
I have follower on legacy media I don’t really know but they do follow back… i want to write a custom paragraph of a pitch, and have that come true and come first with little effort and on their own time, then let them explore nostr from there.
This seems more scalable than the real-time word of mouth like you mentioned.
Onboarding is a hassle but I feel like retention is even bigger problem as Nostr still has a very narrow domain of discussion topics (or if it's wider, then those are not easily discoverable).
nostr does seem to have a too small range of topics. Searching on hashtags can help you find more diverse conversations.
While I do a lot of technical work and have much interest in #bitcoin there is much more that I'm interested in. I'm posting more on other topics and tagging them so we can expand the range of the conversation on nostr. #start9 servers, #beginnergardening, #houstontexans, #skiing and #freetrade are just some of the other areas where I'd love to see more nostr discussions.
I've accepted the challenge from #[4] for his #grownostr initiative. Check it out at: https://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/grow-nostr
outside real-time events, or fan tags for certain creators (for them to receive user generated content for a specific purpose), it’s been over a decade since hashtags have been useful for discovery. They are great if you want some cheap engagement, but for that reason they also are kinda cringe, a sign of the marketing communications class of 2015 who jumps from client to client building their following, creating a mess of unengaged followers that is then demoted in the algorithm and switching positions to to create that mess again for their next victim.
I'm happy if you have other suggestions besides hashtags for discovery. Please tell me more about your thoughts here.
I confess to being new to nostr - hashtags seemed somewhat helpful to me so far, but I know things change quickly here...
This doesn’t encourage people to tag their content in a useful way at all… in fact it’s the exact opposite. This works for plebchain as someone see it and learns about the topic to participate. Participating in grownostr doesn’t grow the number of people attempting to tag content with appropriate tags, it might grow a following from step 3 & 4 but the commonality is that you both want followers, not a shared interest in the tag or an appreciation of the content found in the appropriate tag. 
Thanks for the reply. I think you are right that this initiative could be misused, and maybe incentives are not aligned to the best. If someone does this solely to increase followers and hashtags inaccurately it isn't going to help.
The context of this initiative (what I got from listening to the podcast) was asking people to post on non-bitcoin topics and hashtag those posts with #grownostr and whatever hashtag is appropriate for the post. The idea being that it would be a way to find new followers and have folks follow you for non-bitcoin topics where you do share an interest in the tag and appreciate the content. I've seen a number of grownostr posts / tags that I do not have interest in and don't follow.
Not trying to argue with you - genuinely interested in improving things and looking for alternate ways to make nostr better... I appreciate your engagement here.
* Make two posts a day minimum about a topic other than bitcoin
* Hash tag those posts with relevant hash tags and include #grownostr
* Check the #grownostr feed at least once daily and find a new hashtag to follow
* Choose one person from this new tag you have genuine interest in and follow them
* Don’t dm people about this, this is pushy and cringe reminiscent of chain emails
* The next day contribute to the new tag you found and repeat finding another new tag
but this thread is really about growth and onboarding and not discoverability.
You make good points - focus on genuine engagement, not DMs and follows for topics you aren't really interested in. I also like the continue to contribute to your new tag.
I'll circle back and try to post more on topics I've already raised - after all they are the things I care about!
what client are you using that keeps adding p tags back into the thread?
I mostly use iris.to (self hosted), but also Damus (iOS) and snort.social. This reply is via iris.to.
This may be the client trying to tag the folks in the thread. I see "replying to:" at the top of my last post. I'm guessing that's due to the p tags you are asking about.
I'm only two weeks into nostr, so if there's something I'm doing wrong, please let me know...
Trying a reply from snort.social to see if I see any difference in what the reply looks like...
^ that one worked as I thought it would (it pulled only the p tags from the note you directly replied to) but my test from iris (non-self-hosted) didn’t pull p tags from higher up in the thread, so maybe there is an update for self hosted?
(Aside) Kinda surprised that neither snort or iris has a replying to: module
#[4] #[5]
testing a reply from iris