Incentive for Referrals on Free Site?
Im building a social network and reading many case studies of the giants (i.e. FB, Twitter, IG), it seems mouth to mouth is best factor for Growth.
I want to add a referral program, but can't think of a way to incentivize users to refer their friends (because this is a free product).
What kind of benefit could i give to my users who refer their friends?
I don’t like what platform you’re using but Gamipress, MyCred, and PMPro are some plugins that give points or grant access to restricted content and they can be configured to work with referrals. If you’re not on Wordpress then they might give you some ideas.
Morning Brew is a popular email newsletter who put in referral rewards early on, and have apparently seen a ton of growth because of it. They reasoned that if you like Morning Brew enough to refer it to another friend, then the best reward to give them is probably more morning brew. So people who have referred three others get an exclusive Sunday email. After that there are tiers where you can get exclusive merch and other stuff like that.
Neil Patel had a video on "social hacking" which might give some ideas. Many were based on premium features users get when they share. Not to mention, the premium features expire, so the users need to share to new people the following month to regain premium features.
Gamification, you get badges or other digital items for sharing.
Goals, you need to complete a checklist to complete your setup, can recommend sharing.
Stackoverflow and others give more privileges as you participate within the community.
Reddit has a meaningless point system called karma, that you get for posting and getting likes.