Sometimes the best way to promote a place isn't actually to promote "the place," but simply to share how you use that place with an external audience that is actually more interested in the content than the platform supplying the content.

BINGO!

This is precisely the kind of message I was trying to get across with my post about X and how people from Steemit are using it. The whole approach needs to become more "natural" - just sharing what you write about from the basis that it may genuinely be of interest to other readers... though I doubt the toothpaste posts will fair well in that department. lol.

Not a "referral system" in the sense that I expect to get paid for signing up people, but a referral system in the sense that by putting your tracking code within the URL link to an article, you would be able to tell whether somebody became a Steemit member as a result of using that particular link.

This is a really great idea!!!

Which makes me consider an experiment of writing something that is specifically geared towards one of these niches, or maybe towards all of them

I have been thinking about that too - like possibly with my foodie content - always an approachable win to the general public and then also my "random personal meanderings" - although, sometimes those can get quite personal and I am not entirely sure I want to drag them out of the safe little space that Steemit has been for me to air my "crazy" without the eyeballs of the people who know me haha!

Yeah there is plenty we can do to change out approach to things here as well as certain functionality... but one thing I will say is that Steemit definitely seems to be on the right track and I think it is going to be an interesting and positive road ahead!