I've been thinking on this for a few days. I tried keeping up with all the comments, so apologies if it's already been mentioned. 

1.consulting/ consoling/ teaching sessions through a video chat like Skype. Even just having someone to listen for a while can be helpful.  (I wouldn't expect this to need new code, especially with steemswap.com being up now. )

2. Provide newbies with special tokens worth say a dollar, that they can only give away, specifically to those that help them at the beginning. More experienced minnows/users can keep eye out for posts asking for help, chat room, or a help wanted listing. Ideally this motivates existing users to seek out, welcome and help newbies. (Unfortunately this would require code development)