Community Marketing in The Crypto World: How Companies Engage With The Diverse Crypto Community
Of all the emerging crypto companies, they all share the goal of mass crypto adoption. The communities, sub-communities, and some “crypto stars” aren’t making it easy for the masses to grasp the concepts of Blockchain.
When it comes to Community Marketing, the objective is to create awareness and brand visibility for a brand. We achieve that through interacting with the diverse crypto community through both proactive and reactive engagement and being on top of emerging trends in the crypto world and social media, for the ultimate goal of strategically developing a reputation for ourselves in the crypto world.
A Breakdown of The Current Crypto Communities
From what I’ve observed online, I can categorize the crypto community into 3 main groups:
1. Crypto Superstars
First off we have what I call superstars. These are not only early adopters of crypto and have advanced knowledge in the space but they are also often times key opinion leaders and are influential. Think crypto spokespersons. They’re sort of like this exclusive club of crypto enthusiasts and investors and their messaging sometimes includes heavy crypto jargon that can be somewhat deterring to the average person. Which is ironic if you think about it because those same people, these superstars, actively want to develop mass adoption into decentralization yet they come off as unwelcoming. A good example of a crypto superstar is Anthony Pompliano or Peter McCormack which I’m sure everyone here has heard of.
2. Artists & Art Enthusiasts
Next we have artists — so these are creators, people who are passionate about their craft, their art and what they do. They can be either tied or familiar with pop-culture but at the same time they speak the crypto language, so I wouldn’t call them exclusive. A couple of examples here include Lindsay Lohan or Emily Ratajkowski, but of course most of the people in this category are not celebrities.
3. Normies
And then finally the 3rd group is simply normies or the general public. These people have little to no knowledge of the crypto world but at the same time are willing to jump into any emerging trends especially when they are normalized in the mainstream. We’ve all seen that with Dogecoin, nowadays even if someone doesn’t know what blockchain or decentalization is they might still have some familiarity with Dogecoin.
The Methods Used For Community Engagement
- Community-based networks (Discord & Telegram) — CryptoStars + Nifties
The methodologies I would use to interact with these different groups in the crypto world would be through community-based networks that are always on top of emerging trends in crypto — Discord and Telegram are perfect platforms for this and would mainly target the first 2 groups mentioned earlier — Superstars & Artists.
2. Mainstream Social Networks — TikTok (Nifties + FOMOs)
The second method would be mainstream social networks. So TikTok, and possibly Twitter, would be best for this. It would target artists as well as the general public.
3. Niche Communities on Twitter + Reddit (FOMOs + CryptoStars)
Third is tapping into niche communities which, in addition to Discord & Telegram, this can also be achieved on Reddit & Twitter. This method would be geared to target Artists and Normies.
4. Newsletters, Mirror or Substack (Nifties + CryptoStars)
Last, but not least, is newsletters. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that suddenly everyone jumped onto the newsletter trend, so it’s clear that it’s working and can be used as a great way to familiarize brands with different communities. This can be targeted to all 3 groups. For Web3 focused companies, it would be strategic to not utilize the traditional social channels but instead look at what is being replicated.
NFTs are Replicating Social Networks
We know that NFTs are slowly but surely replicating social networks. We’ve seen that with Showtime for Instagram, BitClout for Twitter, and Mirror for Substack. So if a Blockchain-focused company were to decide to start a newsletter or establish itself on any social network, I would look into the user-owned, peer-to-peer, crypto versions of those platforms.
Proactive & Reactive Engagement
Next I want to discuss proactive and reactive engagement and how crypto companies can utilize them for community marketing. But this time, instead of speaking theoretically, I’m just going to illustrate my thoughts and ideas by showing you a few examples of best practices with regards to proactive and reactive interactions online:
Paris’s Poodle
Paris Hilton recently tweeted about going to the Bitcoin Conference in Miami, and I scrolled through the replies and found one by the Poodl token account. $POODL’s response was very much relevant and it’s highly strategic that they jumped onto this given that Paris Hilton herself is a dog person. I think she also owns a poodle herself.
However their response was poorly crafted. I’d give this a 6/10 because there are just way too many hashtags and extra spaces, lots of irrelevant hashtags (like, what is #dogefather? just say Elon Musk), not to mention that the tweet itself is grammatically incorrect. Nonetheless, they jumped on the trend on time and generated some level of brand visibility. I, for example, did not know that $POODL was even a thing until I saw this. Good job; not great.
Solana x Musk
Another example is when Elon Musk -bless his heart- wreaked havoc on the crypto world after tweeting about the environmental impacts of Bitcoin. Solana’s response was this.
Simple, some might find it funny, and it directly relates to their use Proof of Stake (PoS) alternative for more sustainable cryptos. From the amount of likes on their response, it’s clear that they likely gained some level of recognition from people who weren’t already familiar with Solana. Strategic, simple, to the point––i’d give this a 10/10.
A Missed Opportunity
I did find quite a few missed opportunities for proactive engagement for some crypto companies, specifically Unstoppable Domains. Jack butcher tweeted “what is the psychology behind the unstoppable impulse to purchase domains?” and while he wasn’t really talking about Unstoppable Domains, people thought that he was.
One person responded with “why does this sound like a pun promoting unstoppable domains?” and so the missed opportunity here could’ve been the marketing team responding with something along the lines of “wait till you start purchasing blockchain domains” or they could even gift him a .crypto domain with his name.
It took me less than a minute to find these examples, and the challenge here isn’t finding content to proactively engage with, but to do so timely and strategically. The possibilities are really endless, and it all boils down to the tone of voice and brand identity for a brand.
Final Thoughts: Building Trust through Community Marketing
Our goal here by being proactive online is to establish an identity and eventually create awareness, which leads to users finding out more about a brand and what it offers, and eventually we would listen to their recommendations and implement them to establish brand loyalty.
About The Author
Aziz Alangari has been in the crypto world since 2016. He worked at Uber doing Influencer & Social Media Marketing before attending graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University. Working in the Entertainment Industry, he is currently seeking to transition fully into the Crypto Industry with a focus on the Influencer & Creator Economy, Web 3.0, and decentralized social networks.
DMs are open on Twitter, feel free to reach out: @AzizAngari
