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Online communities can be a powerful and unpredictable force. We have seen how collective power can shake Wall Street itself in the case of GameStop stocks earlier this year and we see this happening with Bitcoin and other blockchain projects all the time.
Crypto communities are where the conversations happen, where participants get insider information, and where their course of action is being determined. What makes them different from other online communities is the fact that many community members are investors at the same time, so are highly motivated to see the project succeed.
Potential investors are able to judge the project by the strength of the community, the vision behind the project, using their observations to decide whether it is worth investing in. Sometimes, those who see the potential at the early stages can benefit greatly. That is exactly what happened with CryptoPunks, and what is currently happening with many DeFi projects — where perseverance has rewarded early backers with significant market appreciation in the token price of these projects.
Although the great many are destined to fail, others stay consistent, deliver what is promised. More importantly, they succeed in building a big group of devotees, inching their way towards becoming mainstream and achieving that much-needed “mass adoption”.
Showcase the uniqueness of your project. What is the big picture and how can the community benefit from it? One of the main things that attract people and make them stick around is if the philosophy behind the project is in tune with the community. Identify their pain points, and provide solutions for it. If people find a solution to their every day crypto problems, you can be sure they will flock to it.
Start building a profile on social media, chat applications, and forums such as Twitter, Reddit, Discord, Slack, Telegram, Bitcointalk, etc. It helps a lot if you are already an active member of other crypto communities. Building meaningful connections beforehand could be of great help. After you create your channels, share them with other communities but be careful not to impose. Examine how the community welcomes new projects and act accordingly. Identify where your audience is most active and put more effort there.
Encourage crypto community members by distributing tokens to early adopters, making contests, organizing giveaways and airdrops. The more people get a hold of the tokens, the more of them will have an interest in your project’s success, and you can turn them into your brand promoters. Pass the startup phase, create incentives that help you build up the community. The incentives could be competitions or rewards for people who bring in new members.
Be active in the crypto community and encourage communication. Update the community on a regular basis, welcome new members, answer questions and use the power of incentives.
Ask the community for their opinions on matters affecting the project. Publish polls, offer bounties, let the community vote, motivate members to voice their opinions and provide them with ways to suggest improvements.
Collaborate with others. Partnering up with other projects with similar visions will help you speed up adoption and infuse your community with new members from their fan base.
Hire a crypto community manager. When the project starts to get noticed you will need an extra pair of hands to help you manage the community. Another benefit of hiring a community manager is that they are already experienced, and will know the best ways to engage with the audience and create a FOMO around it.
Promote your channels with a press release. This traditional marketing method has aged well over time, and many successful blockchain projects use it to stay on top of the game. Issuing a press release announcing upcoming campaigns will attract more supporters, and instill trust amongst the existing ones. Add your community and social channels at the end of the press release to make it easier for people to join in.
Remember that Bitcoin had no centralized body behind it propelling it forward; the global community did that. And the blockchain projects that followed contributed to bringing even more supporters accelerating the global adoption of cryptocurrencies. The crypto community just kept going up in numbers, up to that point where it gained the power to move the markets and change entire economies.
Taking this into account we can conclude that blockchain projects need community as much as the community needs blockchain projects, and in an endless sea of blockchain startups, the ones with strong crypto communities are the ones that not only survive but thrive.
