5 Keys to a Successful Web3 Community
Now that Web3 is upon us, with DAOs spurring new forms of self-governance and NFTs creating new opportunities for creators, we are on the cusp of witnessing a whole new wave of applications developed and launched in hopes of achieving mass adoption. As the Vice President of Marketing and Community at the organization behind the Mina blockchain and cryptocurrency, I’ve experienced my fair share of roller-coaster-level ups and downs inherent to launching any new technology.
Community is one of the most misused terms in tech circles today. Communities are not just random users in a common place (Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, etc.); they are real people with shared values and interests seeking to accomplish a shared goal. Community engagement has been important since the earliest days of the internet, and we can trace the importance of it through different technology cycles and developments. For Web3, community is a do-or-die proposition, because without decentralized engagement and ownership, Web3 won’t be realized.
So, if you’re a Web3 application or protocol aspiring to achieve global mass adoption through building an engaged community — emphasis on engaged rather than biggest — here are five strategies for how to do just that:
- Reward Engagement with Leadership
Whether you’re building a layer-1 protocol or a dapp, fostering a culture of co-ownership elevates the users who already believe strongly in the tech to ambassador-level status. Early adopters will often do the work of a marketer without prompting, spreading awareness about how much they love your project across their social media channels and voluntarily taking time to answer questions from new users about how to get on-boarded or troubleshoot issues. The support and enthusiasm provided by these avid project proponents are invaluable. Rather than a monetary or tokenized reward, it’s often even more meaningful for these highly engaged community members to receive public recognition from the project they so passionately believe in in the form of an award, title, or project grant. Leaderboards can be a great way to bring attention to both individual and community “wins” in this manner.
2. Fully Embrace Project Values
Just as in the real-world, online communities are not genuine unless they reflect the values of the project. In Mina’s case, “Powered by Participants” is an underlying value and mantra, supported by four values — curiosity, openness, respect, and excellence. Community members are elevated for demonstrating these values in their actions, and community managers are trained to lead with these values. Establishing your values gives a shorthand to hard decisions and helps avoid a community becoming toxic.
Tip: make sure to pick values that align with your project and existing community so that your members can commit to educating newcomers about them and cultivate a culture that attracts more like-minded users. Without shared values and sense of purpose, communities will struggle to form and maintain longevity.
3. Enable the Creation of Community Rituals
Communities have relied on rituals to bond members together and maintain a shared sense of cultural values for millennia. Digital communities have more in common with ancient communities than they might think and would be wise to learn from these ancient traditions. Celebrating collective achievements can be a big part of establishing rituals. At the same time, the bonds forged through rituals can also be what gives communities the strength and resilience needed to overcome challenges. Some examples of online rituals might include an awards ceremony to acknowledge top contributors, monthly virtual cocktail hours, or something all members do regularly that’s unique to your group. Community rituals can be some of the most fun parts of online life, activating a domino effect of word-of-mouth marketing and “FOMO” that attract new users.
4. Encourage Diversity in Participation
Especially when it comes to building protocols and applications for Web3, it is incumbent upon the developing teams to foster diverse participation in every sense of the word. If Web3 is to adequately service the global population of internet users, corresponding communities should reflect the diversity of the world’s population. Diversity in geography, education, race, gender, sexual orientation, ideology, technical knowledge, etc. should all be fostered. At a foundational level, this could take the form of hosting events across time zones and expanding the languages in which resources are offered. Another tip is to connect users from the same geographic locations with one another to enable the possibility of connecting the online and digital worlds for in-person gatherings.
5. Adopt a Community-First Mindset
Ultimately, to create a highly-engaged community, you need to adopt a community-first mindset. This means building with your community instead of for them. Setting the intention to be community-first is the initial step, but this needs to be followed immediately with user-empowering actions. Give your members a voice on your platform, listen and learn from them, and then incorporate their feedback and ideas directly into your platform or protocol.
Though it might be tempting to focus on building the biggest following on social media, in the long-term, authentic engagement is much more powerful and sustaining than numbers alone. The “numbers” will follow if you do this well. The Web3 platforms that prioritize fostering the type of culture people want to participate in will be the ones we’re talking about ten years from now.
I tweet a lot about community, marketing and communications, and it’s the easiest way to get in touch with me — I’d love to hear what you thought and what you’d like to hear more about.
