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Why Should Your Business Care About NFTs?

Non-Fungible Tokens. Can we all agree that’s the worst name ever?

What does it even mean? And they are selling for millions of dollars??? Suddenly EVERYONE is talking about Bored Apes this and Crypto Punks that.

And you don’t understand any of it. This is the position a LOT of us are in as we begin the new year. NFTs are one of the areas of the burgeoning web3 space that I’ve been trying to wrap my head around for the last few months. In doing so, I’ve been focusing on the potential business impact, ie “Why should your business care?”

What are NFTs

Non-Fungible Tokens. That word ‘fungible’ trips people up. It almost sounds like fungus. Non-fungus token?  Yeech!

Fungible means interchangeable. Think of currency. My dollar is interchangeable with your dollar.  My $3 in Bitcoin is interchangeable with your $3 in Bitcoin.

So it stands to reason that non-fungible means the item is NOT interchangeable. A non-fungible token is unique. An NFT has unique properties and characteristics. You can have two NFTs that are similar, but they will both be different in ways that makes each unique. And when items are unique, that means they aren’t the same, so they aren’t equal. You may have a 1978 Firebird Trans Am, and I may have a 2010 Ford Focus. Both are similar, in that they are both cars, but they are unique cars and as such, they have wildly different values and aren’t considered interchangeable.

Wait, can’t I just copy that JPEG?

Ah the ‘right-click’ theory. That you can easily copy an NFT as an image on your computer and have it as well.

The NFT is much more than simply an image. It is the unique data and provenance associated only with that particular NFT. This is where much of the value of NFTs are derived, and you can’t simply right-click and copy that.

The ownership of an NFT can be verified on a blockchain, as well as its history. We’ll talk more about the business implications of this in a minute. When you right-click that NFT you saw on Twitter, you can copy the image on your computer, but there’s no claim of ownership. For instance, if you wanted to take that image and sell it as an NFT, we would be able to verify that it’s not the same one that already exists, and which has a set value in the marketplace.

Ok, but it’s still just an image, right? I’m still not getting it.

Let’s go back to ownership and the history of ownership. More specifically, let’s go back to The Legend of Zelda.

One of the most prized toys of the 1980s was a Nintendo Entertainment System. I still remember getting that HUGE Sears catalog in the mail in 1985 and seeing that beauty for the first time! I bet a lot of you reading this can remember losing the hours of your youth playing Super Mario Bros, Metroid, Double Dribble, and so many more great games!

Let’s say you and your family are shopping at an indoor flea market. And you walk by a booth with a lot of those old Nintendo video games. You see a copy of The Legend of Zelda sitting there. “Hey!”, you exclaim to your son, “I had this when I was your age! I loved this game!” You see a price tag of $5, and decide to get it. You take your copy home, smiling as you are reunited with your childhood.

I’ve done the same thing. Occasionally over the years I would spot an old Nintendo game at a flea market or store, and I’d pick it up. I’ve accumulated a few over the years, and a few weeks ago as I was going through some old boxes, I came across my treasure trove of old Nintendo cartridges. One of them was The Legend of Zelda. I smiled as I saw the golden cartridge, and flipped it over.

And that’s when I saw it.

Faded, written in black permanent marker were two words: ‘Mack Collier’. That’s when it hit me: This wasn’t a copy of The Legend of Zelda that I had picked up at a flea market, this was actually THE copy of The Legend of Zelda I had owned as a kid! I even remembered why I had written my name on the back of it (in permanent marker, no less!), because at the time I was trading NES games with buddies at school. We would swap games for a week or so, then give them back. Well I traded a game and after a week, the kid I traded with said he had ‘lost’ my game.  I suspected he simply liked my game better and decided to keep it.  So I wrote my name on my copy of The Legend of Zelda to avoid this happening in the future. Ha!

The point in this story is, while there are many copies of The Legend of Zelda game out there in the wild, there’s only one copy IN THE WORLD that Mack Collier owned as a teenager in the 1980s. Luckily, I still have that copy. And my name being written on the back helps verify (at least to me) my ownership, and the record of ownership and the associated story that comes with it. That adds value to this item (at least to me).

The history of ownership helps tell the story of the item (in this case an NFT), and that helps assign value to the piece.

What would be a business example of using NFTs?

Let’s say your supermarket chain wants to start a brand ambassador program. Your program will launch with 100 members. Each member will receive their own, unique and numbered NFT. This will represent their ‘digital identity’ within the program. What the NFT is really doesn’t matter in this example, it’s more about the functionality it enables for the holder. Think of it as an ambassador’s Membership Card that proves they are a member of the supermarket’s ambassador program.

So if you join the brand ambassador program, you are given an NFT that gives you Level One privileges within the program. Additionally, each year you are given 500 tokens that can be used as currency within the program and among its members (Think of these tokens as being similar to Rewards points in a loyalty program).

This is where it can get interesting.  The tokens allow you to purchase items (real and digital) associated with the program and brand. In addition, performing certain tasks can earn you more tokens. Such as signing up for the brand’s newsletter, referring a new member to the ambassador program, filling out a survey, etc.

So what can you do with your tokens?  There are a million possibilities, but for simplicity sake, we’ll focus on three areas:

1 – Use the tokens to buy products directly from the supermarket. Basically, the tokens could replace cash. Or you could use the tokens to buy a discount for a set amount of time, etc.

2 – Sell the tokens to other members. As all members are using tokens to reach certain tiers in the ambassador program, users that have more tokens than they want or need could see their excess to another member.

3 – Using tokens to upgrade your NFT. Remember above that I said when you joined the supermarket’s brand ambassador program that you receive an NFT that gives you Level One privileges? What if you want to upgrade your NFT? Let’s say for 750 tokens, you can upgrade your NFT to give you Level Two privileges. These could include higher discounts, larger token payouts for performing tasks, and more access directly to the brand. This leveling up could go all the way up to Level Five (or Ten, Fifty, whatever). With better perks at each level.

 

The NFT becomes a sort of digital resume or history of that person’s activity within the brand ambassador program. And everyone could trace what the person had done by seeing on the blockchain how the NFT had changed over time. So the activity becomes the ‘story’ of the NFT, and that helps create value for the NFT itself. It’s that ambassador’s digital identity.

You owe it to yourself and your business to learn about NFTs

I started really investing some time in learning about emerging Web3 technologies like blockchains, cryptocurrencies and NFTs a few months ago. At first, I was totally unimpressed with NFTs and focused most of my attention on understanding crypto. But the more I learn about NFTs, the more confident I feel in saying that 2022 will be an even bigger year for the space.

Which would be pretty impressive:

 

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: LinkedIn Exits China, Twitter Spaces Spark Program, Coinbase Gets Into NFTs

Happy Monday, y’all! Fall has finally arrived in the Deep South, and not a moment too soon! Temps are now in the 70s and sunny, this is my favorite time of the year! Here’s some stories that caught my eye the last few days…

 

And then there were none. LinkedIn will pull out of China, marking the departure from the country of every major American social media platform. They will maintain a jobs board, but this is still pretty big news.

 

Twitter is adding an accelerator program for Spaces, called Spark. This will be similar to offerings from Clubhouse whereas accepted members can get access to mentoring and cash to maintain and build their Spaces.

 

You’re about to see a lot of talk here and really everywhere about Web 3.0. You can ask 10 different people to define Web 3.0 for you, and likely get 10 different answers. Here’s how I think about the progression of the internet:

Web 1.0 : Fewer platforms and websites. Websites are mostly a luxury for businesses, limited content creation options for the individual, typically tied to major platforms like Prodigy, AOL and CompuServe.

Web 2.0 : An explosion of content creation options for the individual, but far fewer monetization options. User data is owned by major social media platforms, who are the huge benefactors of content created by users.

Web 3.0: Users will reclaim control of their data, and communities will control and support platforms. Power will shift from the social media companies and platforms, to the individual.

The potential power shift from the corporations to the individual is what has so many people excited about the possibilities of Web 3.0.

If you haven’t already begun to educate yourself on the movements and technologies that will drive Web 3.0, fear not, you still have time, as it’s still early days. But you owe it to yourself to begin to educate yourself on things like cryptocurrency, the blockchain, NFTs and the like. I will be creating more content around Web 3.0 in the coming months.

If you’re on Twitter, I have created a List of experts in Web 3.0.  Following this list will get you up to speed on what’s happening in the space.  You can subscribe to the list here.

Exciting times, to be sure! Hope you have a wonderful week, I’ll see you next Monday!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Paid Events Coming to LinkedIn and Twitter, Young Adults Using Facebook Less, NFT 101

Happy Monday! I hope you are ready for a wonderfully productive week! Can I complain about the weather for a minute? October has always been my favorite month of the year, by far. The weather is always amazing, low humidity, temps in the low to mid 70s the entire month.

But this year has been a weird Summer and Fall, weather-wise. June-August was consistently 5-10 degrees below normal almost every day, which was VERY welcome! But starting in September, the temps inexplicably stopped falling.  The temps since have been mid to upper 80s.  So now it’s 5-10 degrees ABOVE normal. So crazy. The good news is that starting next week we are supposed to get highs in the low to mid 70s, and lows in the low 50s. Which is finally normal for this time of year. Ready for cooler temperatures and Halloween!

On with the marketing and social media stories I’ve been reading…

 

So LinkedIn is tinkering with an option to let creators charge for virtual events on the platform. This comes after Twitter has begun rolling out an option to let creators charge for Spaces. I think paid virtual events make complete sense for LinkedIn. There are a ton of monetization options being made available to creators of all shape and size right now. If you are active on any social platforms in any capacity, it’s worth your time to see what’s available to you.

 

 

Internal documents from Facebook show that will users under age 30 make up over a quarter of the userbase, they are spending less time on the platform versus their older counterparts. Let’s be honest, Facebook has had a lot of problems for years. The reason why its getting attention now is mostly because politicians are scrambling to leverage them to attack or silence the opposition. Facebook is no longer the ‘cool’ social network it was 10 years ago or so, and young users will avoid anything with even a hint of ‘uncool’ about it. So don’t be surprised if more problems are on the horizon for FB in the coming year.

 

Two topics that I am woefully ignorant on is cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Luckily, I found this guide to NFTs shared on Twitter to help get you up to speed.

 

So that’s it for this Monday, thanks for reading! I’ve added a Donate button to the sidebar on the right underneath the search box near the top. If you’ve gotten value from my content, please consider donating whatever you like. I will use the tips to help offset the cost of hosting, certificates, security and equipment to run the site. So any help is greatly appreciated! Hope you have a wonderful week, see you here next Monday for more news!

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