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What Kanye West’s Parler Acquisition Signals About What’s Coming With Web 3.0

So let’s look at three stories and see if we can spot a trend:

What’s the trend? I think this is the start of people who have built successful brands either acquiring or creating new social media platforms. The Dorsey Bluesky Social news is breaking and to be honest, it’s a bit different from the Parler and Truth Social news, but I think it offers a nice bridge to what this could mean for Web 3.0.

Will any of these efforts be successful?  I have my doubts.  I tried Parler for a few months in 2021, and I just didn’t like it.  It was far too focused on politics, and too much politics is….too much politics.  I’ve been checking out Truth Social for a few months and while it is growing rapidly, content-wise it seems to be headed down the same path Parler did.  Kayne’s brand will spark new interest in Parler just like Trump’s brand is pushing a lot of people to Truth Social.

The Bluesky Social news is slightly different.  Dorsey clearly doesn’t have the personal brand that Ye or Trump have, but Bluesky is promising to be a decentralized platform that’s more Web 3.0 native in functionality and structure. Plus, if it positions itself as being ‘the web3 version of Twitter’, that will attract a lot of people. On the other hand, those of us who didn’t completely trust Dorsey while he was running Twitter probably won’t completely trust him running the potential web3 version of Twitter.

Still, I believe influencers creating platforms to connect with fans and around topics they want to focus on is something we will see more of in web3. I think it will be a transition, I could see Web 2.0 influencers who already have a built audience being first.  Maybe someone like a Mr. Beast could have his own platform devoted to videos.  Then over time, as the crop of web3 influencers emerge, they would have similar offerings associated with their brands.  For example, I could see a @Coopahtroopa having a web3 platform devoted to web3 music.

Should Web3 Money Flow to Influencers or Topics?

This is where the rubber will meet the road in web3.  I believe there is enormous potential for web3 to create decentralized communities that are organized around a niche focus.  This could be an influencer creating a web3 platform for their fans so they can connect with them around topics the influencer enjoys. I think this is where a lot of money will flow once this ball gets rolling.

But I think the TRUE value for all of us will be in decentralized web3 communities that are driven and curated by the community itself. These communities would form around an idea, a topic, a vision.  Something that like-minded people are passionate about, and can find value in connect with other people that share the same excitement.  It could something as simple as a platform for Cleveland Browns fans to connect. Or it could be ham radio enthusiasts, or people dealing with chronic health issues who need a community for information and support.

These type of communities will be different from Web 2.0 counterparts, because the participants will have more ways to contribute and create value. For instance, a person who spends 4 hours a day on a platform connecting with people who are dealing with the same chronic illness has created value for the community. That value could be compensated in the form of tokens or something similar, which that person could either use as a form of personal income, or they could pool back into the community. Tokens could be pooled back into the community to crowd-fund initiatives that benefit the entire community. Maybe the community chips in and purchases a day of time with a medical expert to speak to the community and give customized advice to participants.  The possibilities are endless.

Growing Slow Sometimes Beats Growing Fast

I talked a couple of weeks ago about how a community cannot go mainstream. The underlying message in that post was that as a community grows, it will eventually reach a point where the overall experience of the community begins to degrade. The community managers and the community itself needs to be aware of when this point is reached, and dial it back. If growth continues past that point, the community experience will continue to degrade and eventually the community could shatter.

When you add in the desire by a community to monetize its efforts, that can push for growth that may not be sustainable. It’s totally a balancing act and it will require smart managers who are rooted in their communities and have a deep understanding and appreciation of what the group is and wants to be.

The concept of what an online community is or could be will grow and evolve over the next few years as web3 technologies begin to take hold. I think you will see online communities that look different from Web 2.0 counterparts. I think you will see different structures, and you will see more integration with the offline world.  The connections and value created online won’t be locked there, they will float and merge with the offline world.

It will be exciting to watch, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.

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The Creator Economy Will Not Make You Rich

You will hear the term Creator Economy a lot over the coming years. It’s closely attached to the web3 or Web 3.0 movement, and promises that content creators will have never before seen ways to monetize their content. The story goes that you will see content creators be able to tokenize their content, turn it into NFTs, and create vibrant communities of fans who will happily support creators and even give them the chance to become rich. All off creating content regularly.

But the reality is, it’s not gonna happen.

And I say that as a person who has been getting paid to create content since 2006. I was the first person to successfully monetize a Twitter chat, I believe I was also the first person to get sponsors for a live version of a Twitter chat, when Dell sponsored a Live version of #Blogchat at South By Southwest in 2011. There were some years when content creation was my main source of income, yet there’s also been a year or two where it barely made me a penny.

It’s very difficult to make a good living just from content creation.  A new survey from influencer marketing platform Aspire backs this up:

And let’s be honest: In some areas of the country, $100,000 a year is not much.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone from being a content creator. I just want you to go into your efforts with both eyes open. View your entry into the creator economy as one where you have multiple revenue streams. Content creation could be one stream. Another could be selling courses or consulting services based around the type of content you create. But unless you are the next Mr Beast or NICKMERCS, content creation alone will not make you rich.

Sidenote:  If you’ve read this blog or followed me on Twitter for any amount of time, you know I’m a huge fanboy for the #MFAM community that NICKMERCS has created. I love this tweet Nick reshared a couple of years ago from his excitement in 2014 for hitting 170 viewers of his Twitch stream:

Today, it’s not uncommon for Nick’s streams to have 500k up to a million or more views. Today, Nick is one of the most successful content creators on the planet. Which ties into another point: Even if you do make big money from content creation, it will take time and consistency. Learn to #RespectTheGrind.

 

The Creator Economy Won’t Make You Rich, But It Might Make You Enemies

The creator economy will get more people in the coming years. Since 2020, we have seen a shift to working from home. The creator economy has been an offshoot of this, and will continue to progress.

As it does, many content creators WILL figure out ways to monetize their efforts. As this happens, we will see some silliness and jealousy enter the conversation.

I’ve never told this story before. I started taking on social media content and consulting clients in 2006. In 2011, I started talking to publishers about writing a book that would later become Think Like a Rock Star. In early 2012, I got a deal signed with McGraw-Hill to publish TLAR.  At the time, I was coming off 2011, which had been my best year so far working for myself. I didn’t make a ton of money, but I felt like I had turned a corner, plus I saw the book deal as being my way to take my career to the next level. So when I signed the book deal in early 2012, I decided not to take on ANY new client work for 6 months, so I could focus all my attention on writing TLAR.

In hindsight, this might not have been the best choice, but at the time it made sense to me, so I stand by the decision. I got to work on writing TLAR, and a few weeks later, I announced here, and on social media that the book would be out early the following year.

The reaction was overwhelmingly positive and supportive. However, there was some criticism. A few people left snarky comments here and elsewhere saying I wasn’t qualified to write a book. Or that my book was unnecessary. One person even seemed to imply I had stolen the idea for my book from another author’s book (which I had never read).

I’ll never forget, there was one guy who worked for a major brand who occasionally left snarky comments towards me and other social media consultants. When I announced my book, he went to Twitter and told his followers NOT to buy my book, that I wasn’t qualified cause I didn’t work for a company like he did. I had to laugh cause I’m thinking ‘Dude you are likely making double if not triple what I am right now, and you’re jealous of my book deal’.

So as some content creators find new ways to monetize their efforts, look for the same controversy to follow.  I’m already seeing this happening in some circles where you have a group of content creators who are covering breaking news stories, but suddenly one girl has found a way to successfully monetize her efforts. Now the community she was a part of is calling her a ‘shill’ or that she shouldn’t be monetizing her efforts, she’s a ‘sellout’ etc. I saw the same things when Web 2.0 got off the ground, the same silliness will repeat during Web 3.0.

The Creator Economy Is a Piece of the Pie, it Ain’t the Whole Pie

The odds are, you won’t make a lot of money from creating content. You may not directly make a single dime off it. So manage your expectations when it comes to monetizing the content you create. Don’t think of it as a way to pay the bills, but maybe as a way to HELP you pay the bills. You can have other revenue streams, and many of those can develop as an offshoot of your content creation efforts.

Employers, you have to understand that your employees will be drawn to the freedom that the creator economy offers. It’s enticing to think about working from home, for yourself, doing much of the same work that they are currently doing in a cubicle for you. If you want to keep your best employees, you have to think about how to more creatively compensate and reward them for their efforts. Maybe you give them a bigger salary, or maybe more flexibility in work requirements. Appreciating your employees helps build trust and loyalty.

 

The creator economy will be a driving force in the coming years. It may not mint a million new millionaires, but it will give a lot of people the ability and freedom to pursue a new career path working for themselves. I’m excited to see where it takes us all!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute:Ethereum’s Merge Completes, Twitter Shareholders Approve Musk Purchase Bid, Fashion Eyes the Metaverse

Happy Monday,y’all!  Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Marketing Minute.  Here’s 3 business and Web3 stories I’ve read over the last week that caught my eye:

 

Ethereum’s merge from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake is finalized. If you are like me and scrambling to figure out why the merge matters, Ali has a great thread on why it’s important, and there’s a good podcast that delves into what the transition from PoW to PoS means, and why it’s so important to the development of Ethereum and the entire web3 space.  Yes, all this gets in the weeds a bit and will no doubt be a bit confusing to many, but I think it’s worth investing some time in learning why this move matters.

 

So the on-again, off-again Twitter bid by Elon Musk is…..still off?  Twitter shareholders voted to accept Musk’s purchase bid, but that likely won’t matter. At the heart of Musk’s backpeddling from the Twitter deal is Twitter’s inability to clarify exactly how many of its claimed users, are actually bots.  It has long been contended that Twitter’s bot problem is far worse than it lets on, and Musk backed off the deal when the company could not give him hard numbers on exactly what percentage of its claimed users are actually bots.  At this point it seems the purchase won’t go through, but who knows for sure.

 

Of the many industries that are eyeing a jump into the metaverse, the fashion industry seems to be making the biggest splash so far. Given that some experts are predicting the market cap of the metaverse to top $50B over the next 5 years, this shouldn’t surprise.

 

So that’s it for this week’s Monday Marketing Minute! We’ll return next Monday, and in the meantime if you see a story that I should be covering or that you want to share with everyone, feel free to email me!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: a16z’s Can’t Be Evil NFT License, NCAA Prez Embraces Brand Ambassadors, Starbucks Adds Web3 to Loyalty Program

Happy Fall, y’all! Temps are still a bit warm but calendar says September so I’m calling it Fall.  Hope everyone has an amazing week, here’s a few marketing and business stories I read over the last week that caught my eye:

 

Investment firm a16z is pushing it’s Can’t Be Evil license as a way for NFT holders to allow others to use its token and build upon it’s image and properties.  The license is free to use and apply to NFTs, and the hope is that it will become a standard license for NFTs to help holders protect their IP rights, as well as more easily allow others to build upon and remix and share that IP within the confines of the license.

 

Kristi Dosh had an interesting sit-down recently with NCAA President Mark Emmert on a variety of topics. Obviously, NIL was a big focus of the conversation. Emmert lamented the fact that paying student athletes could change their role in the eyes of the law to being employees of a university.  Which opens up the SA and university to a lot of legal issues that neither side may want to entangle themselves in.

Emmert suggested that a better alternative may be to explore the idea of universities employing more Brand Ambassadors.  Emmert suggested that universities focus on quantifying the amount of brand value that its SAs are creating, and then compensate SAs from that ‘fund’ based on each SAs contributions, which could be measured using some formula or criteria.  Colleges have used ambassadors for years, but the idea of treating student athletes as ambassadors is a new untouched, so it will be interesting to see how this idea could play out as the NIL era emerges.

 

Starbucks is looking to incorporate NFT technology into its existing loyalty program.  This idea of brands incorporating NFTs into loyalty or ambassador programs is something I’ve talked about here before. In general, the Starbucks Odessey program will leverage the additional functionality that NFTs can provide into the structure of the loyalty programs it has used in the past.

This is a good start, but as more brands begin to incorporate NFTs and blockchain technologies into ambassador and loyalty programs, members will begin to want more.  As more web3 savvy customers become involved in these programs, they will expect their NFTs to grant more than digital perks and discounts.  They will expect their tokens to grant ownership and even governance over the programs.  Watch for this to become more common in the coming years.

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute, I hope everyone has a fantabulous week!

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Music Artists Using NFTs to Give Fans Direct Ownership of Songs/Royalties

So earlier this year, I wrote to you about how NFTs were evolving past simply being cute (and sometimes not so cute) artwork that was selling for insanely high prices. I showed you how MetafansNFT is using NFTs to grant its holders exclusive access to sporting events, communities, and more. I think it marks a sea change in how NFTs can provide real utility for owners. It also gives a glimpse of the potential of NFTs in the future as a way to unlock custom access and experiences.

Then in May, this happened:

The Chainsmokers released 5000 tokens, each one giving the owner a share of the streaming royalties for the ENTIRE album.

The Chainsmokers set aside 4,000 of the tokens for its ‘VIP’ fans, the ones that buy the most tickets, stream its songs the most, and who are the most active on its Discord channel. Another 700 tokens were given to people with a Royal account, the company facilitating the giveaway. The final 300 tokens are being held by the band to give to friends, family, and fans in the future.

Notice what The Chainsmokers did with this giveaway: 86% of the tokens are set aside for its biggest fans. I wrote about this in Think Like a Rock Star , but rock stars always focus on letting their fans do their marketing for them. Fans are leveraged as a channel to acquire new customers.

And this trend of music artists giving fans ownership of music via NFTs appears to be catching on:

 

Here, artist Timmy Trumpet is working with Royal to give away 50% of the ownership of his new single to fans.

The whole concept of NFTs feels a bit vague, nebulous and even out of touch to the average person, I believe.  But when you tell someone that ownership of an NFT allows them to actually OWN a part of a song they love from an artist they love, then that resonates with them.

Artists like The Chainsmokers and Timmy Trumpet are betting that by giving away a fraction of ownership to its fans, that doing so will expand the pie and they will end up with more sales by sharing ownership with its fans.

It’s a bet they are likely to win. And this could be the start of a revolution in the music industry. What if every new album release by artists like Kanye or Drake or Ed Sheeran came with 5% ownership set aside for its fans? What happens when you give fans an ownership stake in your music, your products, your brand?

I think we are about to find out. Welcome to web3.

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The Future of Work and Play in Web3

One of the key promises of web3 is that it will be much easier for participants in web3 to make money off their efforts versus web 2.0. This means content creators can (in theory) more easily make money off their content, and active participants in building a web3 platform can share in the profits that would otherwise accrue mostly to the platform itself, as we saw with web 2.0 platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Another area of web3 that promises compensation for participants is the emerging Play to Earn game space. The idea is simple; as you play the game, you are earning tokens that can later be redeemed for money, if you so desire.

A recent example of a Play to Earn game is the Artieverse, which is due to launch its first game later this year. In short, the game lets you play against other players, and you can improve the skills of your player by either purchasing items or by playing the game. As you win new items for your player, these new items give the player new skills and make it easier for them to win matches.

Eventually, you can acquire all the skills available for your player. When this happens, your player is then converted into an NFT. You can then keep your NFT, or sell it on an NFT marketplace like OpenSea. As you can see the current floor price (lowest selling price) for Artieverse NFTs is around $300. A recent Twitter Spaces by the company explains the process in greater detail:

https://twitter.com/theartieverse/status/1527364793648066560

It will be interesting to see how this evolves, but I am fascinated at the potential of finding ways to use web3 technologies to compensate people for engaging in their hobbies and interests. It’s not just Play to Earn games, think about genealogy. Millions of people just in the US research their own family history and those of others. What if they were all part of a Genealogy DAO that compensated them for their research? They could have a platform to share their research and discoveries with others (helping them flesh out the branches of their own family trees), but also they are compensated for their time in the form of tokens which they could either sell for money, or hold and use as governance over the platform itself.

The idea is to take activities that people are already engaging in for free, and give them a way to keep engaging in those same activities, but be paid for it. A hobby could quickly develop into a side income, and as you started making money from your hobby, that could give you the resources to expand it. Maybe making a few hundred dollars from your genealogy research could fund a few trips to cemeteries in your region for more research, or something similar.

In short, it’s about finding a way to let people spend more time engaging in the activities that they are truly passionate about. For all of mankind, our hobbies and passion projects have typically been our distraction from the boring drudgery of daily work and life. what if we could reach a point where our hobbies and passion projects BECOME our life’s work?

Web3 promises to bring us closer to that reality. Let’s see what happens.

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Now I Get Why Everyone is Excited About NFTs

For the last 6 months or so, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around NFTs, the Metaverse, crypto and all things web3. I decided to jump into this space because I suddenly saw that a LOT of smart people were moving toward these emerging technologies. Then I began to notice a huge talent drain; People at top positions in web 2.0 companies were leaving to join web3 startups.

All of this told me there was ‘something’ going on here that I needed to pay attention to.

So I dove in. When you start learning about web3, one of the first spaces to examine is NFTs. Honestly, it’s probably not the best entry point to learn about web3, because NFTs are so easily misunderstood. People are actually paying MILLIONS for a jpeg on their computer? How is this revolutionary?

I heard people say ‘Oh but it’s not just a file, you can get perks, you get access to a community!’ and all that sounded good, but in most cases it seemed like the NFT was mostly about the token itself. Whether that was a bored cat, a lazy dog, whatever.

And all of it looked like overhyped junk, if I’m being honest.
Then I saw this tweet from MetaFansNFT:

With Metafans, it’s not about the NFT, it’s about the experiences that unlock for you if you own a Metafans NFT. This tweet is from a Formula One race in Miami that MetaFans NFT holders were given special access to, just for owning a MetaFans NFT. MetaFans lets its NFT owners unlock special sporting experiences just for having an NFT from their collections. Sometimes they win a big discount on tickets, other times they win tickets and VIP access, all for being owners. The current calendar of events shows events in auto racing, The Preakness, and the MLB.

To me, this is a game-changer, and it shows the true potential of NFTs: As your entry point to both specialized experiences and a community of people interested in those same experiences.
And if you think about it, this could expand the concept of an NFT as your ticket to experiences to all areas of your life.

MetaFansNFT unlocks sporting experiences. But you could also have NFTs associated with:

  • Socializing/Dating
  • Work
  • School
  • Entertainment
  • Hobbies/Interests

We could, at one point in the near future, have an NFT associated with every major area of our lives. And this would allow us to have special access to not only customized experiences associated with that area, but access to a community of people who have the same interests and viewpoints as we do. And the NFT could unlock it all.

To me, this is getting back to the true potential of the internet. To give us the ability to interact with people that we could otherwise never talk to. If web 2.0 was about bringing everyone together (centralized) then web3 is about distilling us into smaller, more purposeful groups (decentralized).
Here’s an example: Let’s say you are obsessed with exploring caves in North Carolina. Sure, you love exploring caves in general, but there’s something about the caves in North Carolina that cannot be matched for you.

If you could join an online community that was focused on exploring the outdoors, would that interest you? Maybe.

What if you could join an online community that was devoted to exploring caves? Ok that’s got your interest.

But what if you could purchase an NFT that would unlock not only access to a community of 1,000 people who are devoted to exploring caves in North Carolina, but the NFT also unlocks your ability to JOIN community members on expeditions to caves in North Carolina? Of COURSE you would jump at the chance to be involved!

So keep an eye on the evolution of NFTs as a way to unlock specialized experiences and community access. I think this will be one of the areas that will be big for NFTs in the future.

 

PS: This post originally appeared as an issue of my newsletter Backstage Pass.  Backstage Pass is where I pull back the curtain and detail how companies are using emerging technologies to deliver amazing marketing and customer experiences.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: BAYC Launches $APE, Magazine/Book NFTs Are Here, Your Grandparents Are Mobile Gamers

Happy Monday, y’all! Welcome to another edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! Every Monday I bring you 3 news stories that caught my eye, covering business, marketing and web3.  Let’s dive in:

 

Bored Ape Yacht Club, the wildly successful NFT collection, launched its $APE coin last week.  The token will help fund community initiatives as well as reward current BAYC members.  The coin debuted at a dollar and quickly shot up to over $37 before settling down and is currently trading in the $10-14 dollar range. This will likely be the first of many such token offerings associated with NFT collections that we will see this year.

 

In January, I wrote about 3 NFT categories primed for growth in 2022; Music, photography, and books.  We are beginning to see some publishers begin to dabble with books and media, as Time has offered a recent edition of its magazine as an NFT for the first time:

https://twitter.com/MarkEglinton/status/1504106432316297222

 

I knew which age group was going to be the leaders in mobile gaming before I read the article. The age group that plays mobile games the most in the US and Canada?  The age group 45 years and older. This age group accounts for 32% of all mobile gamers.  Now to be fair, 45+ is a LARGE range.  But you would be surprised how many people over the age of 40 are playing mobile games.  I’ve been actively playing them for the last few years and the majority of the players are consistently over 40 years old.  Many are over 50.  Often, these games have chat functionality, and for older gamers, they may have limited mobility, and the friends they make while playing mobile games could be a significant part of their social circle.

 

So that’s it for this week, I hope all of you have a wonderful week and enjoy the Spring weather!

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I’m Ready For Web 3.0 to Give Me Twitter 2.0

Two weeks from today will mark my 15th year being a user of Twitter. Twitter likely had less than 500k users at that point, so it’s safe to say I was a very early adopter to the platform.

Twitter, warts and all, remains the best social platform we have for creating and participating in free-flowing conversations. This is almost completely due to the determination and ingenuity of Twitter users. When Jack, Ev and Biz started Twitter in 2006, they were very clear about their intentions for Twitter.

Twitter was designed to be a broadcast and promotional platform. You broadcast what you are doing.  You promote what you are doing. But organic conversations springing up around those broadcasts? Not a big care for Twitter. Users engaging their networks organically and making connections and creating new conversations on the platform? Again, not a priority for Twitter.

Twitter was designed to be a broadcast and promotional platform.

For a decade, I ran the most popular chat on Twitter, #Blogchat. It was not uncommon for #Blogchat to generate over 100M impressions in ONE HOUR every Sunday night, and create thousands of tweets. I had people refuse to join the chat as a co-host, citing ‘I can’t keep up with how fast it is’. At the height of its popularity from say 2010-2012, #Blogchat was the top trending topic on Twitter almost every Sunday night.

#Blogchat generated hundreds of organic conversations on the platform every Sunday night.  It drew thousands of people to the platform.

Twitter never once reached out to me about the massive engagement that #Blogchat created on its platform every Sunday night. Never a thank you, never a we see what you are doing, keep it up. Nothing.  Actually, I take that back.  Twitter did reach out once about #Blogchat; to let me know about its options for running a PAID PROMOTION to help #Blogchat reach an even larger audience.

This story is offered to illustrate that Twitter has never viewed its platform as a way to create conversations. Which is a shame, because the platform remains the best place in social media where you can create and participate in conversations.

Twitter is a better networking tool than LinkedIn will ever be. I have been saying this for 15 years. Just yesterday, I left a tweet. Someone who I follow, but have never interacted with, replied to me. We started chatting. Now we are connected. It’s that simple and this happens EVERY day on Twitter.

It’s time we apply the potential of Web 3.0 to create Twitter 2.0

The promise of Web3 or Web 3.0 is that creators will own their content and have shared ownership of the platforms that they help create and grow. In Web 2.0, the platforms take our content and monetize it. In exchange, we get back Likes and RTs.

The promise of Web 3.0 is that our activity on a Web 3.0 platform would reward us with tokens that would grant us ownership in the platform itself.

With this in mind, let’s consider if we created Twitter 2.0 using Web 3.0 technologies. Let’s say we created a platform similar to Twitter, that was focused not on broadcasting and promoting content, but instead its focus was on helping people create and engaging in organic conversations.  I talked about this yesterday, of course on Twitter:

Think about the possibilities. Everything on the platform would be based around creating and contributing to conversations. Think about how much easier it would be to meet new and interesting people! You could meet people who shared both your personal and business interests. You could use it to dive into personal conversations around your life and hobbies, or use it as a professional tool to grow your business or career.

To be fair, Twitter was very much like this in its first couple of years. Conversations were free-flowing and organic. You could easily lose yourself for hours on Twitter just by scanning your timeline and finding so many interesting conversations to jump into.  And it was so easy to pull someone else into a conversation as it was happening.

But eventually, Twitter began courting investors and investors wanted more revenue and that led to pushing for more promotional content and fewer conversations.

We have a chance to get back what we lost from the early days of Twitter. Back before our timeline was 90% link sharing.  Back when you made new connections every single day on Twitter due to the conversations happening on the platform.

Think about a Web 3.0 platform similar in functionality to Twitter, but designed from the bottom up to facilitate the creation of conversations. It’s a digital happy hour, a chance to meet and engage with new people every single day.

And if you perform the desired actions (creating and participating in conversations on the platform) then you are rewarded with tokens, not Likes and RTs. These tokens have monetary value, but also give you ownership of the platform and let you participate in the platform’s governance. So you can either hodl the tokens, or sell some/all of them.

Either way, the users who are working to grow the conversations, and by extension the platform facilitating those conversations, are being rewarded monetarily for their work. That makes us more invested in the platform and seeing it grow.  The more successful the platform is, the more valuable our tokens become.

But the reality is, the conversations themselves have far more value. The ability to meet and connect with people from all over the world was the promise of Web 2.0. That promise has been met with gated access and platforms taking our content and monetizing it to grow itself.

It’s time for Web 3.0 to realize its promise and give us Twitter 2.0.

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How LooksRare Used Guerilla Marketing Tactics at Launch at Instantly Compete With OpenSea

OpenSea was the 800 pound gorilla in the NFT marketplace space. On Jan 4th, the company announced a $300M funding round at a $13 Billion plus valuation. All the momentum was with OpenSea and it was poised to get a strangehold on the exploding NFT marketplace space.

But all that changed over the course of 24 hours.

Two weeks into January, OpenSea had already received over 2 billion in Ethereum from its sales and was on pace for another record sales month.

On January 10th, NFT marketplace competitor LooksRare launched. Along with the website launch, LooksRare also launched its LOOKS token.  The token would be given to users of the website to incentivize certain activities, such as buying and selling NFTs.

But LooksRare decided to do something else with the LOOKS token.  LooksRare decided to give away 120 Million of the LOOKS tokens to current OpenSea users.  LooksRare targeted OpenSea users who had bought and sold at least 3 ETH worth of NFTs from June-December on OpenSea.  That’s roughly $8,000 worth of activity as of this writing.

The more activity on OpenSea, the more LOOKS tokens you received, in a range of at least 125 tokens, all the way up to 10,000 for the biggest OpenSea users. As of this writing, the LOOKS token is trading for roughly $4 a token.  So the airdropped LOOKS tokens to OpenSea users had a value of between $500-$40,000.

Yikes!

Here’s the brilliant part: In order to ‘activate’ the LOOKS tokens, the OpenSea user has to go to the LooksRare website and list an NFT for sale. So the move not only encourages OpenSea users to check out LooksRare, but it makes receiving the LOOKS tokens dependent on actually listing an NFT on the platform.

As you might expect, listing volume on LooksRare immediately spiked, and after a week LooksRare was realizing trading volume of two to three times what OpenSea was seeing!

Another brilliant move LooksRare made is by taking an actual sale on OpenSea, and then calculating how much money the seller would have made if the same NFT had been listed and sold on LooksRare:

To be honest, LooksRare should be doing these comparison tweets every day.  It’s a great way to clearly demonstrate the price difference in selling on LooksRare versus OpenSea.

How would this apply to an ‘average’ business?

Let’s revisit what LooksRare did in airdropping LOOKS tokens to OpenSea users.  What LooksRare did was send LOOKS tokens directly to the wallets that OpenSea users were using.  The buyer history was available on the blockchain, so LooksRare had access to sales history and could easily identify the wallets that had generated the sales that met their criteria.

How could this work in the more mainstream business world? Here’s an example: Your fast food brand decides to launch a mobile app where you connect your digital wallet to the app and pay through the app.  That means the sales history of your wallet (your digital identity) would be trackable on the blockchain.

Let’s say a competitor fast food chain launches their own mobile app, which is also setup as your mobile app is, so you connect your wallet. When someone signs up for your competitor’s app, they receive 10 free FOOD tokens, that can be used to buy food via your app. Think of FOOD tokens as rewards points that many current fast food apps such as Chick Fil A use today.

What your competitor could also do is airdrop FOOD tokens directly into the wallets of YOUR customers who are using YOUR mobile app! And they could set the same qualifications on the FOOD tokens as LooksRare did on its LOOKS tokens; Your customers would have to go to your competitor’s app to redeem the FOOD tokens.  This is also called a ‘vampire attack’, in marketing terms, because the intent is to suck the best users away from your app, and into the competitor’s app.

Be aware of how web3 technologies are impacting marketing

Now is a wonderful time to watch how companies and even individuals are leveraging and experimenting with emerging web3 technologies in their marketing and branding efforts. As these technologies emerge and develop, they will create new and exciting opportunities for companies to market themselves, and deliver better experiences to customers.

 

Note: Thank you to the brilliant Adel de Meyer for giving me assistance explaining the technical aspects of how the web3 technologies in this article would work. Please follow Adel on Twitter, she’s my go-to expert on crypto, NFTs and web3.