NFT Community Growth: Engagement & Activity

SHOW ME an active, engaged, chatty and even opinionated NFT community and I’ll SHOW YOU a successful NFT project!

If you prefer, you can listen to or watch all of our newsletterw as a video or podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/@arisingfloor/videos

Last week we gave you a launch plan to use as a guide for your NFT launch. You can read or listen to that one by clicking here.

In today’s newsletter you’ll learn:

• $1.95 an HOUR to play Warcraft or DOOM
• Whip out your crystal ball
• We’re putting the band back together
• Give the horse a drink
• We’re all getting engaged

There’s WAY too much info to put in one newsletter to actually feel that I gave you what it takes to build and maintain a great NFT Community… so this week we’ll talk about the structure of a great community, and in the future, I’ll share how to find and drag them back to your Discord.

In this newsletter we’ll be talking about how to deal with the people you have, keep them coming back for more, and how to turn them into your biggest fans and even a no-cost marketers.

How people feel and how they’re treated when they get involved with your NFT program is more important than the artwork, the price, the quantity… and possibly even the utility and partnerships.

Most collections screw this up and have an empty or dead Discord because of it.

$1.95 an HOUR to play Warcraft or DOOM

I’ve been in and about online gaming communities since early 1995 when I was an Admin for the Dial-up Wide-Area Network Game Operation, better known as DWANGO. (I don’t know if this makes me old or you young!)

DWANGO was the pretty much the first platform that connected gamers online to compete against each other. For $1.95 an hour using a telephone modem, you could call into a server located in your city, and play DOOM, Duke Nukem, Warcraft II, Heretic, and a few others.

Yup… that $1.95 could add up REAL fast!

One of the founders was John Romero of “iD Software”, the creator of DOOM and some other “OGs”. Since web gaming was so new, and there was a big-name on the door, DWANGO did well. Microsoft Gaming Zone and Blizzard’s Battle.net however, were eventually a couple of nails in the coffin.

As you can see in the image below, the chat interface was rudimentary looking, but it worked great. Even then, in the “Garden of Eden of Online Gaming”, a growing, active and engaged community was the key to success!

Like today, we welcomed new players, answered questions, created games, held contests, talked strategy, and more. The more engagement we created the longer people hung out, and the more $ was made.

It’s no different with an NFT project: the more active and engaged your people are, the better you’ll do.

So! Let’s talk about how to create a large active online community for an NFT collection! (as a side note — I purposely used the exact words above: “how to create a large active online community” AND bolded it then italicized it — to try and rank for that term in Google) When you’re writing, try to do the same…

Let’s start at the top and what to do before you even get started, if you have this luxury. If you’re already launched and need some help, that’s fine too, but it’s not a bad idea to plan what your group will look like in advance if you can.

Most don’t… which is a mistake.

Whip out your crystal ball

Determine the type of people you want to attract first and make an effort to determine your avatar. When I say “determine your avatar”, I am suggesting that you create a profile of the best type of people that you want to attract, then go after them.

It’s often easier said than done, but answer some of these questions in advance, and then go to work to find them.

• How old is your best prospect? It might be “anyone”, but it might not be, depending on your artwork, partnerships, and/or utility. If your biggest partner is an influencer with an average follower in their 20’s, you won’t target senior citizens.
• Are your best prospects male or female? Will your collection be more attractive to one gender or the other?
• What type of people will your NFTs attract? Again, I fall back on utility, what are people getting in addition to a picture when they mint or buy your NFT? If they get lessons to apply makeup, you’ll be seeking a different person than if they get a free fishing lure or golf course pass.

If you don’t have any REAL utility, go read this past newsletter and learn why you SHOULD. Utility is the future of the NFT industry.

I’ll keep this broad for now, because I can write the entire article on this alone… just use common sense and figure out who your best person is and go and find them. Your shiller will thank you!

If you’ve already started your program and are working to grow, it’s not too late to go back and do this. In fact, it might be easier for you to do, because you can poll your existing group and determine what qualities make up your best people.

We’re putting the band back together

You need your drummer, guitarist, bass player and lead singer… and they need to be good enough that people will stick around until the fat lady sings. In other words, your team will determine if the audience sticks around, or if they’ll leave before the encore.

First… don’t underestimate how important it is that YOU, the collection founder/artist… communicates with your community directly and often. It gives people confidence in the project (especially in a bear market) and when you chat with someone directly, endears them to the project.

It also sets an example for your moderators and community managers, shows you’re a leader, and on the reverse, will keep you up on the pulse of your collection. Please don’t discount this!

Assuming you’re smart enough to be a proper leader, you’ll also need some other key players. Depending on your collection, budget, and size, this can include the following, ALL who should be active in your Discord/Telegram:

• Community Managers
• Artists
• Moderators
• Collaboration Managers
• Marketer/CMO
• Technical Developers

Again, a lot of this varies and there could be more. You may start on your own and grow as needed (or you can afford to) or take on a myriad of different looks… but IMO, you’ll always do better with help. Even if this help comes from you paying a few people with free NFTs to help you out at first.

You might be thinking “but why should the dev coding the game or creating the contract, or even the artist be talking to the community?”. I say “WHY NOT!?”.

Some people are interested in the tech, some in marketing, some in the artwork. Don’t underestimate the importance of all parts of the team at least popping in now and then to spend some time with the people who are supporting you as well.

NFTs are different than other purchases. People choose them for some particular reason: the artwork, the utility, or even some emotional connection they feel. Don’t be afraid to fan the flame. (otherwise, to make them happy and let them chat with the people they have something in common with!)

Also, NFT holders don’t usually buy and disappear… the majority of them buy, join the community, and have some level of desire to hang around and be active in the growth and future of the project. This is different than buying gold, stocks, and other more traditional investments.

Give the horse a drink

This difference I state above is what makes NFTs so unique. You’ve heard “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”… this horse is not only AT the water… but THIRSTY!

Your people WANT to hear from you. They WANT to share opinions with you and other team members, they WANT to learn from you, have a relationship with you, and take this journey with you.

Give them what they WANT, and they’ll stick around, support you, advertise for you, fight for you, and spend more $ with you. Get your entire team involved and watch what happens.

The most successful NFT communities are ones where there’s a “core” group of members who start and end their day in your Discord or Telegram. They’re the “regulars”, the ones who know the answers as good as you do (or better) and who take the newbies under their wings.

What else do they want? I’ll answer with my favorite word for just about anything related to NFT marketing: a REASON. (maybe they don’t “want” a reason, but we’re going to give it to them anyway!

The horse is still thirsty, so let’s keep them drinking. We’ll do this with events, contests, games, challenges, giveaways, rewards, friendships, fun, and lots of personal attention. If you can’t name your 20 or so most engaged people, you may be doing it wrong.

In addition to these suggestions above keeping them active by giving them a reason to visit, they also keep them engaged. It’s one thing to get them to visit your Discord to chat a bit and see if anything is going on. It’s taking it to another level if they get busy and they STAY. This is engagement.

We’re all getting engaged

It’s the difference between someone coming to visit, saying “GM” and leaving, or staying for the next hour or two chatting, sharing memes, playing games and getting to know others.

If they feel listened to, they feel important, they feel appreciated, and they feel they BELONG to something, you’re doing it right. In fact, do this right and your community will bring you more people and buyers than most of your marketing…

Getting your community engaged can be close to a full-time job, and why moderators and community managers are so important. Make sure you hire and properly train people who have great attitudes, a good sense of people, are patient, well-spoken, and perhaps even a bit humble.

Create and follow a schedule of games, events, contests, and whatever else you can think of. Don’t simply have them show up every day and “see what happens”. Things don’t need to be expensive or elaborate, although they can be from time to time… they just need to be fun and engaging.

You can plan events, (click to see an example) hold contests involving memes, music, poems, graphics and more… do Twitter Spaces and Discord Hangouts, create collabs and partnerships, give special titles and have special rooms for your most active people. BE CREATIVE!

Classes, tutorials, and workshops, educating people on crypto security, blockchain basics, and knowledge based on your collection can always be a winner.

As I said at the beginning, there are a lot of things to do to make your community stand out in a world of thousands of NFT collections… and we’ll cover more of that in weeks to come.

However, all the marketing dollars in the world will be wasted if it’s tossed towards bringing people into a dead and silent community. The success of a real estate project is usually determined by “location, location, location”!

An NFT project success is similar: “community, community, community”!

Until next time, if you need help ask for it, if you don't, then prove it!

Deacon Nick

PS- If you have any questions or comments, hop into the Discord and ask away! We'd love to get to know YOU better as well!

Follow Nick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickcifonie

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