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Over the past few years, the blockchain and cryptocurrency space has gained increasing attention from both retail and institutional investors. As well as the top tier projects like Bitcoin and Ethereum, many other projects have appeared offering products and services for the market. This has made the environment highly competitive and challenging to stand out, therefore it’s imperative you have a solid marketing strategy planned out in partnership with a specialist crypto marketing agency to achieve your business goals.

Perhaps you are a brand new crypto project looking to raise funds through a launch platform, or maybe you are an existing project looking to enhance your brand, increase your following on social media or gain more active users for your DeFi application or play-to-earn game. In either case, you should find some value in this article.

Social Media

Many blockchain & crypto audience members will discover new projects from social networks, the most popular platform are currently:

1. YouTube – this is often the first point of call for users and potential investors. As many projects tend to be quite technical in nature a video explanation is easier to digest than just for example reading a whitepaper. It’s also effective to host interviews with team members to provide updates on project developments and plans for the future and conduct live-streaming events. Many crypto influencers also publish their content on YouTube which can be a paid promotion or their own independent research.
   
2. Twitter – has become a gathering ground for crypto enthusiasts mainly due to the original founder Jack Dorsey’s support of Bitcoin and current owner Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for the crypto market in general. Many influencers engage with their audiences on Twitter and projects like to make key announcements such as strategic partnerships, it’s also a popular place for traders to promote their Patreon groups and publish technical charts and give market analysis. Twitter Spaces, which is a relatively new feature Twitter has released, has become popular for live audio conversations recently. Up to 13 people including the host can speak at any one time, as the host you can control who speaks by inviting them into the Space. It’s also possible to record the entire event and anyone is free to join in as a listener and feel part of the event.
   
3. Reddit – was more popular in the early days of the crypto market when it was mainly those involved in programming or gaming who took interest. The subreddit group r/cryptocurrency still has currently over 4 million members so it’s still a very active channel and it’s well worthwhile creating your own subreddit group to update your audience on project developments and develop a community.
   
4. Facebook – was also popular during the early days of the market but users have since migrated more to Twitter due to Facebook’s restrictions on advertising for crypto projects. There are still many groups on Facebook and some influencers also engage and build their followings on Facebook.

You should create your own branded accounts on these channels and begin posting content and building up your following.

Messaging Platforms

There are also real-time messaging platforms which have gained a lot of popularity as many crypto audiences are international by nature and so at any time of the day can pop in 24/7 and engage with an official team member or community member to answer their query, it also allows projects to build a community and effectively turn their audience into brand advocates, currently, two of the most popular platforms are:

• Telegram – an encrypted messaging platform, many projects will have one or more official channels for their community. You can also just have a one-way channel on Telegram, such as an announcements channel and also create bots to automate certain aspects such as welcoming new users to the channel. One downside is channels are open to anybody and so it’s very easy for unscrupulous individuals to contact your community members directly, you should make your members aware of this risk.
  
• Discord – another real-time chat platform popularised by gamers, it has some more advanced features than Telegram and in some ways is easier to implement security measures. It also doesn’t require a software installation like Telegram and can just be accessed through a Web browser which some people may prefer. You can also create bots to automate processes and thread channels to separate out your content.

Build a Community

Using social media and real-time messaging platforms such as Telegram and Discord are all essential in order to build a loyal and engaged community for your project. It can take some time to build active followers and can be subject to the current conditions of the crypto market, but your community can act as brand advocates and communicate with their social network about your project. Many web and blockchain developers join crypto communities either as investors or because they like the project fundamentals and can act as a great technical resource also.

It is important to keep your community engaged to maintain their interest and loyalty, here are some ideas:

• Ask Me Anything (AMA) – a live event where you can speak to your community members directly in a voice chat on Telegram or Discord, or through a YouTube Livestream to update them on the latest developments and answer their questions.
  
• Bounty campaigns – set tasks around content creation, social media engagement or bug finding to incentivize and reward your community with your native token. Campaigns are often launched before an ICO or IDO to generate interest before a project fully launches but they can be effective post-launch as well.
  
• Artwork and meme creation contests – let your members have fun being creative by running artwork and meme contests. Memes in particular are very popular among crypto audiences and are often posted by users on social media, they can be an effective way to promote your brand.
  
• Contests and giveaways – you can also utilise a platform such as gleam.io to grow and engage your audience, Gleam provides a platform to run giveaway contests by setting tasks for entrants to complete such as following your social channels, signing up to your email list and answering questions etc. it provides all the links in a landing page widget which is easy to embed onto your website.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is essential for most businesses, when combined with an organic SEO strategy it’s highly effective and recent figures show 97% of companies include it as part of their overall marketing plan. As the blockchain and crypto industry is in a constant state of flux as new tech and trends emerge, it’s even more important to release updates on your latest project developments through content marketing, it’s also an effective way to expand your audience to achieve faster growth for your company.

Video content is the most successful content type with audiences in recent years and so the creation of pre-recorded content, webinars and live streaming events etc. is essential to include and upload to your official YouTube channel, you could also upload your content onto crypto alternative platforms such as BitTube. Blog posts are the second most successful and creating these for your website, Medium and possibly HackerNoon will also aid your organic SEO rankings. Posting regularly on social channels such as Twitter will also be very beneficial for your brand to keep your audience engaged and build trust with them. Podcasts and other voice-recorded content such as Twitter Spaces, Telegram and Discord voice chats are also popular with audiences. Creating additional content such as infographics, EBooks, PDF documents and slideshow presentations to illustrate how for example your token staking mechanism works will also be valuable additions to your content strategy.

Document your strategy

Develop a roadmap and document your content marketing strategy, it will help you become more organised and efficient and identify specific goals and metrics used to measure how successful your efforts have been. Here are some steps to help you:

1. Identify your target audience and develop a persona, where do they spend most of their time? Is it on social media, YouTube, Medium etc.?
2. Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics to help you measure the success rates of your content marketing efforts.
3. Audit your existing content – find out which topics and keywords are currently performing highly and determine which content needs to be modified and updated.
4. Develop a content calendar so you have a clear schedule of when and where you plan to publish upcoming content.
5. Research and develop your content, how will you distribute it? Will it be through social media, your website, search results, email, PPC etc.?
6. Analyse performance – keep an eye on metrics such as impressions, engagement (comments, likes, shares etc.) and click-through rates (CTR) so you can optimise to aid performance.

Influencers

As the crypto market has become more established, many influencers have emerged on social media building up their own following on YouTube and Twitter with many having subscriber counts in the six figures (or in some cases millions) making them an attractive resource to promote your project. As many influencers are seen as thought leaders within the space, forming a partnership with them can expose your project to a whole new audience. The challenge is selecting the right influencer who meets your budget requirements and who you think will have a positive impact. You should dedicate some time to researching popular influencers and determine which ones would be a good potential fit for your brand. Some example criteria for selecting influencers might be:

• Reach – look at the number of subscribers on YouTube and followers on Twitter they have and levels of engagement.
• Niche – do they focus on a specific niche? For example, do they mainly create content on P2E gaming or DeFi projects etc.?
• Based on their niche – if they have one, would they be a good fit to promote your project?
• Reputation – have they been involved with promoting any projects that have turned out to be scams in the past?
• How active are they on social networks? Are they creating content and engaging with their audience multiple times a week?
• Their network of connections – can they possibly help you with forming strategic partnerships?

PPC and Display Advertising

Popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have placed heavy restrictions on crypto projects advertising their services since around 2018. Crypto projects can advertise on Facebook but need “written permission” from Facebook themselves through an application process unless you are a tax service, education or news resource or crypto wallet in which case no permission is needed. It also depends on geographic location, if for example your company is based in Canada you will need to register as a “money service business” with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) before applying, more information on their current advertising policies is available here.

Twitter allows advertising but again it depends on your location and the nature of your project, you can view their current policies here https://business.twitter.com/en/help/ads-policies/ads-content-policies/financial-services.html. As Twitter is a common platform for crypto users to frequent it can be worth running a Promoted Tweet or another form of PPC campaign.

Google Ads allows crypto advertising but has recently changed its policy so that all advertisers have to be registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and officially certified by Google before running any ads. This also applies to advertising on YouTube.

Coinzilla

In recent years crypto display advertising networks have emerged, one such service is Coinzilla which allows you to run display banner ads across their network which includes crypto news sites, popular coin ranking sites such as Coinmarketcap.com and Coingecko.com, and also Etherscan (a block explorer for the Ethereum network) allowing you to advertise your project to a crypto-based audience.

Press Releases (PR)

A traditional form of outbound marketing which is still effective in the modern tech-driven crypto space, a press release communicates to the outside world about a new development within your company and can be very beneficial in raising your brand awareness. Many crypto projects will circulate press releases to some of the popular crypto news sites such as Coin Telegraph or Coin Desk and also the traditional financial news sites such as Marketwatch.

Email Marketing

Another traditional marketing channel but still very relevant even if you’re a blockchain or crypto-based project. Collect emails from your website or landing pages and build an email list to where you can send targeted marketing emails about your new product launch, existing project developments or events you are planning to host such as an AMA.

Conclusion

The blockchain and crypto industry has seen impressive year-on-year growth as its accepted more by the mainstream and regulation is being introduced. If you’re a new or existing project and looking for assistance with your marketing efforts Faze47 Digital has the expertise to help you navigate the space and grow your brand, please get in touch with us here and we can schedule a discovery call to discuss further.