It’s not hard to throw together a subpar web3 community.
In the web3 landscape, subpar communities will always result in a low user engagement rate.
With today’s competition, it’s not enough to plan an in-person event once a year or send a Discord message every few months. If you want to drive engagement in your web3 community, you have to diversify the way you interact with individuals — you have to be different than your competitors.
Why community matters in web3
Web3 communities connect people with shared interests and similar passions. For this reason, many web3 communities are active on Discord — a communication channel that functions as a large group chat specifically built for niche communities. This communication channel is popular for web3 users because it gives them a place to converse and build a like-minded group.
Additionally, community marketing has been more successful for web3 brands than almost any other industry. Web3 users value spaces that offer shared ownership. DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) are member-built communities that emphasize this — DAO members vote on decisions, build web3 projects together, and more in a permissionless way. This makes community-building more important than ever vs. a traditional top-down management and communication structure in a business.
Users join different communities that foster a sense of belonging and shared purpose between the members. Arguably, a community is the most valuable asset a web3 brand can own — if you create opportunities for users to connect with other users on deeper levels, then they will stick around and turn into loyal members.
How to engage your web3 community
Developing a great web3 community takes time and effort — it can be challenging. We have been there too. Here are five ideas for things you can implement today to better engage your community.
1. Communicate to your audience via wallet messaging.
As a brand, you need to stay in touch with your community — it’s the only way users will be aware of company updates, product launches, upcoming events, and more.
Recently, the development of wallet messaging has brought the power of direct messaging into the web3 landscape. For the first time, you can use a platform like Holder to send mass messages directly to users' crypto wallets. Wallet messaging enhances the web3 user experience, engaging with them through a marketing channel native to the web3 ecosystem.
Wallet messaging is hands down the best way to engage your web3 community. It gives you the power to send the right information to the right person at the right time.
For example, you can update your web3 community on a regular basis through wallet newsletters — sending updates to your community member’s wallet addresses.
In addition to sending wallet messaging newsletters, you can also send real-time alerts and updates. Try sending out exclusive offers and promotions to your wallet messaging subscribers. If you want to segment your audience and just send an offer to an exclusive group of holders, Holder Messaging enables you to create contact lists with the help of filters. You can automate or send messages in real time to your community based on information tied to their wallet address.
2. Tokenize your loyalty program.
Tokenizing your reward system will help you attract a larger audience and create more interactive opportunities for your community to engage with.
In your tokenized loyalty program, consider implementing digital incentives to inspire your community members to interact with your brand. With web3 technology, you can award loyal customers with digital assets once they reach benchmarks and milestones your brand has outlined.
It can be as simple as rewarding new loyalty members with a commemorative digital badge for joining your loyalty system or as complicated as the Starbucks Odyssey program (you should check it out).
A tokenized loyalty program gives you a chance to extend the reach of your digital presence, allowing individuals to accrue rewards, get exclusive opportunities, or further invest in your brand.
3. Implement NFT drops.
You should take advantage of implementing NFTs into your engagement strategy. Successful NFT launches can result in increased brand awareness, new community members, and much more.
NFTs are a fun and digital way to reward your users and let them show off their digital assets to others. NFTs help you externally market yourselves to other users and drive higher engagement within your audience. NFTs are a great way to commemorate special events, generate revenue, and more.
JUMP, a web3 community for marketers, professionals, and entrepreneurs, has a fun and interactive strategy built around NFTs. They have a handful of different NFT collections like community member tokens, profile NFTs, ID badges, and much more. JUMP members collect their own NFTs — allowing each member to make their own unique experience.
With a strong strategy in place, NFT drops can help you engage your community members like never before.
4. Involve your community in decision-making.
Decision-making isn’t easy — especially when you have to pick an option that will affect your whole community.
Next time you are stuck in this position, reach out to your community. Not only will your audience appreciate you wanting their input, but they will also give you the answer you’re looking for.
Use web3 forms as a voting ballot — ask yes or no questions, explain the background on why your company is thinking about making this change, collect the user’s wallet address, and token-gate the form. Token-gating the form will allow you to limit the form’s access and only collect responses from your holders.
5. Host virtual events.
Virtual events can also be a creative way to engage your community. Events (IRL or virtual) create immersive experiences for your audience and enable you to interact with users — and them to interact with each other — in real time.
Depending on your event strategy, you can structure these events in a handful of different ways and leverage the best platform to host the event. If you’re looking to host a more informal discussion open to anyone, many communities will leverage Twitter/X Spaces. Not only is it a great platform for audio-first events, but also is a great way to attract new users or let guests join.
Discord also has a native events product and video and voice channels, allowing you to host the event right in your Discord. This is perfect for informal gatherings or if you want to gate the event in some way.
If you’re looking for a more formal “webinar” structure, Zoom and other webinar platforms are great for presentation-focused events, interviews, and interactive content. You can still token-gate any registrations as well with something like Holder Forms. Regardless of the platform, events are great forcing functions for your community and incredible ways to keep members engaged.
Engaging with your web3 community is a great way to drive loyalty and reach new audiences.
Start driving deeper brand engagement by using one of the ideas above. If you need help with your strategy or are looking for more ideas, reach out to the Holder marketing team — we would love to chat!
