The Role of Social Media in Building Web3 Communities Best Practices and Pitfalls - Amara Achusi

having um web 3 web 3 actually is um is being run in digital space so you can't tell me that oh I as a developer I'm building a product right and I'm done building a product in my room in my workspace and I'm going to sit down in my room and expect that people would get to know about my product from out how are they going to how are they going to find out about it obviously they won't even know and let's say you want people to actually get to test your products they won't know what you want them to do if you don't put what you're doing out there so I would say there are two different domains right but one actually depends on the other to actually scale so we are going to be going to the next slide my vage here okay so as a matter of fact 90% of web three products report using social media as a key channel for what community building um how did you get to know about this event how did you get to know about this event Twitter any other social media platform some WhatsApp status right a friend invited you right good so that's also that's a staging statistic that really on disc just how intertwined these two domains have become web 3 and social media both on the digital space what's going on please help me with it okay so going to the next we'll be talking about community community community is a group of individuals that actually do what share the same goals share the same values share the same interest and also interact with each other everyone of us here we actually interest I believe that we we are here because we interested in web three and also we we are interested in benefiting from opportunities that he has to offer right now going so key elements of communities when we talk about Community what does it comprise controlling it and you're controlling it at the same time key elements of communities like I said earlier shared interest or goals sorry I want to ask you why you here yeah please thank you a community manager thank you um sorry you why are you here please yeah designer and I'm sure we also have product um develop here we also have product marketers here and we are all here under the umbrella of what web 3 so shared we can as well say that all of us here we are a community so shared interest or goals interaction and communication Community makes it all social media makes it very easy for what us to communicate with people who share the same interest and goals at us as as us and also helps us to you know push each other we say ion sharenet ion so Community is very very important when it comes to web three another thing another element is sense of belonging sense of belonging I like to see Community as a family I like to see Community as a family because when I joined web 3 I'm not really somebody sense of sense of belonging like I said I'm not somebody that likes socializing right but when I joined web 3 I realized how important it is actually socialize with people to get to connect with people get to network so that you don't get to do it alone doing it alone it makes you slow but when you get to do it with people who share same interest as you you do it faster so diversity and inclusion we can um in web 3 in web 3 it gives room for people from different backgrounds right different background different experiences and then moving on culture and norms and support and collaboration I'll get to explain that as we so social media's role in web three expansion social media has been instrumental in the rapid expansion of web 3 and this platform allows projects to connect directly with users now remember when I explained being a developer building a product in your workspace in your room anywhere office anywhere but then you still need the first thing that comes your mind is okay I'm done what next I need to go public I need to go public is that not it even when they saying oh as you're building yourself as you're working on yourself you're working on your skills after doing that what's the next thing you do you you start thinking about how to put yourself out there right that's where social media comes in so um social media also serves as as the bridge that connects what users with what the builders and also do what help to spread information if I want to if I want to check on what's going on on Solana ecosystem right now the first place I go to is Twitter I go to Twitter or I go to their telegram or Discord page to get information that I need so communication and feedback social media plays a pivotal role in this community by facilitating realtime communication at least in the past when there's nothing like um a phone let's say in a village in a village setting all those Village movies that we used to watch back then you hear oh a town crier a town CER who is actually spreading an information right that's been given to him by the king of the community and stuffs like that but this gives us room to actually get to communicate with the Builders of the projects that we are interested in or that we're looking forward to actually collaborate so networking like I said before it's where community members can voice their opinions and connect to people who share same interest as them also social media helps is an Avenue to connect towards new and existing users imagine building a product where you don't have connection with people who actually use your product like I think when it comes to web3 and when it comes to community we are working on training the human psychology we are working on building up the emotions of the community members to enhance trust so the next one is Project visibility is also an Avenue for marketing news feeds and improving project visibility at least if you go to Twitter right now or you go to any social media application that you know you will see that each project or let's say just scroll through Solana I don't know why I'm using Solana a lot but scroll through Solana scroll through ethereum spage you see that they keep educating members about what they are building and you will see them running different ads social media marketing you see them run different so that they can attract new users to their product now industrial Trend it starts as a good way to what to stay ahead of Trends in the industry I see Twitter as a search engine for me you guys see it at maybe I don't see you guys sorry some people may see it as a just a social media platform but I see it as a search Eng for me because if I want to search something I don't sometimes I don't go to Google I just use the hashtag let's say I'm looking for something on S EOS I just this hasht O soul and I will see a lot of things that has been posted using that hashtag so anything you want to search on Twitter just try right now say oh you want to get to know about nft just search nfts you'll see people who have already written trends um threads on nfts you see a lot of post and other nft related projects as well so means of growth it helps the community know the right Partners they can for relationships with so the next one so different Community Building platforms different social media platforms that we have I think the first one the first one that everybody knows is Twitter sorry X formerly known as Twitter we have telegram we have LinkedIn we have Discord we have slack Reddit and other platforms that we know so best practices for leveraging social media in web3 community building um sorry you said you are a social media sorry you said you're a community manager right now when you go out for event and you get to connect with new people attract new members to your community what's the first thing you do once they join the community or let's say you get home what the first thing you think you should do okay you you stop you don't you don't get to see what we are all about first things first I'm supposed I'm supposed to be we are supposed to have you know um explainer videos on what we are about so that when new members actually come or join the community they get to understand what we all about and this also makes it easy for us to build or yes for us to build new Advocates who would help us preach the gospel of the products that we are building so engaging storytelling I'm an advocate of Storytelling I I when it comes to web 3 I use storytelling to explain uh what the um the product or what the technology is all about this helps you use Rel relatable examples and you know use um something people can actually understand right so when it comes to let's say I want to explain blockchain I'll be like oh let's use um a ledger to to understand it or a sales book right so engaging storytelling you can also use um testimonials of people there's this project called viral X um that was very very popular I think early this year or last year right it's a platform that um projects or Builders can actually use if they want to Market their prod products now instead of going to instead of going to 5 minutes yeah instead of going to meet the key opinion leaders oneon-one they give the amount they want to spend on marketing to this platform and then you see marketers actually registering to get to you know promote the project they want them to promote and from them um I think influencer started making up to $1,000 $500 from there and using the testimonials that people posted about how they benefited from that they were able to you know make more po get more people convinced that they should engage using the platform so we have we have Visual and interactive media right use of um infographics and videos how many of you um how many of you would agree with me that using infographics and videos like videos actually sells faster than text I can let's say a bance executive makes a video right now by time I leave Twitter enter WhatsApp I'll see people reposting they will start sharing it thereby increasing what reach and visibility so um user generated content you can also encourage the community members to make videos about the product this gives them a sense of ownership and also what a sense of belonging and also when they do that it is the responsibility as a project or as a builder to make sure that you also use the social media page of your project or you as a builder to do what to engage your community so that they feel that they belong they feel that sense of belonging so Community engagement techniques regular interaction consistency is key for example girls let's say two partners or let me use myself as an example right you can't say oh you're my partner and you're texting me once in two days hello I don't know who you are so you need that also happens when it comes to community you need to consistently keep engaging them consistently putting out tweets I'll use an example while I was managing um a a social media page for um a meme coin right I I've managed social media Pages for some projects but that was the first project first meme coin project that I was managing so all us would tell me oh I should make sure I put out something once every day but they were telling me that I need to be putting out tweets three Tweets in an hour I need to be putting out like at least 10 Tweets in a day and it was funny because I didn't know right so when I put out one twe I just SW to rest and the next I joined the telegram community and they were like who is the social media manager put out a Tre for God's sake I was like what's happening I put out another one and then I came back they were around they were like I need to keep communicating with them for them to feel like something is actually going on for them to feel like the team is actually working and for them to still believe in the project so regular interaction is key make sure you're always posting on your social media platforms make sure you're always engaging your audience your community and also yeah reply their comments and all of that so incentivization incentivization you can reward your community maybe using Rewards or um recognition recognition is very important this actually gives them a sense of belonging right [Music] um so platform specific strategies using Twitter let's use Twitter let's talk about Twitter right use of hashtags to increase visibility remember when I talked about using Twitter as a search as a search engine for me personally a search engine because most times when I want to look for something or let's say I remember when I started learning Defi and my tutor will be like oh go and research on arbitrum related project right and all I needed to do if like because some of them before they actually go live on Co Geo it's it it actually takes time so for me to actually find out this new project before it goes live on going I just need to go and use the hashtag abrum and you will see that let's say I'm building on arbitrum one of the projects I was managing then um at a social media manager I made a tweet for them and then they said why didn't you add the hasht ARB on it and I was like I didn't know I was supposed to add it they were like how will people find out about our project if you don't use that hashtag so you can see that the hashtag is also a way of marketing a way of marketing for web three projects right then um another one one is um just this um last week um web Tre Legos conference 2024 was actually trending on Twitter did you guys notice you guys notice the hashtag I saw it as one of my training topics right so engage your with your audience regularly by sharing updates insights and responding to your comments I already talked about that yeah I've come just hold on please so use of community branded symbols acronyms names and nfts this is also a very good way because um just take this as an alpha right um the the project has actually not launched um I was looking I was looking towards this um project called after school club nft on Eclipse right it's looking to go they looking to go live maybe um when Eclipse um I don't know what they waiting for but they're not live yet so for me to get Whit list for the project right they said I needed to join the community I needed to also change my pfp to the their own to their own image and also add that I am a member of the community more like ASC student so I had to change up I didn't use my main account because I useed my account other things I used my Bonner account so you would also meet other people who are also using pfps of projects that they affiliated with this also gives those individual sense of belongings and shows that yes they actually really believe in the project so xes also allows Real Time Communication celebration of you know active and dedicated individuals then we have Discord and telegram these are like your goto platforms for more organized and more organized Community engagement right where we have several channels for different purposes and all of that so we have LinkedIn and other platform then common pitfalls to avoid misinformation and hype a lot of projects actually get very you know we are building a community I'm so hyped you they tend to promise what they cannot do to their community and when they don't feel that what happens you see them being dragged on on on crypto Twitter or any social media platform at least we experienced that um with ZK sing and a couple of other projects so as a builder leading a team right make sure you don't overpromise and underd deliver make sure you let your community know what you can do and what you cannot do then the next one is um fud fear uncertainty and doubt and lack of transparency and then influencer scandals I'm trying to I'm going to try and mege these three together right because this happened I'm sure so many people remember um so many of us remember um one intro if a couple of us actually one intro project a project that had so much potential but because they were not really trans transparent With Their audience I was actually I was actually one of the investors right I invested early because I believed in the project a lot a lot of people on crypto Twitter actually believed in the project but because the team we not really transparent and there's this guy called Zach he's more like a detective he casted everything on crypto Twitter and that was how the project went down to zero I lost my money there as well so it's very very important that you are transparent with your community and um lack of moderation and Community Management also very very important we can't have a group of people here if we don't have she as the host moderating this event right now this event to be a mess right in fact a lot of people will actually be outside discussing at this event won even start so it's very very important to have people who would lead it's very very important that we have people who would actually lead the community and keep it in order and yes that's the end of my of my session thank you so do we have a question just one question before she kicks me out of this stage any question so my okay good afternoon yeah my question is simple you are a community manager and I don't if you've been into it for a long time I just want to ask what are the biggest challenges like what are the major challenges you face as a community manager working with people and collaborating with the law teis and how did you address them okay so I think one of the challenges I've actually faced as a community manager is um first off I'm dealing with people from different backgrounds people with different up breakings and you get to experience people who might actually be harsh or who might actually treat you in a certain kind of way and sometimes when as a community manager they see you are actually the one who is in who is fronting the projects that you're actually working for especially when you tend to let's say post events and all of that I think this happened in 20122 right um this project I was actually a community manager for um they made us Post events you know get people to test the products and they made promises that they couldn't keep I was not the one making the promise right but they made promises that they couldn't keep but the community members would always know that it's this person that they can see that they will hold right so I think um people's expressions or the way people actually tend to treat you because some of them started dragging me when when I could not not I could not the think could not meet up with what they promised they dragged me on Twitter LinkedIn they even entered my WhatsApp I was like s what do you want me to do right exactly so you some people would actually think oh I think I should treat this person rudely because they actually said really mean things but then learning to actually learn to treat people or learn to control people is one or learn to be patient as a patience is one of the key characteristics of a community manager so you learn that as you go learn to work with people thank you the round of applause for Amar