How to Build Communities in Web3?
Communities are the lifeblood of web3. So how do you get started with building meaningful, valuable communities? We tell you how in this blog post.
Have you ever dreamt of building a community but did not know where to start? Communities can be a big challenge since they involve bringing and keeping people together from varied backgrounds and interests. Communities are, however, necessary for your web3 project today. When you spend time building a community, you want to form a group of people who can advocate for your brand.
This article looks at everything you need to know about building a successful community for your web3 project.
The Importance of Building an Online Community for a web3 Project
A study found that 80% of community professionals agreed building a community is critical to ensure the success of a project’s mission. Building an online community is thus one of the most important things you can do for your web3 project. It is not just about getting people to use your product—it's about building a community around it.
A community that will continue to grow, evolve, and help make your project better. After all, concepts such as decentralization and web3 have people at the heart of everything. You will have an easy way to find people who have similar interests as you. You don't need to go out into the world and find them. They'll come right to you. And if they're using your product or service, they're probably already interested in what you have to say.
Your community can help promote your project through word-of-mouth publicity. As long as people are talking about how awesome your project is, it will get more attention from other people who haven't heard about it yet. It helps spread awareness of your project among the general public and gives potential users more reasons to try it out themselves.
Ideal social media channels to build an online community for a web3 project
Here are some channels you can use to build a community for your next web3 project.
Telegram
One of the advantages of Telegram over its competitors such as WhatsApp is the group size. You can have up to 200,000 members in a Telegram group. Besides, you can also send files up to 2 GB. Notifications and sticky notes are striking features that will help you with your community-building efforts.
Discord
Discord has emerged as one of the popular options for building a community. It allows you to create theme-based servers with text-only or voice-only options. You can also send broadcast messages to your community members about important events regarding your project. As it is still a fast-evolving platform, you can expect several advancements in the coming months.
Twitter provides a platform for connecting people with similar interests, which is essential in the beginning stages of a web3 project. It is especially critical when you want to build an initial group of interested users. Twitter also provides a platform to share your progress as you create the web3 project. Your community can also provide feedback on what they would like to see in the final product.
In addition to being an effective way to connect with people, Instagram can be an excellent marketing tool for your web3 project. For example, you can use the platform to promote your project by creating sponsored posts with relevant hashtags that users search for. The sponsored posts will appear in the feed when users search for those hashtags, which means more potential community members will see them.
YouTube
You can use YouTube to share videos about your project and related topics. People will generally subscribe to your channel if they find your content interesting. You can also use YouTube to answer questions people have about your project. Another possibility is to get into partnerships with renowned creators who can spread the word about your project.
Reddit is one of the most popular platforms among web3 enthusiasts and blockchain developers. It has over five million subscribers on its cryptocurrency subreddit alone. This makes it an ideal place for developers to build their online communities for web3 projects.
Tips for building a successful community
Building a successful community can be difficult, especially if you're unsure where to start. Here are some tips for gaining traction for your web3 community.
Build a smaller community inside a big community
This is a great way to get your feet wet in the world of online communities and build some initial traction before taking on the challenge of building your own from scratch. You can also use this opportunity to connect with new people—it's all about who you know.
Build your personal brand and get the first few hundred people
The importance of personal branding has skyrocketed in today’s time. A solid personal brand can take you places. You can also use it as leverage to attract your first few hundred members. Over a period of time, your community will likely expand as your personal brand grows.
Best Practices to Grow Your web3 Community
Here are some best practices to consider when building a web3 community.
Metrics
The first metric is the engagement rate of your community. If there are 100 people in your community and ten have posted, your community's engagement rate is ten percent. If 100 people have shared something and 90 have liked it, your community's engagement rate is 90 percent
The second metric is the kind of content your community likes most. By looking at the different types of posts in your community, you can see trends about what kind of content people respond best to. For example, your community may react more to meme-based posts instead of text-based ones. It will be your cue to create more such content in the future.
The third metric is the time of day people engage most actively with each other. This can be helpful as it will tell you when most people are available to engage with one another. If you want to launch an event or promotion, that timeframe will be ideal.
Moderation
Moderation is critical to ensuring the success of your web3 community. Here are some tips to have a robust moderation mechanism in place.
o Be clear about rules, guidelines, and expectations from the get-go.
o Encourage users to report content they find offensive or inappropriate.
o Make sure your moderators are qualified and trained on how to moderate effectively.
o Don't be afraid to use a "stick" when necessary—and be consistent with how you use it.
o Moderate as much as possible yourself and delegate only when absolutely necessary.
o Give users a way to appeal if their content has been removed or their account suspended.
o Make it clear that the reporting process is anonymous and that you will never share anyone's personal information.
Community policies
To build a successful community, you should have a clear set of policies and guidelines that everyone should follow. This helps create a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. It can make all the difference between whether your community succeeds or fails. The following are some best practices for creating effective community policies:
o Don't be afraid to be explicit about the behavior expected from members of your community. For example, if you want people to make their posts non-offensive, state that in your policy. And make sure there are consequences for not following it.
o Ensure that all rules apply equally to everyone in the community. If one person gets away with violating a rule and another person doesn't, it will create tension within the group and can lead to further problems down the road.
Audience engagement
When building a web3 community, there are a few audience engagement best practices to consider. Here are some tips:
o Start with research. Understand your audience and what they need before you build your community.
o Involve them in building the community to make them feel invested and have ownership over it.
o Make sure there's variety in your content to appeal to people with varied interests.
o Encourage participation by offering incentives. For example, providing free access to exclusive content for those who participate.
o Be responsive to comments and questions from users and ensure they know you're listening.
Concerns that can hamper your community building efforts
You may come across several concerns when building a web3 community. Let’s look at them.
Spam and fake news
The online world is full of unverified information that can spread like wildfire. Ensure that your community doesn’t become a victim of that.
Irrelevant topics
You would not want people to discuss politics or sports in your web3 community. Define the rules clearly, and ask members to follow them diligently.
Disrespect
It is common for people to be abusive and disrespectful on online platforms. Have a no-tolerance policy to keep your community respectful.
Foreign languages
You may have members from Korea, Brazil, and Indonesia, apart from other English-speaking countries. Ensure that you follow a common language that will not make others feel left out.
Self-promotion
The last thing you want to do is come across as spammy and promote yourself endlessly. Your community’s interest may dwindle quickly in that case.
Seeking and implementing community feedback for ultimate growth
Collecting feedback is one of the most critical things you can do to ensure your web3 community is helping people. Know that you don't need to be shy or embarrassed about asking for feedback. It is best to look for ways to improve your web3 community, and there may be some things you aren't aware of yet. Asking for feedback gives you an idea of what users think about your web3 project.
There are two main types of feedback: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative feedback involves numbers: how many people voted positively for your latest development. Qualitative feedback involves words: what did they like best about it? What could be improved?
You also need to consider where you're getting your quantitative feedback from. You may use a survey tool or another platform where users have already signed up to use your web3 project. Their responses will likely be more honest than those who haven't yet signed up because they feel obligated to fill up the survey.
Bottom line
Building a great web3 community is a continuous effort. There is no one recipe that you can use and get it to work well. Every community is different as the people in it are different. You need to take into account the needs and interests of your community. Once you engage them with your content, your community will quickly become a torchbearer for your web3 project.
About Arcana Network
Built for Ethereum and EVM-based chains, Arcana is the web3 infrastructure to easily onboard dApp users and enable user data privacy and ownership. Web3 developers use Arcana’s SDKs for a seamless, familiar user onboarding experience via social authentication and passwordless login. All user data is encrypted, secured with data access fully controlled by the users, and powered by blockchain.
Arcana has raised 2.7Mn USD from some of the leading investors and founders in the ecosystem such as Balaji Srinivasan, Founders of Polygon, Woodstock, Republic Crypto, and Digital Currency Group.
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