Through time, the fabric of human societies has always been made of smaller groups sewn together by the threads of their intersecting identities. People often aggregate around specific objectives, similar ideologies, or significant interests. These groups grow into close communities with strong bonds and clear visions. That is the structure of our social interrelationships. The concept of Web3 is to decentralize both value creation and accrual, thereby creating opportunities where anyone anywhere can contribute and benefit from collective systems. Decentralization means power in more diverse hands. Several people must identify with a specific goal for these hands to exist. Several hands identifying with a particular goal? Sounds familiar, yes, Communities. 

The Importance of Web3 Communities 

Communities are an integral part of the Web3 space as they undoubtedly contribute to the success of a project – in no small way. These communities include the project’s customers, funders, and supporters. These persons are usually committed to the project, its roadmap, and everything it embodies. They are the biggest ambassadors who push for mainstream awareness and adoption of the project. That is why having a strong and loyal community should be top on a project’s to-do list upon launch. We have seen the influence a strong community can have; Luna’s community dubbed the “Lunatics,” took up the mantle of sustaining the Terra network after its crash and the disappearance of Founder Do Kwon; The DOGE community has always rallied behind their own, and have contributed to taking Dogecoin from just a “meme coin” to the second largest proof-of-work cryptocurrency by market cap. We have also seen the importance of community in the NFT space as many BAYC holders have contributed to the mainstream awareness of the NFT project; these holders have launched different brands while using their bored ape as an integral part of their brand identity. BAYC holders Snoop Dogg and Eminem featured their bored ape in their music video – talk about the push for mainstream adoption. 

Despark’s Founder, Greg Eusden, also believes in the power of communities, and when quizzed about some of the best ways for brands to grow a community, he replied and said: 

“Consistent engagement! There are a lot of things that go into growing a community. You need to share a compelling vision, moderate it as needed, and get to know your community. But the success of a community often comes down to consistent engagement. Post early, post often, and keep your community in the loop. It is not a community if you are not engaged and posting often. Which can be hard to do! Beyond that, I think there are a lot of great resources out there that can help direct community builders in their efforts.”

What is Despark?

Despark is a platform that helps crypto companies build a strong and loyal community as it enables Web3 companies to get feedback from their ideal users with the aid of in-depth blockchain data. That way, brands are aware of how they can better serve their users, leading to customer retention and community growth. Depsark’s Founder had this to say about his brand:

“Despark is creating a software platform that allows companies to search for and interact with web3 users for user feedback and marketing research. Companies define their exact target audience by demographic, crypto usage, and/or wallet behavior (e.g. owners of doodles, users of Uniswap on Polygon in June 2021). Companies then set up their feedback mission, in the form of interviews, usability tests, focus groups, surveys, and other formats. Despark publishes that mission to relevant users from our user pool, who then opt in and participate in the mission, getting the company the targeted feedback they need. Companies can additionally see these users’ profiles, which further define users’ behavior and analyzes their blockchain transactions/tendencies, to help them deeply understand their target audience.

Our vision is to be a one-stop shop for user and market research in web3 – search for your target audience and get details on its size, demographic makeup, overlap with other relevant audiences, etc. Run surveys on that audience for product purposes or for marketing infographics. Then dive deeper with qualitative user interviews, feedback sessions, and usability studies.”

How Despark Plays a Major Role In Building a Community

For longevity, Web3 business owners need to grow their community of users organically, and at the center of this is customer research. Customer research covers every engagement vector, from constant updates on milestones (rollouts, roadmaps, development phases, recruitment, etc.) to frequent temperature checks. Temperature checks should be wholesome and detailed but with a subtle air of fun. Business owners should always strive to keep their customers happy. Despark’s Founder tells us how the company is innovating at the heart of this;

“Organic customer research is one of the most important things you can do as a company… It is everything from posting what you’re building on Discord to highlighting new features via email to collecting feedback on your roadmap via Twitter. Reach out to some of your users and ask them whether they’d be willing to have a discussion with you about your product and why they’re using it. That one-on-one feedback is vital to help you understand what makes your users tick on a deeper level. It is important to get beyond the surface level – don’t just ask them about their favorite product, ask them about why they’re using a product at all, about the problems they’re trying to solve, and the job they’re trying to accomplish.”

He also went on to add that;

“Despark enables companies to get Web3 user insights quickly, at scale, and from any audience. Companies building products need to get feedback from users (both for new and existing products). It’s hard and time-consuming to reach out to these users. Companies need to talk to potential new users, users of competitive products, as well as their own current users. Most of these user categories have no relationship with the company and are a pain to connect with, schedule, and gather insights from. Despark solves that, helping companies easily connect with, interact with, and understand users from any audience.

The need for “user insights” is not limited to interviews about a product. These connections could be user interviews, usability testing, focus groups, or surveys, and the results could be used for product development, UI design, or marketing. In addition, the need to understand users results in a need for user and wallet analytics, user segmentation, and market segmentation.”

How Web3 Companies Can Identify and Grow Their Audience

As part of its community-building efforts, it is important for Web3 companies first to identify their target audience. The idea is to identify persons interested in your product and build your company around them. According to Eusden:

“Most new startups should be attempting to build their community out of warm leads and early adopters that are truly excited about their product. That helps companies and founders to identify their ideal audience early and then find product-market fit”

As such, companies should be concerned with generating leads and capturing early adopters. So, how can companies go about that? That is where Web3 content marketing firms like Off-Chain Communications come into the picture as they help Web3 companies develop content marketing strategies that bring in leads (lead generation) for the company and also convert these leads to early adopters of their products. 

Going Forward

On his projections for the year, Eusden talked about the negative outlook current US and global macroeconomics cast on risk assets, of which cryptocurrencies are a part. He opined that he is very positive about NFTs with real-world value, from social media content to loyalty program membership, to actual real-world collectibles and the financial infrastructure-driven products that would power them. 

“There’s definitely potential for lower fees, better experiences, or just financial alternatives in that world, and there are a lot of companies working on it,” he said. He ended by giving a much broader forecast;

Web3 and crypto are here to stay (although a rebrand wouldn’t hurt). We’re going to go through the same cycle we’ve been going through for the last decade and hit a bull cycle in a year or two. I’m hopeful that any crypto winter will only last 12-18 months – enough time for the next generation of web3 products to launch and start wowing users once again. I hope that the next bull cycle will be driven more by product utility than hype – although I’m sure hype will accompany it. So let’s say it starts in 2024 and accompanies great new product releases in the space. Hopefully, Despark can help Web3 builders make that happen!”

Interested in marketing your blockchain/Web3 project? Please contact Off-Chain Communications for a free consultation and quote.

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