3 Ways to Build a Buzzing Blockchain Community Here are the most important growth strategies to nurture a tech-savvy network of enthusiasts.
By Sarah Austin
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For any startup or new product, gathering a base of active users or followers is essential for an effective marketing strategy. But community-building has become particularly imperative within the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors, whose adherents are digital natives who form global tribes around their favorite tokens, platforms and exchanges.
However, in today's crowded crypto-marketplace, building a loyal community means more than merely growing your Twitter following. After all, the lifespan of a typical tweet is a matter of minutes, which explains why crypto crowds tend to gather on other platforms such as Telegram or Reddit for a more meaningful conversation.
Nevertheless, many projects have taken to more innovative ways of building their profile among the blockchain community beyond the boundaries of social media. Here are three examples of ways to create a more lasting, positive impression to inspire a long-term crowd of followers for your project or startup.
Related: Getting Drawn Into DeFi? Here Are 3 Major Considerations
Hold a hackathon
Holding a hackathon is a sure-fire way of attracting programming talent and development activity to a blockchain platform. The concept is popular among many kinds of tech companies and developers. In the context of blockchain, a platform's founders or operators will usually offer some type of incentive to participants in exchange for their creative contributions.
Often, hackathons have been held as part of blockchain-developer conferences or events. However, with the social restrictions currently in place, many projects are forging ahead with remote hackathons, and with a high level of participation and success.
One recent example is Maxonrow, an enterprise blockchain company developing regulatory-compliant products and services that recently hosted its first-ever hackathon, dubbed MAXathon, entirely online. Maxonrow was seeking creative input to develop blockchain-based solutions to some of the most critical challenges facing governments and businesses due to the pandemic. Participants could form teams to work on one of five tracks, covering solutions for managing physical distancing, issuing credentials and certificates for test results, and improving the transparency and efficiency of welfare programs.
The event was a huge success, attracting participants from more than 30 countries who competed for a share of a prize pool worth more than $17,000. Winning projects included an algorithm that determines a safety score so that people can avoid crowded places and an application allowing people to apply for grants and stimulus packages.
Along with the prize fund, participants in a hackathon also have the opportunity to connect with judges and mentors who are leading figures within their respective specialisms. Therefore, it can provide intangible networking benefits, particularly to newer programmers, creating a lasting bond to the projects and companies that enabled such an opportunity.
Help to educate newcomers
Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are chock-full of jargon, acronyms and technical concepts that can be off-putting to many newcomers. Not to mention, starting to invest or trade in cryptocurrency comes with particular risks that everyone should be aware of before they start.
For this reason, those companies that can provide newcomers with a comprehensive library of educational materials have an opportunity to inspire loyalty from newcomers. One example is Indian cryptocurrency exchange Bitbns, which has created its own multimedia academy targeted at those eager to learn about cryptocurrency.
Users can navigate through successive modules of videos and written articles, the latter of which can also be consumed in audio format. Starting from the very beginning with an introduction to cryptocurrency, would-be traders can learn about more complex concepts covering risk management, margin and investment analysis.
Providing newcomers with the information they need to get started and protect their investments is an excellent way to inspire long-term customer loyalty.
Collaborate with other projects
The fact that the cryptocurrency and blockchain sectors have become so crowded isn't necessarily a bad thing. Collaborating with other projects offers an opportunity to create something with value to users that's greater than the sum of its parts, with the added benefit of cross-pollinating between the communities of different projects.
Collaboration is a concept familiar to the team behind Kava, an application that was founded on the principle of interoperability between blockchains and is part of the growing decentralized finance movement The project has a long history of collaborating with Binance, having launched its initial token sale on Binance's Launchpad towards the end of 2018.
More recently, Kava has announced a new collaboration with a club comprising investors of Binance's BNB token, called BNB48. The collaboration is aimed at raising awareness of the opportunities in decentralized finance for BNB holders. The project has also recently launched its own automated money market, called Hard, allowing users to lend, borrow, and earn with assets including Bitcoin, XRP and BNB.
By integrating and collaborating with different platforms and tokens, projects can tap into the support of a broader community of followers.
Related: Cryptocurrency Innovators Need to Simplify User Experience
The cryptocurrency and blockchain space may be tribal, but projects and companies should use this to their advantage. By taking a community-building approach, they can build a loyal following, creating a long-term user base that will, in turn, help to spread the word about their products and services.
