“Community” is the most important word in Web3. There’s an endless stream of posts from founders and creators on how a community is the focal point of a project and why every action a Web3 project takes should be a value-add to the community. 

However, many Web3 projects regard community building as the mere act of growing the number of people in their Discord, Telegram, or Twitter. And that shows. These communities often experience low engagement on tweets or worse yet, bot engagement, little to no activity in Discord, and low engagement on anything shared in Telegram.

To hammer the final nail in the coffin, most communities only have high engagement durations when there’s some financial incentive attached to an update. That proves, people in these communities only stick around to bag some cash and leave as soon as the money dries out.

In other words, Web3 projects often build a community that only grows in numbers and doesn’t align with their revenue goals or business plans. 

So, in this blog post, we break down what a Web3 community is, why it’s essential for your Web3 project, and how you should go about building an engaged community. 

What is a Web3 Community?

A Web3 community is a group of individuals who start with a shared vision within the decentralized web ecosystem. They collaborate, pool resources, and work towards individual and collective goals to advance a specific Web3 project or cause. 

To establish a successful Web3 community, you need to answer some key questions:

• Who is the community for? → Who your project will benefit the most.
• Why does the community exist? → The problem you’re trying to solve together. 
• What is important to the community? → The shared values and interests. 
• How does the community define success? → The goals you want to achieve. 

What is Web3 Community Building?

Web3 community building is more than just amassing a large following; it’s about fostering a sense of belonging and ownership and encouraging active participation. 

So, unlike web2 community building, Web3 community building refers to using marketing and engagement strategies that enable projects to attract people who are genuinely interested in a project and its goals. 

Why is Community Building Important in Web3?

In the Web3 space, the benefits of building a community are manifold:

Narrative and overall project sentiment: A strong community creates a positive narrative around the project, enhancing its reputation and visibility in the market. 

Loyal users: An engaged community creates a loyal user base that is deeply invested in the success of the project. These users are more likely to stick around for the long term, contribute positively to the project, and promote it within their networks, creating organic growth

Network effects: Network effects describe the phenomenon wherein the value and utility of a product or service grow exponentially with each additional user. Building a community that’s interested in your product leads to exponential growth and value creation, as every new member brings in more connections, ideas, and resources. 

How Can I Build a Web3 Community?

We live in an “attention economy” where every project is vying for the user’s attention with an endless barrage of tweets and newsletters. 

So, getting a potential community member to read your tweet for more than a few seconds is a challenging task. 

Even if you’ve managed to get past this hurdle and gotten them to join your community, you’ve only won half the battle. You still need to put in the work so they don’t leave your community and move on to the next one. 

To make community building easier for you, here’s a step-by-step breakdown of all the strategies you can use to acquire new community members, drive repeat users and grow your revenue. 

Start With the Problem

Far too many Web3 projects try to solve a problem that’s not acknowledged by their audience. Consequently, they struggle to find a product-market fit and grow key metrics like user engagement and conversion rates. 

To avoid falling into this trap while building a community, you need to study your target audience, create user personas, and choose the right problem to solve. 

Take, for instance, the Friends With Benefits (FWB) Web3 community. It’s a social platform that enables creators to network and collaborate with each other IRL and online.

You could also say that the community helps you make friends in the Web3 space and build fun stuff together.

But if Trevor McFedries, the founder, led with the problem of “helping people make more friends”, it’s unlikely that he would have gotten the attention of the community and grown the project. 

This is because “friends in Web3” is a nice-to-have and potential members wouldn’t go out of their way and contribute to a community just to make friends. 

So, he tackled the problem of ownership that creators face with Web3 technologies and added a community benefit to get people to join his DAO.

When he first conceived the idea for an online chat group, he created a token called $FWB and sent it to his followers. 

They could use this token to vote on proposals, fund projects, and co-own what they create together. The idea was a hit and the DAO grew rapidly and even raised $10 million in funding from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. 

Since Trevor enabled members to go beyond making friends and created a platform where creators could convene to build new things in the Web3 space, the DAO grew rapidly. 

Now, for the most important question: how do you find out what problems your community is facing?

• Join Discord servers or Reddit communities of projects similar to yours and check out frequently asked questions and apprehensions users have in your niche.
• Make a list of ideal users based on the user personas you’ve created and analyze their social media posts to see what problems they’re talking about. 
• Comment on their posts or DM them to understand their problem better. 

Research is slow. Yes. It takes time. But we cannot discount it if we want to have an in-depth understanding of the problems your audience faces. Only that can help you get in front of your audience with SOLUTIONS THEY NEED. 

Attract Your First Members

Now that you know the biggest problems your target audience faces, you need to brainstorm ways to get people to join your community or try your tool. 

There are many different Web3 strategies both organic and paid that you can use to achieve this.

But for this article, we’ve explained how Fire, a Web3 safety tool, used content and NFT drops to get users to try their tool. 

Fire is a Chrome extension that simulates your transactions so you can see what goes in and out of your wallet before you sign it. This helps prevent scammers from stealing your assets. 

The project is relatively new and at the time of writing, its Discord community has about 4,000 members while its Twitter has 22k followers. 

If you look at some of their earliest content, you’ll see that they posted tweets on educational and trending topics to get more people interested in their project.  

For example, in their first tweet, they simulated a Blur airdrop transaction instead of explaining how their tool worked as the airdrop was a hot topic in the crypto community at the time. 

Then, they teased their launch with a free NFT mint experience to incentivize users to check out their extension.

After the launch, the project’s early adopters started promoting the project on their behalf. And the traction they got helped them earn some of their first supporters. 

Keep Your Members Engaged 

Getting members to join your community is only one part of the battle. You still have to stay on top of their mind, get them to contribute to your growth, and keep them active within your community. There are several ways you can do this:

Stay Active in Your Community

Actively participating in community discussions and having 1-on-1 interactions demonstrates that you want to listen to user feedback and suggestions and genuinely care about your community. 

It also sets a good example for community members and encourages them to share their knowledge and support one another. 

Zeneca, the founder of the Zen Academy, a popular Web3 education platform, also highlights the importance of community participation in his tweet. 

Gamify the Community Experience

Gamification leverages the behavioral loop to encourage habit formation and encourage members to keep coming back to your community. 

There are different ways to gamify the community experience but the most popular way is to conduct quests and competitions. 

Both of them come with tangible rewards like badges, points, or virtual currency that act as powerful motivators and drive participation. 

For example, The ETH Barcelona conference used Raleon’s Embedded Quests to improve engagement on-chain and in real life. The gamification led to over 70% quest completion rate and 80% of quest participants minting a commemorative ETH Barcelona NFT.

Embedded Quests take your users through an interesting adventure via chat. No two users will go through the same journey or get the same quests as Raleon tailors a distinct experience for each of them. 

In addition, it also provides information on which quests users are starting, where they’re facing difficulties, and which ones are left unfinished. This data provides valuable insights into user behavior and preferences, allowing you to optimize the quests to better meet user needs and improve overall user experience.

Give Shoutouts to Members

Shoutouts create social recognition and a sense of belonging and make community members feel validated. 

Mirror.xyz is a prime example of a Web3 project which highlights community contributions. Every week they curate articles in the top 20 of total views in the past 14 days, have raised ETH via Mirror NFTs, or have an active collector audience.

Analyze and Improvise

Your community has started acquiring users and is growing at a steady rate. Now, you need to understand how community members engage, interact, and participate within the community. 

This way, you can create strategies, content, and initiatives that better align with the community’s interests and preferences.

For this, you need analytics tools like Raleon. Here’s what you can do with Raleon:

• Combine off-chain and on-chain data to understand where your users are coming from to help you double down on content or activities that bring maximum traction. (Is it your tweets or your blog posts or the promotional newsletter?)
• Get a detailed view of your users and build user personas. Raleon doesn’t just give macro stats like the number of users entering and leaving your community. It also gives community-specific information like the best marketing channel, breakdown of wallet share, etc. to help you understand user personas and their preferences better. 

FAQ

What is an example of a Web3 community?

An example of a Web3 community is the Ethereum developer community, where developers and enthusiasts share knowledge, collaborate on projects, and discuss the future of the Ethereum blockchain.

What is Web3 community management?

Web3 community management involves fostering and moderating a community centered around Web3 technologies, such as blockchain and decentralized applications (dapps). 

It involves creating a space where users can discuss, collaborate, and contribute to the development and application of these technologies.

What is the difference between a community and a social media page?

A community is a group of people who share a common interest and interact with each other, often contributing content, ideas, and support.

A social media page, on the other hand, is usually managed by a single entity or individual and primarily serves as a platform to distribute content to followers. 

In short, interaction in a community tends to be more bidirectional and collaborative than on a social media page.

How does Web3 community building differ from other communities?

Web3 community building often involves a decentralized approach, aligning with the principles of Web3 technologies. It includes token-based incentives and a strong focus on collaboration and open-source development. 

This contrasts with traditional communities, which may have more centralized leadership and different incentive structures.

Create a Thriving Community with Raleon 

Building a successful Web3 community requires more than merely increasing the follower count on your social media platforms. 

It’s about attracting the right people, fostering a sense of belonging, creating shared ownership, and encouraging active participation. 

So, the first step to creating a Web3 community is to thoroughly understand your target audience, use marketing strategies to attract your first members, and engage your members to improve retention. 

To keep this cycle of growth going, you need to understand and analyze the behavior of your community members and create personalized interactions.

This is where a tool like Raleon comes into the picture. Its Embedded Quests offer a unique and personalized way to engage users, drive conversion and retention, and give insights into user behavior to optimize your quests. 

To discover more about how Raleon’s insights can help grow your community, start your journey on the platform today.