Acolytes Versus Advertisers — Why Shilling Does More Harm Than Good
By: Ché Köhler
Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Cryptocurrency, Shill, Influencers

When getting into the world of cryptocurrency asking the intent for any advice is going to see you come in contact with bagholders who are staunch “shillers”. These early investors are convinced that their bet is a winner and now are trying to convince others to replicate their trade.

If you’ve put time or money or you’re getting rewarded for bringing in new users, you have a firm incentive to want to promote a certain coin or project and get more people involved. I get that, but to me, it seems counter-intuitive, if you’re placing a bet on something you’ve already priced in future growth so you would not need to shill.

To me,

shilling is a sign of lack of confidence rather than confidence in the platform

shilling is a short volatility trading strategy as those with bags want to get out some or all of their capital at a higher price in the medium term

shilling is someone not comfortable with their hedged risk and wants others to come in and deleverage their risk

The thrill of shilling

I have no personal problem with shillers honestly, shill you, little heart, out, get that WiFi bread, do your thing, but if you truly believe in a project don’t you think you’re assistance in promoting it should be a nice not to the need to have?

Shillers likes to believe they mean something, that their efforts have value and place a lot of correlation on their shilling since it isn’t exactly a quantifiable effort, they can tie it to any growth of their platform of choice.

Shillers tend to see themselves as self-appointed brand ambassadors, doing Gods work preaching the good news about their coin or project. The financial missionary spreading the good news and trying to convince people to come over to their Koolaid water fountain versus others.

We all want more people to back up our world view, to feel we’re right, there is safety in numbers, there’s conviction in the masses, and so shillers need that validation.

The Shiller bias

The funny thing is many of the early shillers were not shilled to but feel the need to shill to others. They don’t want to believe in the organic journey that they followed and want to force people down the rabbit hole. So much for liberty and freedom, when you’re telling people what to do and what to think.

Shillers aren’t always the best source of information; they can often be blind to the shortcomings of their investment due to their infatuation, this puts them in a dangerous position and even liable for financial damages in some cases.

I’ve seen many shillers up and disappear over the years deleting their YouTube channels and other social media the moment the shit hits the fan. Shillers aren’t going to go down with the ship or help with damage control; they’re only there for bag pumping.

Marketing matters

Yes, I get marketing matters, user testimonials matter, having community matters, but as someone who’s job is marketing I can tell you marketing only matters if the product is worth marketing. No amount of marketing is going to help the inevitable, ask the marketing team at Quibi or HQ Quiz if the product is shit you’re fighting a losing battle.

Instead of shilling outwards, shillers should be shilling inward if they want to get the most benefit, they should be the hackers of the product, breaking it, finding issues, improving it instead of trying to pull people in. There more inward shilling and discussion, the better the product becomes and THEN you won’t need to outward shill, the product will do a lot of the heavy marketing itself.

Not all you come into contact with is a target

From my years in eCommerce, I know everyone’s user journey is different; it takes between 2 and 12 visits for a user to convert depending on your product, niche, pricing and target market. Shillers naturally don’t know this and place a blanket view of every user and tries to convert them regardless of where they are sitting in the funnel.

When you put someone in a spot where they are not comfortable, they’re going to flee or fight you, instead of pushing people further down the funnel you actually chop the funnel off early and allow fewer people to make the journey.

Source: Leofinance