The Community, The Business’ Number One Sales Guy.
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Crypto, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Community

The Community, The Business’ Number One Sales Guy.

To buy or not to buy

At the moment of writing, there are 2177 currencies listed on Coinmarketcap.com. In the dazzling world of cryptocurrencies, you are still urged to be cautious and wary of scams. For many newcomers, it is hard to find their way through the maze of projects in order to find something they find interesting. It’s a time-consuming journey we all went through and are still going through. Now, let’s imagine you found something that you consider interesting after a visit to their website, what’s next? For many people, the next logical step is to skim through the whitepaper, visit the community on Telegram or Discord and do some simple background checks on LinkedIn. For the people with a more technical background, Github is another popular place to research a project. When you realize the website was great and their whitepaper made perfect sense, your enthusiasm starts to grow. There is nothing odd or sketchy to find on LinkedIn and Github and you are about to become the proud owner of this coin, but then you decide not to do it. The biggest anti-climax to your research, just because you noticed their community is filled with negativity and skepticism. This is one of many possible scenarios when doing research.

Now, you’re on Twitter, just keeping up with the news and checking what your favorite influencers have to say. You noticed that Bittrex invited people to vote for their favorite coin in order to be applicable for a listing and decide to go through some of the responses. One specific name grabs your attention because it is being mentioned all over the place. However, as a skeptic, as you are, you decide not to look into it. It must have all been bots, right? No way, so many people are investing in something I have never heard about previously. A few weeks later, your favorite influencer asks his followers to shill him their favorite project. You can’t believe it, the same name keeps popping up everywhere. Your interest starts to grow and it takes just one more mention to convince you to read into it. You start reading into it and you’re not completely convinced. It all seems legit, but you still question the true value of the project. One visit to their Telegram community changed your mind after being bombarded with positive when you asked some critical questions. You’re now convinced and slowly becoming one of them.

They Told Me It’s An Amazing Project

#XRPTHESTANDARD is a hashtag that everybody on so-called crypto Twitter, has seen passing by at least once but probably many times. The community of XRP investors has managed to make it a popular hashtag with the result of it going viral. XRP is currently the number three currency in terms of market cap and still has one of the largest and most active communities. Despite all the controversy, many people are convinced that it’s a money maker. Simply because the community relentlessly keeps repeating it is. Another large and well-known community is the Tron community. The Tron and Ripple communities have never really left the scene and remained active throughout the bear market, whereas many communities turned into dead silence. The community noise across crypto Twitter increases the visibility of a business and is therefore essential as a marketing tool. But how essential is it?

The Fact Check

According to a survey I conducted under 100 participants, 92 participants stated they are being influenced by community sentiment when purchasing a coin or token. That’s an astonishing 92%. In addition, it was surveyed how great the importance the sentiment was to them on a scale of one to five, where five meant it was of great importance. Over 75% stated that they considered it of moderate importance (scale 3) or more important. The results of the survey were visualized as the following.

The participants then had to choose a token to invest in based on two screenshots from crypto communities. One was an illustration of positive sentiment with great enthusiasm, the other one illustrated negative sentiment with several cynical remarks towards the team. It is obvious that nearly every participant rather invested in the token related to the positive sentiment.

Data confirms the assumption that I had based on my own experience, the community can give you the final push or grab your attention at first. Therefore the community is vital to any business in the world of cryptocurrency. They are one of the most effective marketing tools and their potential is greater than most paid marketing campaigns can ever be.

To The Dear Management Teams

While doing my research I noticed that several projects I had been following are no longer engaging with their Telegram communities. They have either shut it down completely or have turned it into an announcement channel where users are muted. The results are obviously skepticism and questions about their legitimacy. Especially, the people that have been in the world of crypto for a while already, value interaction with the businesses official team as they are aware of all the scams that are and have been around. Interaction with the team and commitment from them to their community brings in an essential element of trust in an industry where trust has been hurt and violated in the future so therefore harder to get. Arguments such as ‘’We don’t have time to spend on Telegram talking to the when moon people.’’ Can therefore not be tolerated. Eventually, it’s been our money that provided them of their job in the first place. It’s understandable that the price related messages can be exhausting sometimes, but by muting the community, you disable people from asking important questions regarding development as well. Not to mention, you disable them from giving great valuable feedback or suggestions that can be used for business improvement.

So my advice to the dear management teams would be to cherish your communities, engage with them and listen in order to understand. Don’t let the good suffer under the bad, simply because you are annoyed by the bad. Reward your community for their endless loyalty and support, especially those who stuck around during the bear market. Make them feel valuable and remind them of why they had invested in the first place. Let’s show that the industry has grown since 2017, by bringing greater transparency and responsibility rather than the wild west ICO mentality. If we, as a community, want to push blockchain adaption, the start should be to make us feel and act like a community instead of people who once laid the foundations, but are now silenced in the background.