This is Testnet, where crypto-native marketing and growth experiments are tested live. Every week I review an aspect of a crypto brand's marketing strategy.
The intern twitter trend has been around for awhile now, and is clearly working. Exhibit A:
I know some of your bosses have told you to tweet like vaneck intern
185
But there's one brand that is jumping out to me as making their content not just meme-focused and witty, but as unhinged as a 23 year old social media manager on adderall.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Camp Network:
seriously?? this is what we’re doing now? i’m concerned about the positioning and messaging being employed by many of the camp ecosystem accounts. this is a serious product with the ability to unite identity across the blockchain ecosystem and it seems like the people involved in…
seriously?? this is what we’re doing now? i’m concerned about the positioning and messaging being employed by many of the camp ecosystem accounts. this is a serious product with the ability to unite identity across the blockchain ecosystem and it seems like the people involved in…
This week: can going fully unhinged work?
Camp Network: Give me full account access or give me death
As marketers compete for attention against pure entertainment platforms like TikTok, we are always looking for a new way to make our accounts more interesting. The intern trend has emerged as a way to turn our twitter accounts into pseudo-stand-up-comedy routines, where an "intern" takes over the brand account and posts funny and surprising content in their own voice, not necessarily the brand's voice.
Camp Network is taking this one step further: the intern voice is the brand voice.
Watching the Camp Network account tweet is kind of like watching a mental break in real time, but it's pretty hilarious and definitely attention-grabbing:
ok I need retail adoption. I cant take this anymore. every day I'm checking and they're not adopting. every day, check retail, no retail. I cant take this anymore, I have overpaid my BD team, by a lot. it is what it is. but I need retail to adopt already. can devs DO SOMETHING.
The Camp twitter account reads like they gave full account access to a single, hilarious person to fire off their thoughts throughout the day, rather than reading what a marketing team meticulously put together in a well-thought-out content calendar.
Camp's strategy, I'd argue, is one step beyond the classic intern play because there is no secondary intern hopping on and introducing themselves—the brand account is the intern account, and there's no serious "corporate" content to break it up.
oh wow, you got robbed at EthCC?
big deal.
I got crabs at NFT Miami.
I got blinded at Apefest.
I got trench foot at Paris Blockchain Week.
I got H5N1 at Token2049.
there's levels to this.
big deal.
I got crabs at NFT Miami.
I got blinded at Apefest.
I got trench foot at Paris Blockchain Week.
I got H5N1 at Token2049.
there's levels to this.
And they're not afraid to be downright weird, even if they know that no one's watching the full 2 hour video:
fuck it, 2 hours of Nirav explaining our value proposition.
Camp's strategy is to get in the conversation and get on your timeline, no matter how.
One way they do this is by posting memes related to the news, even if they don't tie back to the product or core value proposition. Like this meme posted after Biden dropped out:
“seeing Biden drop out is making me think about how I dropped out of your life. you don’t have to respond”
Why this works
Shocking content cuts through the noise: Crypto twitter is competing with so much other content (both in and out of crypto), that something more off the wall is going to get way more views than something refined and professional.
A strong brand voice is a very powerful thing: People connect with other people, not products or ideas. If your brand voice sounds like a person, it's easier to connect with than if it sounds like a disembodied corporate entity.
we have a surprise for you soon.
it rhymes with "slambassador hoegram"
it rhymes with "slambassador hoegram"
How you can replicate it:
Develop a brand voice: It's probably a mix of a classic CT voice and the voice of your social media manager/writer.
Let your writer run with it: The more you micromanage the account, the more washed-out and jumbled the brand voice will sound.
Don't think too hard about posts: The harder you think about them the worse they might actually be. (See Marketing Tidbit below.)
Leverage news and timely content, even if it doesn't directly relate to your product: Hopping on news trends can pump your posts up the algo.
Draft different options: Practice makes
perfectbetter. Why not draft 5 replies and choose the best one? That will quickly hone your skills, even if it takes a lot more time. (See This Week's Vibe below.)
Marketing tidbit: when to sweat the details
there are actually only two rules in startups
"sweat the details"
and
"don't sweat the details"
you just oscillate between them task by task, minute by minute, until you either go insane or win
"sweat the details"
and
"don't sweat the details"
you just oscillate between them task by task, minute by minute, until you either go insane or win
One of the key markers of improving at a skill is that you learn when to sweat the details, and when to not. In other words—knowing where to sink your time and where to save it comes with expertise.
For example, a professional distance runner isn't going to worry if their easy run pace on a random Monday is 15 seconds slower per mile than last Monday's pace. That's not going to make or break their fitness. But if they're doing an important workout with 400-meter repeats, and they're 5 seconds off? That's a detail to sweat.
But when you're learning, it can be very hard to know when to sweat the details and when to not.
Here's my brain dump of when to sweat the details in crypto marketing:
Drafting an important announcement post
Working with partners
Doing a messaging revamp / rebrand
Working with journalists
Preparing a conference talk or slide deck on a main stage
Reviewing a monthly or quarterly analytics report
When to not sweat the details (or, sweating the details makes you worse at what you're doing):
Reply-guying
Intern-style posting
Coming up with totally new marketing strategies
Reviewing a daily or weekly analytics report
Where do you think you need to sweat the details? Let me know in the comments or on twitter.
This week's vibe: To learn, do
The only way to get better at writing is to write more.
The only way to get better at shitposting on CT is to shitpost on CT more.
The only way to get better at designing is to design more.
You get the idea.
Part of the idea behind this newsletter was to get myself to spend more time looking into the crypto marketing world and learn more from it. And....it's working!
What are you currently doing to learn?
Thanks for being here!
❤️ Sam
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