I missed last week’s edition (bad TPan!) so I’m making up for it with an earlier one this week. I’ll be out next week, don’t miss me too much 😘

To put it lightly, getting a sliver of attention in today’s world is hard. Like really hard. Announcing a new round of funding? Several other companies are sharing similar news as you on the same day, all overshadowed by the 689th DAT (digital asset treasury) company announcement. Releasing details of your upcoming airdrop and TGE? Cool, there’s countless other campaigns happening simultaneously with juicier incentives.

Unless you have an announcement that’s a special snowflake gaining virality, are a company with a massive following, or have a PR budget that gets media outlets to report on it, it’s hard to generate sustainable attention targeted towards the right audience.

Oh ya of course, how could I forget? You can also employ KOLs (key opinion leaders) to canvas the feed as well, but measurement is tricky, aligned incentives are temporary, and they’re pricey. The space’s favorite sleuth, ZachXBT, recently shared a industry influencer price sheet making us wonder 1) who the hell are these accounts? and 2) people are actually paying those prices?!

This isn’t to say that the above approaches don’t work. They’re valid and even preferred for the right company with the right approach. There are also companies that have founders or team members who are great content creators and have built followings that make them influencers in their own right.

There are also teams that don’t focus on building a social presence at all and are wildly successful. For example, the Bridge founders were acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion with barely any media presence.

But is there another way to have continued relevance on the timeline to support growth?

Enter the in-house influencer.

Fortunately the ‘in-house influencer’ role isn’t a popularized role title. Partly because those responsibilities can be shared within a team (or delegated to a ghostwriter), and also because that title simply isn’t very appealing.

However, there are individuals at companies where a key pillar of their responsibilities is around influencer types of efforts to help grow the business.

IcoBeast rose through the KOL (I can actually call him that because he actually has insightful opinions) ranks sharing takes on popular topics, interesting products and opportunities, and shitposts.

In late July, IcoBeast shared that he joined the Proof of Play team as Mindshare Lead (a title that’s as close to in-house influencer as it gets) to help spread the company’s story and vision more effectively.

What’s notable about IcoBeast before and after joining Proof of Play is that his posting cadence, topics covered, and style haven’t changed. He still has sponsored posts, shares referral links, and shitposts. That approach allows the posts that are about his employer to be woven in seamlessly. Legacy followers continue to engage and consume his content because he hasn’t sold out and still posts about things they initially followed him for. New followers see Proof of Play content as one topic out of many that he regularly covers.

Are in-house influencers gonna be a thing? Share or subscribe to make your opinion influential 😉

Breadguy is another example, joining the Layer 2 MegaETH team in November 2024. He initially reached out to the team looking for ways to contribute more deeply to the ecosystem and despite an initial rejection, found a way to work together several months later.

Breadguy helps to amplify, clarify, and visualize MegaETH’s efforts. A great example of this is MegaETH’s announcement introducing MegaUSD (USDm), the native stablecoin on the MegaETH blockchain. Breadguy explained it in simpler terms for dumb dumbs like me with one of his elegant visuals that he’s become known for.

Similar to IcoBeast, Breadguy still maintains autonomy around his content and is even a co-host on the Modern Market show.

As prediction markets have become another undisputed web3 use case with product-market fit, the top voices in that space have found homes as well. Recently, John Wang joined Kalshi as the Head of Crypto role.

Unlike the previous two examples, John has focused on prediction market related content almost exclusively, but in a way that is still value-add through articles, charts, and insights.

This type of role is in its early stages. Each org calls it something different, the roles and responsibilities aren’t clearly defined, and it isn’t necessary if there are founders or team members who already take on this role informally and do it well.

IcoBeast provides a simple example of the type of company that should consider this type of individual and role.

Additionally, all these individuals have a depth of professional experience beyond being just content creators. IcoBeast has a legal background and law degree, Breadguy has deep blockchain knowledge, and John has a product background.

When you compare this emergent type of role with the stereotypical KOL influencer:

These individuals weren’t just hired because they create good content. They have deep knowledge and expertise, they know how to engage in online arguments discourse, have other core skillsets from previous professional roles they’ve held, and have built rich networks of contacts.

Time will tell if this is a flash in the pan or a trend.

See you in two weeks!