Testnet

The Base logo is so iconic that a simple color change can be eye-catching.

I'm really interested in the idea of an understated, parred down launch for crypto brands—removing the flashy graphics and 🚀 emojis.

This week: the understated launch.

Image source: IRDK pop-up cafe on Behance

Base: the demure launch

Base's logo change to orange was an understated way to signal that they were adding Bitcoin to their network.

The first line was simple, too: "We're building a Bitcoin economy on Base."

Clear, clean, and precise.

Base

We're building a Bitcoin economy on Base

That starts today with cbBTC — the easy, secure way to use your Bitcoin in the global onchain economy

Base

Notable things they left out:

"Exciting news!"
"We're thrilled to announce X"
"Huge announcement!"
"Calling all devs/traders/builders!"

Instead, the content itself is what makes it interesting.

They've done this before, with some of their highest-performing launches being a simple image and minimal text:

Base

Coming soon…

@adidas is based

What I'm taking away from this: there's no reason to say something is exciting when it already is. Let the launch speak for itself.

Let's look at more examples:

Celestia's mainnet launch from 2023 was just four words and a blog link with a simple video:

Celestia

@CelestiaOrg

Celestia mainnet is live

blog.celestia.org/celestia-mainn…

Aave's 2030 launch had only three words and an image:

Aave Labs

@aave

Introducing Aave 2030

Or, for a launch that occurred yesterday (!), skip the graphic and the link and the video, and just say "now."

Aleo

@AleoHQ

wen mainnet? now.

How you can replicate this:

Say more with fewer words: Cut and cut until you have a shorter tagline and the most important information up front.
Avoid generating false hype: There's nothing more overused on crypto twitter than the 🚀 or 🚨 emojis. Skip them!
Collaborate closely with your designer: In these launches, design is everything. The words come to life through the design. The copy and design need to be developed together, not separately.

What do you think about the understated launch? Does it work? Let me know what you think on twitter.

Marketing tidbit: some fun ads

I've been really enjoying looking at web2 ads to get inspiration for campaigns in the crypto world. Here are some fun ones:

Job opening for a graphic designer: funny, eye-catching, and surprising.

Snowbird ski resort: turn a "bad" review into a good thing. Funny, feels like you're in the know

Porsche: a unique way to brag

Grammarly: shock factor!

Image source: the ad professor

McDonald's: showing the full spectrum of the people who love you

Image source: the ad professor

This week's vibe: I love finding really good newsletters

Image source: IRDK pop-up cafe on Behance

Sometimes I find a really good newsletter and I read the entire backlog in a matter of days.

The most recent, for me, is Numb at the Lodge. It's packed with undeniably great writing.

Editions you should absolutely read:

Against lists of books: to laugh and be shocked
Eternity: to ponder deep time
The world's oldest hatred: to think about our current political situation

And how I found this newsletter was from another newsletter called Deez Links that is only about recommendations. Also a great sub!

Thanks for being here,

❤ Sam

Near Protocol: manufacturing main character status

testnet@newsletter.paragraph.com (Samantha Marin) — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 20:45:53 GMT

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. Cover image from Behance.

NEAR Protocol

@NEARProtocol

looking for a new intern and marketing lead btw

There's a saying that "all press is good press."

And we've seen time and time again that the "main character" on crypto twitter can easily take over and dominate headspace.

Being the main character is scary, because it means something bad is probably going on. But there's a good thing about becoming the main character—everyone talks about you. Free press, for as long as the cycle lasts.

Last week, Near Protocol showed us that the main character status is not just bestowed upon you by CT. It can be manufactured.

This week: how to manufacture main character mode. And, is it a good idea?

Image source: Behance

Near Protocol: manufacturing main character mode

Here's the TLDR of what happened last week:

Near Protocol's twitter account changes its name to "It's all a lie," swaps out its profile picture, and starts posting provocative and anti-crypto content, making it look as if the account was hacked.
Just a few hours after the initial hack, they release a statement that looks real on first glance, but is clearly a joke. With the statement comes a video of the fake hacker making fun of crypto.
The statement and video make clear that the hack was a marketing stunt to get attention for their event in Bangkok. There's also bit of reverse psychology in the video, with statements like "There's nothing waiting for you in Thailand," seemingly to make people interested in the event.

NEAR Protocol

@NEARProtocol

A statement from the NEAR Ecosystem regarding today's events.

So—did this marketing plan work? Let's break it down.

What this campaign achieved:

Significant increase in views and engagements. Near was popping multiple tweets with over 500k impressions in a single day.
Attention. Suddenly, Near became the most relevant thing since....yesterday's relevant thing. As written by Emily Nicolle for Bloomberg, "Regardless of the campaign’s merits, it did succeed in one area: We’re all talking about NEAR."
Media attention. News ticked up when people realized the hack might be real. Stories were written. Word was spread.
Humor! There were certainly funny moments—my favorite being when they posted this Spongebob meme making fun of CoinDesk writing a story about the account likely being hacked:

NEAR Protocol

@NEARProtocol

iT aPPeARS aS iF nEARPrOTocOL wAS hACKeD

CoinDesk

@CoinDesk

It appears as if @NEARProtocol has been hacked.

Where it missed the mark:

Positive sentiment. Just look at these comments, screenshotted below. Based on qualitative data, is seems that a large portion of engagement turned out to be negative.

Taste. Pretending that the communications platform of a major L1 was hacked seems in poor taste to me. It's a little like a kid wearing a cast to school so everyone signs the cast in sharpie, even though you don't have a broken arm.
Developer attention, maybe? This is a question mark for me because of course I don't have access to their backend data. But, I'll venture to say that developers aren't going to think more positively about Near's developer stack because of this campaign.

Questions still left unanswered:

Will this lead to IRL event conversions in Thailand?
Will the brand perception be damaged or strengthened with their risky degen approach?
And, more broadly—Does "all press is good press" hold up in crypto?

My opinions:

Faking a hack is like yelling fire in a crowded theater. If their twitter account is hacked, what comes next? If I had money in Near, I would be afraid!
The tactics didn't feel right for the audience. This felt like a marketing tactic to win over a retail audience of degens, not developers.
A recipe for token volatility. This felt out of touch for a company that has a token tied to its name, given a hack would almost certainly cause a price movement (which did occur).

This, to me, felt like a marketing team desperate to manufacture news around their event to get people to go there. It felt kind of gross. Sort of like reading an exciting first chapter of a book for the second one to start with "And it was all a dream." There was a thick layer of ick that came with the campaign reveal. While it may have gotten a lot of views and activity on their account, I don't believe a strategy like this will convert the intended audience.

It makes me think, more broadly, about this industry's obsession with growth at all cost. Do we need millions of views and thousands of comments from bots and random too-online people? Why — to hit an arbitrary KPI?

Why can't focus on cultivating hundreds of meaningful interactions with our target audience instead?

Targeting an audience is harder work, but I'd argue it pays off more in the long term.

Your audience is not "all of crypto twitter." It should be the people who will actually benefit from using your product/service, and who will meaningfully connect with your brand. Your task is to identify who they are and how you can reach them.

But maybe you disagree! I'd love to hear your perspective. Let me know on twitter.

Marketing tidbit: What's in a good tagline?

I've been spending a lot of time brainstorming taglines. The task has taken me squarely back to web2 marketing because—let's be honest—the universal web3 tagline of "faster / cheaper / more secure" is not turning heads anymore.

So, what's in a good tagline? Here's what I found:

Clear: You don't need to think hard to understand it.
Memorable: It sticks with you, so next time you hear it, you think of the brand.
Short: It's battle-cry length.
Different: It should help you stand out from competitors.

Tagline examples:

Nike: Just do it
Toyota: Let's go places
Maybelline: Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.
Dunkin' Donuts: America runs on Dunkin'
Airbnb: Belong anywhere
United: Fly the friendly skies

I spent some time looking for crypto taglines. Here are some I found:

Kraken: See what crypto can be.
Uniswap: The largest onchain marketplace.
Zora: express yourself (although it used to be "pure internet," seems to have changed recently)
Aave: Building the future of DeFi.
ENS: Your web3 username.
Phantom: The crypto wallet that’ll take you places.

Some things I'm noticing:

The web3 taglines tend to be more literal. For example, "The largest onchain marketplace" for Uniswap is, well, exactly that. It's far from Toyota's more aspirational "Let's go places."
There's a lot of "leading" and "top" and "best" language. For example, Metamask's tagline of "The world's leading web3 wallet." I don't see this as much in web2.

If you're interested in taglines, check out this design house's case studies. I learned a lot from them!

This week's vibe: getting what you want

I saw this quote on the timeline and absolutely loved it.

Dennis

@dkardonsky_

Probably a top 5 all time quote

Discussions around what makes someone "smart" are completely exhausting to me. Are they able to detect patterns? Come up with solutions faster? Multi-task without work quality suffering? Win every game of Catan, no matter what positions they first settle in? (This is a real person I really know, and yeah they are kinda smart I'll be honest.)

But do any of those matter if you can't get what you want out of life?

I liked this quote because it puts the onus on the person to make their life what they want. You have the action! Complete agency! It's act IV of the play—time for you to take over!

What's better than that?

Thanks for being here!

❤ Sam

Camp Network: how to get on the timeline

testnet@newsletter.paragraph.com (Samantha Marin) — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 19:54:59 GMT

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:

VanEck

@vaneck_us

I know some of your bosses have told you to tweet like vaneck intern

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:

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…

Vurse

@vurse_official

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:

Camp Network ⛺️

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.

Camp Network ⛺️

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.

And they're not afraid to be downright weird, even if they know that no one's watching the full 2 hour video:

Camp Network ⛺️

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:

Camp Network ⛺️

“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.

Camp Network ⛺️

we have a surprise for you soon.

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 ~~perfect~~ better. 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.)

Camp Network ⛺️

even Taco Bell is building an L2

Marketing tidbit: when to sweat the details

Tristan

@homsiT

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

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

Madison

@Madisonkanna

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

New here? Add Testnet to your weekly routine:

ENS: new users to the new internet

testnet@newsletter.paragraph.com (Samantha Marin) — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 20:01:46 GMT

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.

I've been seeing a rebrand recently.

Web3 is becoming "the new internet."

Popping up in a lot of different places, "the new internet" is the new way to skirt around the baggage that "crypto" and "web3" have been carrying for years now.

It's a nice blank slate. FTX didn't collapse on the new internet. Terra didn't depeg on the new internet.

It's more forward-looking, more all-encompassing. "The new internet" can be broader than just crypto, too. It can mean AI, it can mean whatever comes after. It's a more inclusive and tech-agnostic way to position your brand.

And what happens when one of the most enduring web3 companies, Ethereum Name Service, moves away from "crypto" and towards a new internet?

This week: ENS's new internet rebrand.

ENS: New users to the new internet

ENS is one of the most mature and arguably most successful brands in the crypto space. They've achieved that glorious brand position where they stay relevant but not trendy, essential but not boring.

To drum up some more excitement, they just did a rebrand.

They're not a "crypto" company. They're a "new internet" company.

Image source: ENS.eth on twitter

"The new internet" is interesting because it is for more than just the traders. It's for everyone. I've noticed something in this ENS rebrand, and with other companies as well:

With their recent rebrand, they are pivoting away from focusing on pure tech, and more towards a user-centric approach.

They state this desire to focus on users in their brief rebrand announcement: "We recently announced our rebrand, which features updates to every part of how ENS looks and feels, with the goal of onboarding the next billion users into web3."

While "onboarding the next billion users" has been adopted by so many brands that it's a bit of a cliché, ENS is different from many others in that they are truly putting this into practice.

Image source: gregskril.eth on twitter

Look at the language used in the booth image, to the right: "Simple, memorable, unmistakably yours."

This is a great example of focusing on the users, not the tech. It avoids that trap that so many crypto companies fall into, of marketing their tech instead of marketing their benefits.

Let's look at some copy from their website:

"For every dreamer, creator, and change-maker tired of the old internet, Web3 is here. ENS is more than a protocol - it's a commitment to a better web, built for everyone."

And here's a benefit they market: "Keep your identity consistent across all services and platforms effortlessly. Say goodbye to juggling multiple usernames."

Rather than obsessing over the technology that powers ENS, they are explaining how your life is better with it.

adam ho

@omgadamho

New work: Logo, brand identity, and interaction design for @ensdomains

▷ ens.domains

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) was one of my first entry points into the web3 world and yesterday, we unveiled a new refreshed identity.

The identity features an expanded color…

What ENS is doing with their "new internet" rebrand:

Positioning themselves for the long term. They know that this whole "new internet" business is a long term game. With the new language, they're positioning themselves to play it.
Using familiar language and designs that won't scare away the non-crypto-native. There's just simple, clear, plain language that anyone can understand, and a design that feels modern and not angling towards crypto-natives only.
When they are marketing to just crypto-natives, they use a crypto-native style. The web1 style has been used in crypto marketing since the early days of crypto. Check out their EthCC t-shirt, which has a very web1 style:

And when "the new internet" is used in the wild, it looks pretty great. You wouldn't even know this was a crypto company:

sadaf.eth

@sadaf_eth

New billboards just dropped.

Marketing tidbit: Make fun of yourself

I love how so many marketers are willing to make fun of their own brands now.

Check out the 404 page of the Financial Times, making fun of economists:

Source

This page works because:

You're in on the joke: If you're a subscriber to the financial times, you're not going to unsubscribe because this offends you—you're going to find it funny.
Some serious effort was put in: Go ahead, read some of the small text. They didn't copy/paste the definition of "Speculative Bubble." They came up with their own! Go on, read it, it's funny.
You don't feel as annoyed that the page is 404'd: 404 pages are annoying. But this funny tidbit is going to make you feel much less annoyed, and more likely to have good feelings about the Financial Times.

This week's vibe: this list is perfect

This is what I strive for:

Geoff Wilt

@geoffwilt

reading good books, physical exercise to the point of exhaustion, preparing meals for yourself and the ones you love with style and care, lots and lots of music but also the ambient sounds of the world, watching movies, appreciating how light colors things, et al.

And to add to that list....

Early mornings with good coffee
Road trips
The lights on the mountains at night
Cups of tea in the afternoons
Cooking something new
Deep research and wandering
After dinner walks

What's on your list?

Thanks for being here!

Sam

Rodeo: fun marketing is winning

testnet@newsletter.paragraph.com (Samantha Marin) — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 20:43:36 GMT

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.

Give the brand a personality that's like a friend I want to hang out with, and I'm in.

Brand voice, or the way your brand would talk if it was a person, is an important way to differentiate your brand from competitors and grab peoples' attention.

I'm a huge fan of brands that aren't afraid to be a character online. Bland corporate jargon is out, inside jokes and sarcasm are in.

Making marketing fun is one of my favorite parts about being in this industry. And that's exactly what new social platform Rodeo is doing.

This week: winning over users with undeniably fun marketing.

Rodeo

Having fun is the point.

Rodeo: having fun is the point

Rodeo is an onchain social app that rewards you for your taste. As a new platform, they're seeking to attract creators and collectors in the Base ecosystem who will elevate the taste of the platform as a whole.

Their target users are more online than most, and appreciate internet culture. So, Rodeo is using a witty, sarcastic, sometimes deadpan, internet-native brand voice to reach them.

Exhibit A:

Rodeo

ꜰ*ɪɴɢ ꜰɪɴᴀʟʟʏ

You can delete posts now.

xoxo,
your devs

"F*ing Finally" is funny because, of course, there is no fear of cursing in the heart of the average internet creator. But one must please the algorithm, and the algo can sometimes get a little weird with NSFW words.

But they don't phone it in after the title. The copy in the rest of this post also uses this casual, fun-best-friend voice. Here's the text:

"Don't overthink it" just got a whole lot easier. You can now delete the posts you've created. You'll stop the minting, we'll hide the post from our app.
Anyone who's already minted it will still own the post in their wallet because, well, they're owners, and that's the beauty of web3.

Notable tactics used here:

"Don't overthink it" speaks directly to any creator. It's so easy to overthink your own work and stay stuck in a spiral of not posting. Starting with that phrase hits home for the target audience.
"a whole lot easier" is natural and casual, like something you'd say to a friend. "A whole lot" is a modifier you'd use in speech, and is more fun than a more essay-native phrase like "significantly easier" or "extremely easier."
"because, well, they're owners" articulates the value proposition of the app, and turns what could feel like a bug (is it really deleted?) into a clear feature.

Make it a contest

Rodeo leans into internet culture and fun even more with their SEEKING CATS post.

They zero in on another interest they believe their target audience is likely to have. Let's take a look:

Rodeo

sᴇᴇᴋɪɴɢ ᴄᴀᴛs

send me your cat posts on rodeo and I will feature them along with anything you think we should know about them.

love,
the marketing intern

Notable tactics used:

"I will feature them along with anything you think we should know about them" is cheeky and funny.
"love, the marketing intern" hits the current intern meme without being too in-your-face.
They post these cat submissions under "real housecats of rodeo," another cultural reference that brings a wonderful microdose of fun to the timeline.

Rodeo

ʀᴇᴀʟ ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇᴄᴀᴛꜱ ᴏꜰ ʀᴏᴅᴇᴏ

Make it a meme

Let's wrap up Rodeo with some of their memes that felt fresh while still hitting the current narrative.

Little Nike play:

Rodeo

Just do it.

Playing off the "cooking" meta:

Rodeo

let us cook

The brat meme:

Rodeo

plot twist

Marketing tidbit: explain it simply

Daniel

@growing_daniel

I’m sorry I explained my topic with so much technical jargon. I don’t know it well enough to explain it in simpler terms

If marketing text is confusing and opaque, it's not your fault, it's the writer's fault.

How I feel when writing is so confusing that I can't decipher it, because the writer was trying to "seem smart."

No one should be squinting through a sentence, awaiting the next period, trying to understand what the writer is saying.

Simple explanations are masterful.

Web3 marketing is inundated with technical jargon that only reaches a tiny audience.

The simpler you can explain something, the better grasp you have of it. And, the better grasp your audience will have, too.

Explaining technical concepts simply is hard. If it was easy, we'd have a million simple explanations for Ethereuem beyond "a global spreadsheet." If you work in crypto marketing, you unfortunately are already starting on shaky ground and therefore have to work extra hard to explain things simply.

Tactics to simplify your product explanations:

Identify the core of what your product does and explain that — not all the bells and whistles surrounding it.
Read it aloud to a friend who knows nothing about crypto and see if it intrigues them.
Scan for words that might be foreign to people in other industries and skillsets. If you can't find a simpler replacement, explain the word.

This week's vibe: go hard at what comes easy

anu

@anuatluru

figure out what comes easy to you,
then go hard at it

I went through a phase a few years ago where I was like, maybe I should become a dev??? I mean they:

make a lot of money
are highly respected/revered
have a lot of job options

But building things and coding is not what comes easy to me. Sure, I could take classes and figure it out and become absolutely average at software development. But why become mediocre at something other people are really great at, rather than identifying your top skill and trying to be in the top 1% of it?

I knew that writing was my best skill—it has been ever since I won the D.A.R.E. essay contest when I was eleven (true story). So, I figured instead of trying to build a new skill from scratch, I should just double-down on my existing one, and see where it can fit into the current job market. That's how I ended up in content and marketing.

That's something I wish I told myself from the get-go, and that I wish I could tell everyone else: find your top skill and maximize it. You're far more likely to have fun along the way.

After all, having fun is the point, right?

Thanks for being here!

❤ Sam

Share Testnet with a friend:

Friend: rage bait as engagement bait

testnet@newsletter.paragraph.com (Samantha Marin) — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 17:50:33 GMT

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.

How do you capitalize on loneliness?

There was a great edition of Boys Club's Too Online newsletter that touched on the loneliness epidemic that the new AI companion "friend" has brought to light.

A quote from the newsletter: "capitalism, she knows no bounds." The loneliness problem that so many young people face today is being addressed not as a public health crisis, but as a new market with new products.

Today's new loneliness epidemic band-aid is a necklace that listens to your conversations and texts funny quips to engage with you like a "real" friend might.

This week: using rage bait to increase viewership and clicks, and, therefore, product purchases.

friend: rage bait as engagement bait

A new product has shaken the internet, and its marketing is too interesting to ignore: friend.

With a whopping 23 million views on the announcement, friend certainly riled up a lot of people. But that, I'd argue, is the goal. The more people angrily quote-tweeting your product or sending it in their group chat to rant about, the better the engagement and the more people are going to buy it.

The fastest way to reach new peoples' feeds is to get other people angry/upset/fox news pundit style fuming, and therefore just about dare them to comment on or quote tweet your post.

That's what new AI wearable "friend" did with their recent ad, so subtly that it doesn't even look like rage bait from the outside.

Here's the announcement:

Avi

@AviSchiffmann

introducing friend. not imaginary.

order now at friend.com

This is rage bait because the product is attempting to solve a controversial problem (young people not being able to talk to "real people" anymore because we're all so addicted to our screens) with a controversial solution (an AI imaginary friend that allows listens to you and spits out AI-generated commentary).

The comments were rampant. The product was everywhere. But in the attention economy, all press really is good press.

Notable choices made

Announcement came from a founder account, not a brand account. (In fact, they don't even have a brand twitter account!)
Link in the first tweet (did not stop the algo from pumping, so maybe links in tweets aren't the devil incarnate?)
No product description—you have to watch the video in entirety to understand what it is. (And then if you're like me you're still a little confused tbh.)
The blog pulls on your heartstrings, with the founder addressing the problem head-on. Notable sentence: "friend is an expression of how lonely I've felt."

Personifiying the friend with language

friend took rage bait one step further by personifying the friend, or making it seem like a sentient being. One of the creepiest things is when they refer to the friend as having "free will." Check out this clip from their FAQ:

The company says they gave the friend "their own internal thoughts." Every word in this phrase is doing major work for the overall feeling that the friend is a real, sentient being. "their" = personified, "own" = an entity capable of ownership, "internal," = private to them, not fed in by the company, "thoughts" = the ability for the AI companion to reason on their own.

This kind of all-in marketing is really interesting to me. They're committing to the bit in every way. They want you to believe this friend is sentient, so even their FAQ page is going to use language that lines up with that.

How can you learn from this for your own project?

Be dystopian. Go to the most futuristic and dystopian level, and communicate that as your product's end state: not its current state. And, commit to the bit while you're at it.
Be unique. Find the most unique, out-of-the-box aspects of your product and focus on highlighting those, not necessarily the most "mainstream."
Be controversial. Don't be afraid to take a stance that some might deem overly controversial. If you try to please everyone, you'll please no one.

Marketing tidbit: don't compete in the long tail

In this newsletter, Seth Godin discusses how the cost of creation has gone to zero. Anyone can create a video, write a book, or design artwork and post it online and reach distribution.

He writes,

"Two things have changed for books, music and visual media:

Shelf space and broadcast schedules disappeared. There’s room for everything, all the time.
The cost of creating and publishing work in any of these media has dropped to zero. When anyone can make a video or a song, anyone will."

Especially with the onset of AI-generated content, marketing could reach a quality trap, where everything is AI gibberish and nothing speaks to real humans. With over 600 million blogs and counting posted on the internet, you're not going to be able to compete in quantity.

If you can't compete in volume, you need to compete in quality.

The good thing is that quality is difficult, and if you put more time and effort into it, you'll come out on top.

There will always be room at the top—you just have to get there.

This week's vibe: armchair quarterbacking

The Olympics are a fun time because everyone gets to be an armchair quarterback for sports they've never seen before. That's the power of great announcers—you can get up to speed on a sport very quickly. I'm amazed at how I can sit down and watch surfing or skateboarding and suddenly understand the intricacies of the rules because of a skilled announcer who talks the audience through it.

And then, after a short time, we all become armchair quarterbacks—or people who comment on games and say what they believe the players should have done, even if they're not in the game themselves.

I believe it's human nature to go from knowing nothing about a thing, to acting like the "expert" in no time. That's why there are so many memes about immunology experts becoming war experts becoming middle east experts, depending on the current news of the moment. Everyone wants to have an opinion on the current thing.

And that's okay! That's what makes life fun. Shouting "that was a terrible wave to choose!" when you have no idea how to even stand up on a surfboard. Getting into a heated debate about Israel-Palestine even though you were a Biology major. Having opinions and beliefs, and learning how to change them, is what makes humans so awesome.

The key is not taking your own opinion too seriously. After all, the judges might have rated that floor routine higher than you would have, and you're not the expert—they are.

Grant Fisher was only the second American to win a medal in the 10k since 1964. Amazing. Image source.

See you next week!

Sam

Untitled: growing a brand account from scratch

testnet@newsletter.paragraph.com (Samantha Marin) — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 18:58:54 GMT

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.

Cover image source.

There's a lot of advice out there on how to 0 to 1 your business. Even on how to 0 to 1 your marketing.

But how do you 0 to 1 your brand's social media on crypto twitter?

The hardest part of social media management is the beginning. Building your audience can feel like watching grass grow. Every day can feel like posting into the void, or sending a radio broadcast into outer space. It's hard, it's demoralizing, it's tedious.

And the toughest part is, there's no playbook to copy. Different styles work for different accounts.

How do you grow a brand account on CT quickly?

This week: Looking at some tactics that a new product, Untitled, is testing to build up their account from zero.

Untitled: growing a brand account from scratch

Untitled is a new onchain social platform with a focus on contrarian takes. A blank Title message is auctioned over a 48 hour period, and the winner of the auction gets to write it. That message is the front page of the Untitled platform and is also posted on Twitter. Users can reply to the message and collect the content. It's a way for people/projects with opinions to cut through the noise and blast them out into the world. (More on the product here.)

What I'm interested in today is less so on the product side, and more on how you can approach building up the audience for a consumer product from scratch. Untitled is brand new, with just over 1k followers. How are they working to grow it into a CT sensation?

Let's explore some tactics they're using, so you can try them for your project:

The Ratio

One of the best methods to appear on potential users' feeds is to ratio people your target user is likely to follow.

A ratio is when you post a reply or quote tweet that does better numbers (likes, replies, comments) than the main tweet itself. Spicy replies, for example, often garner more attention than the vanilla-content posted by itself.

Here, Untitled is reposting a potential spicy take from Ryan Sean Adams that could be shared on their social platform:

untitled.eth

@untitled

RYAN SΞAN ADAMS - rsa.eth 🦄

@RyanSAdams

Unpopular opinion:

ETH is money.

Ratio-ing is a way to hack the algo and appear on new viewers' timelines. But it's hard to do! Getting a good ratio in is rare, so the more tries you take, the better chance you have. Some tips:

Identify accounts that your target audience follows / respects.
Create a list of those accounts.
Check the list every day for ideas to try to quote or comment on and achieve a ratio.

The founder account

Another great way to grow a new brand account is through a founder account. If the founder already has an audience, people are more likely to connect to the new product through the founder and their personality than the new product.

It's easier to connect with people than with products or ideas. Founder accounts can do a lot of heavy-lifting for the new brand.

Here's an example of Untitled leveraging a meme posted on the founder account on their own timeline:

untitled.eth

@untitled

Soon on Untitled

joseph.eth

@josephdelong

Me absolutely cooking with the @0xUntitled contracts.

The founder account content works by:

Tapping into the founder's audience and bringing them on to the brand account
Showing the builder behind the brand and putting a human face to the name.

The spicy brand voice

Untitled is also experimenting with a spicier brand voice, which matches their product's contrarian takes. Here's an example:

untitled.eth

@untitled

Oh, so you want to avoid reading anything Spice-related on #Untitled? Well, that's Fine.

Our AI's got your back. No Spice for you.
#OwnTheDay

The spicy brand voice works by:

Drawing in people's attention, a.k.a. stopping the scroll!
Showing that their account will be a good follow and entertaining down the line

Which method do you prefer? Let me know on twitter!

Marketing tidbit: people do judge a book by its cover

I came across this Apple marketing philosophy from 1977 and really enjoyed all three components of the marketing philosophy. Take a look:

The phrase, "People DO judge a book by its cover" really stood out to me. If you don't consider how your products/service are wrapped, whether in physical or digital packaging, you are not likely to land the customers that you're seeking.

The product presentation is the marketing. It's absolutely critical that the first touchpoint a customer sees, whether that's the website home page or twitter account, are polished and in line with your target user's desires.

Think: what's the book cover of my product? And what's the story it's telling to my target user?

Of course, different products have different target markets and will therefore need different "front covers." Exhbit A:

JOSΞPH 🍩

@CupOJoseph

This is the website for the largest ethereum block builder:

Busy weekend with lots of time with friends I haven't seen in ages.

This week's vibe is recovering, relaxing, and feeling full of good summer vibes. These are the weekends that make me want to throw my phone out the window and go IRL forever. Would it be so hard?

Here's a vegetable dinner we cooked:

See you next week!

❤ Sam

Add Testnet to your weekly routine:

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Lens: tasteful events are content marketing

testnet@newsletter.paragraph.com (Samantha Marin) — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

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.

Cover art source: luna lifted

Events can be an incredible marketing opportunity. Not only are they a way to form deep bonds and connections with your biggest advocates and power users, but they're a golden content marketing opportunity. The thing with events in the social media age is that, if they're really good, attendees will post about them for you. Every marketer's dream!

The problem is that great events are hard to get right.

Why?

Because great events require great taste. And taste can't be taught, much less hired for. But there are some hacks and models you can use to simulate great taste—even if you don't have it.

This week: how tasteful marketing events do extra brand work for you.

Lens: tasteful events are content marketing

Lens is a decentralized social network that is writing the playbook for tasteful marketing events that translate into great content marketing. They've become a cool girl brand in the space, with simple black and white branding and a refined aesthetic.

Their side event at EthCC was a great example of the tasteful Lens event aesthetic:

Source: Lens twitter

This event was a prime example of how great IRL events translate to URL content marketing, because people will create content and post it for you.

I mean, just look at all these posts! Here's one:

SP 🔥

@Sim_Pop

Great vibes at @LensProtocol afk - @CallMeLatasha ending the day on a high note

Very well done team @parisrouz @MPtherealmvp @creedebeauvoir @StaniKulechov

Even Vitalik was there!

donn

@tzedonn

Thanks @VitalikButerin for moderating this panel and interviewing @post_polar_ about “crypto culture”

@LensProtocol @zksync

When you run an objectively beautiful event, you get tons of perks:

Posts from thought leaders and influencers who want to show that they were there, and also just want to take a beautiful photo.
Attention from media outlets and industry writers that are writing wrap-ups of the entire conference, and want to have eye-catching photos in their pieces.
Social content throughout the entire event, which you can use to fill content space. When your team is hard at work on the event, you don't have to worry about posting content. Instead, just share what everyone else is posting about it.
Free marketing at future events (people wear your swag). If you run a tasteful event and have tasteful swag, people will wear your hats and socks at future events because they want to be associated with your event. The gift that keeps on giving.

Source: Lens twitter

Shortcuts for putting on a tasteful event:

Learn from non-crypto events: the crypto space can be cringe when it comes to events. Take inspiration from other types of events outside the space to bring something fresh and new.
Use neutral colors with your brand color as an accent: One of the reasons this event was so tasteful was because of the monotone colors. The swag is monotone, too, which makes it easier for people to wear it again.
Come up with an interesting name for the event: Just using your brand name is boring. I loved Lens's event name: "afk" (means "away from keyboard").
Hire an event specialist: Events are such a niche skill, especially in the crypto space. Consider hiring outside help to curate the event.
Hire women (!!!): Okay maybe I'm biased here, but I believe part of the reason crypto brands struggle with taste is because devs are building the brand, not brand and marketing experts. And women often have a more refined taste.

chainyoda@London

@chainyoda

The alfa at @LensProtocol is the sheer % of artistic people and senior women who work here. Everything about everything Lens does is refined and imbued with class and taste. This is next level brand stuff us devs can't grok

The creator's life is a difficult one. Image source.

My final tip here is to not be so hard on yourself (am I writing to myself? maybe?). Ira Glass, audio genius behind This American Life, has a great take on why taste and result rarely converge: "your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you."

In other words, your taste will always be of a higher standard than the work you can do. And that's part of the act of creating—if you didn't have high standards, you wouldn't be here! You'd be doing something else.

So, enjoy cultivating the event, but don't worry if it doesn't meet your exact expectations. That's part of the game of creating anything new.

Marketing tidbit: 2 weeks ago or it didn't happen