I know it’s been a long time since the last #buzz café call, but I had time to ponder on some of the questions or problematics of marketing 1hive. And the questions were mainly these:
- Use of a hashtag in a positive or a negative sentiment. – How to construct a popular text?
- Question of explaining what a DAO is. – Conceptional similarity to Bitcoin’s decentralized structure.
Thinking about these, I was able to develop an intertwined approach in marketing, including theory, traditional marketing, and internet marketing all together.
So, we were talking about the use of #hashtags, and the importance of the use of them. Like say when #honeyswap hashtag is used on twitter, we knew that the sentiment in the particular post using the hashtag is not at all important, just the general use of it is our point. After all, we can’t control social media, and as a general rule, there will always be FUD on the internet when the subject is financial stuff, and especially crypto.
Popular Texts – Producerly Texts
This discussion reminded me of what I learned at school and led me back to theory. Basically, the keyword that came to my mind was “popular texts”. So, what exactly is a popular text? Well, one of the most influential cultural theorists and media scholars, John Fiske elaborates on this in his Understanding Popular Culture by discussing two categories of texts, namely “readerly text” and a “writerly text” envisioned by Barthes.
However, there is a third category he mentions, which is the “producerly text”, and he insists that a popular text should be producerly. And a producerly text should be:
So, this is just a theoretical basis for the rest of my argument. What I mean is that we should be creating producerly texts in order to get popularity on social media.
Open and Closed Channels
On social media, I decided to make a categorization as open and closed channels in terms of sharing information and triggering discussion. On an open channel, I believe we should be creating a popular text as @D0SH also mentions in opening up a Discord channel for voting on what is to be shared on our Twitter, etc. So, the open channels are for instance Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and other stuff. Then, in our case, the open channels could also be considered as channels where we are not implementing Sourcecred as well.
In those open channels, I believe a more aggressive approach can be followed in order to trigger discussion because the main idea behind an advertisement is not to sell the product but to raise awareness in the consumer. Once the awareness is achieved, we can then direct the user to the closed channel to act out our sales pitch like in a traditional sense.
So, as for the close channels, we have Discord and also Telegram in a way, where information is not shared with a wide range of users but limited to those who are actually on the closed server. Here, I believe what we have done so far has had a rather positive impact on the users as we have been able to develop great teams with our swarms.
Thus, in our closed channels, let’s say it’s #help channel on Discord or in other channels, our approach should be that of a direct, face-to-face sales model where the discussion gets more personal and intimate in inducing the consumer to buy into your “product”. Then, we should be creating a more friendly environment, and our product here should be “education” as our model of “decentralized autonomous organization” is a relatively new concept (though, I believe this is how human beings should have been working on before the introduction of the division of labor based on hierarchies, but that’s a whole different subject, we can discuss this on #cafe or somewhere else lol).
Explaining and Education People about DAOs
So, as one of the biggest challenges we face is the fact that people do not know about the mechanics a DAO is operated. This, I believe, should be discussed in our closed channels once we attract attention on the open channels. I’m not a marketing expert, but I’m sure most people in the #buzz swarm or who have experience in marketing knows this for a fact that informative posts on social media do not receive much traction. One of the reasons behind this is that social media is a tool of entertainment and interaction other than education.
What I propose, all in all, is that we should target the open channels of information on social media with a relatively more aggressive approach, which can trigger at least two different sides on a subject of argument in order to keep the discussion lively on the open channels. Afterward, by leading those who are willing to learn about the project or what we are willing to teach to our closed channels, we can make the sales pitch and get them involved in the community by explaining the specifics of how 1hive DAO is working as well as ways to contribute and get rewarded with the #pollen program and the advantages of xDai chain, or the “products” like Celeste and others to be developed in the future by our community.