Marketing is dynamic and impactful. The details differ between industries, but at its most basic marketing is how businesses reach prospective customers and communicate the unique benefits of a product or service. It encompasses all the activities that companies undertake to promote, sell, and distribute that product or service. The goal is to generate sales and build a loyal customer base by informing prospective and existing buyers about the offering.Your target audience must first be aware that your product or service exists before you can hope to inspire a purchase. An essential function in any business, marketing supports efforts to acquire, keep, and grow customers.

But marketing does not end there — ongoing engagement also helps build loyalty and establish a long-term relationship. Effective programs and campaigns reach and engage audiences, differentiate the company from competitors, and support larger business objectives, such as increasing sales or expanding to a new market.

Web 3.0 is built around data privacy for users. Currently, users give up precious data to platforms that control how these data are used. Companies profit from sharing these data with third-party advertisers who maximize the information to their benefit.

While a lot remains to be seen as Web 3.0 matures, it’s certain that users will have more control over their data and who they share it with. This could pose a challenge for marketers who are used to securing data from existing platforms and using it to acquire, engage and retain customers.

Marketers should start focusing on building relevant and strong communities that users would trust enough to share personal data as well as recommend others. Community marketing is seen as the primary marketing strategy for Web 3.0.

Web 3.0 is mostly viewed as an upgraded Web 2.0 characterized by the presence of virtual reality and augmented reality. With Web 3.0, brands can create virtual experiences like virtual stores where users can interact with each other and purchase products.

Web 3.0 opens the possibility for more immersive and interactive spaces for brands to showcase their personality to users. Brands can also create new kinds of collectible items such as NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that further drive their value and relevance to their consumers.

Blockchain is a rapidly growing technology that is continuing to transform the way we live. In fact, many believe it will be as revolutionary as the creation of the internet itself.

With blockchain technology comes a whole new set of questions and challenges for marketers, so it's important to understand what exactly it is, what are its benefits and how can you leverage this incredible opportunity in your business.

Why?

Blockchain technology is about getting rid of the centralized systems and creating an open ecosystem that would reinvent the digital marketing industry.

Data security and data decentralisation will be provided for Web 3.0 with blockchain technology.

You would be connected directly to the customers without any intermediaries. In addition, customers would take control of their data privacy with blockchain technology since it guarantees data transparency and security due to its distributed ledger approach.

It is a technology for recording and verifying transactions that can be applied to practically anything requiring trust—from money to real estate to medical records. As a result, blockchain has the potential to revolutionize marketing as we know it today.

Therefore, it is fair to say that the role of blockchain in web 3.0 marketing is helping to make it more efficient and transparent.

Furthermore, the decentralized nature of blockchain technology can help make Web 3.0 marketing more transparent and is virtually tamper-proof.

There is going to be a marketing revolution.

We already see the signs and initiatives of it. - Remember, Facebook changed its name to Meta, and they are investing in the Metaverse. Also, recently, Square changed its name to Block to focus on crypto. -

Web 3.0 is the next evolution of the web in which website content and users are interconnected through seamless interfaces and communication channels.

This integration allows companies to offer a more personalized experience that can be accessed on any device or screen size with real-time data sharing capabilities.

How will your business be affected by the Web 3.0 wave?

You can't afford to be outdated these days. You have to make your business decisions carefully, keeping in mind that the future is here and continuously renewing.

Based on your industry, try to acquire 3D assets.- If you have a retail eCommerce business, try to create 3D models or virtual reality stores.

You are focusing on content creation highly as a marketer- keep doing it!

As of today, there is no particular handbook for this new era of marketing. Yet, we know NFTs would be important content for the digital marketing industry in the future since it has already started to be!

There is a massive community for NFTs ( such as CryptoPunks) already, and you may not miss the chance of including your brand in it.

All of these might be a little intimidating to you- I know. But, think of that as a new way of connecting with your customers and communities.

Social Media has been a phenomenon since its inception and is continuing to grow.

Facebook and YouTube are on the top of the list in terms of their popularity among users.

They have revolutionized how people communicate online and have introduced many new features to improve user experience.

Web 3.0 brings exciting changes in social media marketing.

For example, there would be decentralized apps called dApps, and there would be no centralized authority of the users' data due to the decentralized structure of Web 3.0 - users would pull in the reins!

Web 3 marketing is about building meaningful relationships with your customers and creating partnerships that benefit everyone involved. It's time for businesses to stop thinking of customers as a number in a database, but instead, people looking for the same thing you are.

Web 3.0 aims to make humans and computers communicate seamlessly and efficiently through the use of the semantic web. This means that natural search queries will be understood accurately and instantaneously by search engines. This translates to a more personalized browsing experience for the user.

For brands, this presents opportunities to create rich and interactive ads that continue to feel natural and non-invasive to users.

Web 3.0 already exists, although it is still widely underdeveloped. It may take several years for it to fully mature. However, here are several examples of websites and applications running on Web 3.0.

For a brighter future, we need to show them the path, come up with innovative Web3 marketing models and create new playbooks leveraging Social tokens and crypto mechanisms.

Let’s get into it.

Social tokens are virtual currencies that live on the blockchain.

They are fractionalized shares in the intrinsic value of a community, brand, or person and are earned by accomplishing specific missions (sharing content, signing up for a newsletter, leaving reviews, etc.) These tokens can be redeemed in exchange for other cryptocurrencies or special perks within the community the token is associated with, such as access to token-gated content or access to special merch.

In 2021, the Social Token market grew by over 500% from January to June. The number of addresses holding social tokens grew by ~200%. There were 10 million tokens in circulation with a fully diluted valuation of $330 million.

Social tokens are slowly emerging as the next crypto revolution, and this new technology opens up a whole new world of possibilities for brands, a world where they can remove the gatekeepers and create direct relationships with their consumers through their very own token.

Indeed, social tokens provide a way for consumers to show their loyalty, get rewarded & further commit to their favorite brand, and allow brands to create a direct link with their customers, build a real community, and better capture the value they are creating.

But let’s jump into concrete use-cases and see how brands can leverage them to remove intermediaries, increase engagement and increase customer loyalty.

For people to move and take action, you have to make what they’ll get very clear.

Clarifying the rewards is essential for any brand wanting to engage its consumers. However, with Web2 solutions and the current tools at their disposal, brands have no easy way to reward consumers at scale and in a secure way.

Think of it for a second. How do brands today are rewarding consumers for subscribing to their newsletter? Maybe they promise them interesting content directly in their content. Sure, but will the content truly be interesting? And what about the dozens of other promotions that come with it?

Maybe they’ll offer coupons. Great, but it still requires the consumers to purchase further items before the expiration date, requiring an (engaging) additional step in the rewarding process.

In short, brands today offer no clear and high enough rewards for their consumers to take action.

And that’s when social tokens come in. Through social tokens, clear missions, and clear rewards, brands can involve consumers in amplifying a campaign or building awareness around a new product.

Let’s see how they can do it.

Now the incentives for consumers have changed. For commenting, consumers receive X amount of tokens that they can redeem in exchange for other cryptocurrencies or special perks within the brand’s community. That’s a clear and high reward.

Mmh interesting… But isn’t it too much to pay EVERY consumer for commenting on new posts?

Nope, you got it all wrong. It’s actually cheaper, and brands get a much higher ROI than by paying intermediaries such as Facebook to promote their content.

Why so? Because with this new Web3 Marketing method, brands create strong and direct relationships with their consumers (who isn’t engaged when they can be paid?), and the message hits different to a new audience when friends share the post.

Ok for the higher ROI, but what about the “it’s cheaper” argument?

The short answer: the token doesn’t need to have a financial value. And that’s where the power of social tokens resides. With an already existing brands and clear values, the social token will be more of a social, collectible value that people are proud to own. Social Tokens create status within a community and allow engage consumers to say “Look, I’m there since the beginning, I’ve helped this brand succeed.”

And trust me, reputation and belonging are much more valuable for humans than money.

The second argument for the “it’s cheaper” is that social tokens can have value in the brand’s own economy. Similar that anyone need US dollars ($USD) to participate and interact in the US economy, consumers will need some brand tokens ($BRAND) to interact in the brand’s economy.

Consumers help the brand succeed, receive tokens, and redeem special perks in the brand’s economy (e.g., BTS of a fashion show, exclusive interviews of a sponsored athlete, etc.)

In short, creating a social token is a great way for brands to engage their existing consumers and turn their audience into active members without paying intermediaries.

It can be seen as a great way to “hire” an entire community to promote the brand’s content while rewarding engaged consumers easily, securely, and at scale.

Damn.. that’s exciting. What else can brands do with tokens?

Customer loyalty has always been a central element for brands. How do you retain consumers over the long term when competing with thousands of brands?

In Web2, the answer might have been by giving loyalty points.. But not in Web3.

In Web3, brands share the upsides with consumers. And that’s much more powerful to retain them than loyalty points.

By putting back a portion of their benefits or their marketing budget in their tokens, brands will convince consumers to stay, not through points, but with financial incentives (aka real money).

Consumers will stay and keep being loyal because, the more they engage with the brands, earn tokens and hold them, the more chance they have to get rewarded by the brand over the long term.

So brands are basically giving out money to consumers, right..?

Again, you got it all wrong. First, with social tokens, consumers are incentivized to help the brand succeed and be loyal as the value of their tokens — directly correlated to the success and attractiveness of the brand — can gain an almost infinite value.

More than simply being loyal, consumers will do their best work to help the company succeed because the incentives are aligned, and because they are financialy engaged.

Consumers make the overall brand more valuable, resulting in more profits. The brand doesn’t “give out money to consumers” , it simply give back a portion of this additional revenue to the most engaged consumers and creating some future premium experiences. It’s a win-win situation, as it’s often the case in Web3.

Ok, but what if the brand doesn’t make profit or have no marketing budget to invest upfront?

Then the brand should create NFT memberships. NFT memberships are a great way to build tiers, monetize & offer unique benefits to membership holders.

Social tokens offer more granularity than NFTs to measure participation & reward consumers daily because first, it wouldn’t make sense to send an NFT each time a consumer likes a new post, and second, it’s hard for brands to retain peoples’ attention with NFTs only as consumers are unlikely to be constantly buying and selling their NFTs.

But for social tokens to get a financial value, brands need to put money upfront. And that can be a big blocker.

That’s why NFT memberships + Social tokens are a powerful combo. Brands can leverage their top 1% consumers from the beginning by selling them NFTs, then grow their audience thanks to this initial liquidity, and finally, reward the first believers through tokens. Web3 is a positive sum-game where everyone succeeds in helping each other and where incentives are aligned.

NFT Memberships are a great way to raise initial liquidity for brands and a natural way of creating structure and levels within a community. Think of it as providing digital passes unlocking specific access. With these accesses, consumers can then participate in the community.

Brands who’ll understand how to combine the power of NFTs with the flexibility of social tokens will be the ones truly succeeding in the Web3 era.

Getting new clients is always challenging for brands. The most complicated part for marketers is putting the brand in front of a qualified audience, a targeted audience that has shown potential interest in the brand’s products.

And for that, social tokens and Airdrops’ conditions are a new secret weapon to reach a targeted audience.

Because everything on the blockchain is freely accessible by anyone, it’s easy for a new brand to get access to a list of relevant potential new consumers and send them tokens. I already wrote about How To Make Airdrops That Go Viral, Bring Awareness, And Convert Members Into Active Contributors, where I explain how to do Airdrops the right way.

But brands can go even further and not only do an Airdrop, but also set Airdrop’s conditions.

Doing an “Airdrop” means sending tokens to multiple people at once. It is now possible on platforms like Coinvise to set “Airdrop conditions” where only members holding specific Social tokens can claim the Airdrop.

Imagine Reebok wants to Airdrop $REEBOK tokens to raise awareness around their new product but wants to make sure that only engaged and “true” runners get access to it. They could set the condition “Only users holding $NIKE and $ADIDAS tokens can claim our $REEBOK tokens.” Because people holding $NIKE and $ADIDAS are the ones who bought the tokens or earned them by accomplishing missions, Reebok is sure they are engaged in the sports niche.

Since social tokens are built over blockchain, it is impossible for fraudulent transactions when it comes to token ownership. This will help brands reach only genuine fans and ensure only the right consumers participate in transactional experiences.

Social tokens create trust at scale and allow brands to reach a targeted audience easily.

Through tokens, brands can more easily foster a sustainable community (less spam), ensures members have skin in the game (not only passive members or commenters), and incentivizes community members to make the overall community desirable to join over the long-term (the more desirable the community, the more valuable the token will be).

It’s a new era for brands and marketing where everything needs to be reinvented. Consumers are getting ownership over brands. The communication isn’t unidirectional (one to many — brands to consumers) anymore, but multidirectional (many to many — consumers to consumers), and the number of marketing strategies it unlocks is almost unlimited.

Some major brands, such as the Paris Saint Germain already launched their social token, and more are exploring ways to launch one, such as Meta. The firsts joining this revolution will implement mechanisms, get hands-on experience, and will get a competitive advantage for years to come.