Your girl moderated a panel at g(t)m con 0 😎 Now, hold up, what is g(t)m con 0? It’s the first kind of substance maxxing event for marketers, led by an all-star team of marketers. (Also, I’m glad marketing has evolved from generic messaging and slogans to strategic initiatives that move the needle. Shout out to Claire for dreaming up and creating the ultimate marketer’s event.)
We covered everything from positioning to personal branding to surviving TGE. As a moderator for the TGE panel, I soaked up some juicy insights and spicy takes from Pratik, Kseniaa, and Ramon. Community was a core theme of this talk — the panel discussed how to attract genuinely engaged users who will stick around for the long haul. This overlaps perfectly with what we’re going to discuss in the next section: finding real users, getting them involved, and building a strong community.
But before we jump to the next section. What’s the first step to creating an engaged community?
Want to crack the code on building communities? you’ve got to know what makes people come together in the first place.
I’m not about to drag you through a social science 101, but here’s what actually matters: the three I’s—interest, idea, and incentive.
Think of it as a funnel that takes folks from ‘just browsing’ to ‘fully onboard’.
Now, on to the important question; how did we build this funnel for a web3 networking app preparing for their TGE?
First, let’s set the scene:
The project was gearing up for an airdrop, and the challenge was that the project had attracted a swarm of engagement farmers who were solely interested in short term incentives. The problem? We didn’t know if they were any genuine users in the crowd who would stick around after the airdrop or be interested in the project long-term.
Moreover, we had no way of identifying who were our power users in the community.
So, we did some napkin math to work out how we could find these kind of users that were genuinely interested in the project and wanted to stick with it long-term.
We then implemented a two-part strategy to identify and engage these power users.
1. Our focus was on finding genuine users who had a strong connection to the project and were likely to stay involved beyond the initial airdrop.
2. Our next task was to engage with power users outside of our usual platforms, X (Twitter) and Discord, which were overloaded with bots and casual followers. We needed a space where the right people could interact meaningfully. Here’s how we achieved that:
This is what the results looked like with just 4 weeks of engagement 👇
In the end, the newsletter did more than just filter out engagement farmers—it brought together over 16,000 genuine users who truly cared about the product. Plus, it sparked meaningful conversations, turning casual followers into a community.
Want us to work with you to deliver similar results for your project?
