[Short #70] A Q from LinkedIn
Plus, a WW3 update!
WW3 Update
Wait…World War 3?! That’s terrible 🙅♂️
No, Write Web3 silly! This is the 'Seal Team 6' that I’m building with other Web3 writers.
We are at war though.
So what have we done in the past 2 weeks?
Reached the v0.1 goal of 10 writers in a Discord DM group. It’s a party in the chat!
We’re focusing on being quality > quantity at this stage. The loftier the building, the deeper the foundation needs to be laid. 🏗
We had our first Twitter Spaces earlier today!
Notes here (will move over to Notion soon)
We will hold recurring WW3 Twitter Spaces Wednesdays at 9am PT/12pm ET moving forward, so feel free to join in on the fun!
Next Steps
We will maintain an observation period of about a week before graduating to a Discord server, otherwise known as v0.2
Move documentation over to Notion
Build website on Notion. Maybe something prettier in the future!
Continue having more conversations with Web3 writers organically and referrals
Continue making fun Web3 Writing memes. I’ll let you guess who’s running the Twitter account. 😉
Stay tuned and hope to see some of you hop into the next Twitter Spaces!
A Question from Linkedin
A couple days ago I got a question from a recent subscriber via LinkedIn
1) Appreciate the question!
2) Great question
The crappy part is great questions are hard to answer.
I responded (aka rambled on because I was about to go to bed) and realized that if this person is thinking about this topic, some of you might be as well! So here are my thoughts on this topic in a more refined way + examples vs. a long block of stream of consciousness text I responded with haha.
Do you think Web2 companies are partnering with Web3 as a brand play?
It depends, but in short absolutely. A great example of this was yesterday’s post on Decentraland events. Netflix, CBS, Jose Cuervo, Miller Lite x J Balvin, these are some big brand names.
However, they’re hosting events in a metaverse that has less than 1,000 weekly active users?! I would bet that it’s not exactly a profitable effort.
However, is it worth having the brand be a part of a new emerging ecosystem and as it grows, be able to say ‘hey, we’ve been here for a while and we do some cool stuff, check us out’? Also, absolutely.
The way I see it is, these efforts are more of a “brand and _______” play, and the most obvious one at the moment is engagement.
Let’s take a brand that has recently entered the world of Web3 and NFTs from a partnership standpoint (for more details, check out Build, Buy, Partner): Jarritos.
Jarritos? Those fruit sodas from Mexico?? Yep!
What’s that PFP? It’s from an established project called Gutter Cat Gang. Not to be confused with Cool Cats (the mascot for this newsletter), but we love all the cats 😸.
Naturally this is a brand play, but is it also an engagement play? Let’s see.
Here’s their ‘Hello Web3’ tweet.
I guess those 2 sentences resonated with a lot of folks. Also:
They mentioned one of the C’s in my 3C framework for NFTs: Culture. Maybe they read my piece 🤝
This tweet was on June 9th, that’s notable. Why? Crypto (and overall markets) was already in the early stages of a bear market. Yet Jarritos moved forward with this marketing campaign to venture into Web3. Guess Jarritos just YOLO’ed it like the rest of us 😵💫
Speaking of engagement, this created a pop in their follower account moving forward. Jarritos still tweets and replies to regular folks tagging Jarritos, but overall they’re focusing on Web3 and NFTs.
Looking at Social Blade stats, the Jarritos Twitter account was basically stagnant. The account even lost followers some weeks. Internally, there was likely a channel x content disconnect. Or maybe they just didn’t pay enough attention to Twitter vs other social media accounts (we’ll get to that in a sec 😉)
But what happened after that initial Web3 tweet?
They still don’t even tweet that much but they’re having consistent account growth and a stronger brand with a specific audience base as well as healthy engagement.
Two months ago this account was getting 0 - 20 followers a week, even lost users some weeks. Now they’re getting 80 followers a day focusing on a niche space and audience.
So what did Jarritos do that caused this increase in engagement, followers, etc.?
Partnered with established NFT communities
Engaged with the broader NFT/Web3 community. The tweets are the standard reply-baiting, but still nice to see that they’re engaged at least to a degree.
Bought NFTs. And these were not some small time NFTs. Some of these JPEGs still cost a pretty penny.
Great, seems like Jarritos has figured out their short/medium term strategy for Twitter growth and engagement. What about their other channels?
Nothing to see here folks, move along. And to that, I say good job! Jarritos understands that channel x content fit is important, and IG is generally not the place to share your brand’s NFT collection.
[Offense] Twitter: Less to lose, take bigger swings
[Defense] IG: More to lose, stay the course
Other brands have done similar things and much earlier on. That said, I want to give a shoutout to the Jarritos degens that stayed the course jumping into Web3 during this turbulent market. 👏 I’m looking forward to seeing more brands make these plays over time.
If Web2 giants are threatened by the Web3 model, will they ever fully pursue web3 genuinely?
Yes and no.
Before I expand, take note that this question is specifically about Web2 companies. Plenty of Web3 companies are earnestly building and scaling with Web3 principles. There are also plenty of Web3 companies that are ‘pursuing’ ‘Web3’ ‘genuinely’.
Yes
I do think that there are Web2 companies that genuinely believe in Web3 principles and want to incorporate them in a reasonable way.
The reason I say reasonable is because as it stands today, it’s probably impossible to completely switch over from Web2 to Web3. I won’t get into detail with all the considerations, but we can just start with changing a single vendor at a big company. That process takes months if not years end-to-end.
Also, pursuing Web3 can take many forms. In order for less to more intensive:
[Jarritos] Positioning the brand to support Web3 and participate in the Web3 economy. IRL partnerships only, for now.
[KITH] Partnering with Invisible Friends to launch their own NFT collection.
[Nike] Purchasing RTFKT to push forward their Web3 vision.
In the 3 examples above, I believe that these brands are genuinely pursuing Web3 in their own way, and it’s great to see!
No
I believe that any large Web2 company that is pursuing Web3 today is more of a R&D project of sorts, supported by a small team. Web3 from a mass market (like billions of users level) perspective is still too early.
There’s too many scams, lack of quality information, and general confusion about Crypto/Web3/NFTs.
To sum it up in 1 word: Risk
It makes sense for some companies like Salesforce or Shopify to build out Web3 capabilities and integrations so they’ll be ready if a wave of interest comes. But making Web3 a priority? I don’t think they’re convinced.
The way I see it working is a symbiotic relationship between Web2 and Web3 divisions at a company. They’d be able to share learnings, strategies, and tactics, but they will likely be working on different initiatives and targeting different audiences.
Sorta reminds me of companies with a multi-SKU product lines. Let’s take Proctor & Gamble for example.
One of P&G’s products is their line of feminine care products, like Always.
Another of P&G’s products is their line of men’s care products, like Old Spice.
Holy shit that’s a lot of Old Spice.
The Always & Old Spice teams are able to share learnings (and maybe even some resources), but they will adjust accordingly for their audience.
So how what’s the best example of this today? Nike x RTFKT.
I wrote about it a few weeks ago, but TLDR is I believe they’ve created a model that other Web2 giants will likely start considering. Using Disney (one of my favorite companies to use for examples) on the topic of NFT commercial rights:
That’s the closest thing I see for Web2 transitioning to Web3, for now.
Got any more questions? Happy to share my long-winded thoughts 💭
See you tomorrow!