[Thoughts #82] Engagement through NFTs with Cool Cats, Wonderpals and BAYC
How do you engage when everyone has ADD?
Over the past few days there have been a several events related to engagement that I found to be interesting. Let’s dive into them:
Cool Cats Community Council
The NFT project that started it all for me announced a Community Council, or the CCCC. Love the alliteration 😉
Last week, Cool Cats selected 8 Cool Cat community members onto the Council. There are still 2 open spots that will be voted on by the community, an effort that is kicking off this week.
This is a great initiative to engage their holder base and have their voice heard.
Some of the individuals on the Council are well respected members of the Cool Cats and broader NFT communities, while others are professionally successful outside of NFTs.
For example, when the Cool Cats team announced that they were looking for a new CEO in late April, Sighduck (the 1/1 Devil Cat) threw his hat in the ring and shared that he was an entrepreneur that has successful grown startups.
And Kat Cole? She’s the President and COO of Athletic Greens, a DTC health supplement startup that has raised over $115 million.
These aren’t your average Cool Cat holders that are on the Council to get more followers. They know how to build brands and how to build in general. And obviously, they care about Cool Cats!
As great of a community engagement initiative this is, I do wonder how effective it will be. Is this all for show to appease the community, or will they have a serious impact?
Will the CCCC have access to proprietary info? Will they have to sign NDAs?
If the Council has this access, how does the broader team ensure they don’t use that information to front-run any information or news, positive or negative?
Will there be a budget for the CCCC to executive community initiatives? Will there be access to internal resources beyond budget, such as engineering or design resources?
Update: Well #1 has been answered by a member of the Council! Benefits of writing about something that’s progressing real-time 😂
Because of that, the Council will not be able to share all the info they receive to the community. However, they’re able to be the eyes and ears from the community and direct insights, observations, and suggestions back to the team that doesn’t always have the time or perspective that the community does.
For #2, it’s likely that there will be some conditions that the Council will need to commit to beyond the NDA. The nice thing about this is I’ve seen a couple examples that have been set by other projects in the space. For example Truth Labs, the team behind Goblintown, has been transparent about their stance with team members buying/selling NFTs related to their collections.
As for #3, this one gets interesting and if done correctly, will really take the CCCC to the next level. The ability of the CCCC is clear, but is there authority? Add some resources ($ or skills) to the mix and this Council will be able to pack a punch.
Thinking about the Community Council that’s being built, I realized that there was no successful Web2 analog of this…at least that I’ve heard of. Why is that?
I would imagine previous iterations of these community councils wither away over time. The company probably thanks the Council for their time and input and put their recommendations at the bottom of the priorities list.
The biggest factor for success will likely rely on how much authority and autonomy the Cool Cats team will provide for the Council.
One example that touches upon what the CCCC is trying to do is with Ritz Carlton.
Though this is from a few years ago, the fact that this page is still up tells me this is a policy that’s still in effect. Better yet, “while the full $2000 could be used, it rarely is”. And that figure could be higher with the General Manager’s permission.
I hope the CCCC will be able to be implemented in a way that creates a win-win-win situation and ushers in another dimension to community empowerment and engagement for Cool Cats, the Council, and the Holders.
If successful, I imagine other projects will take note and implement their version of this.
On a separate but related note
Cool Cats is partnering with The Hundreds on some new merch! Who’s The Hundreds? A streetwear brand that has embraced Web3 and has a collection of their own. Their Co-Founder, Bobby Hundreds, is not only a creative visionary but also a great writer too.
Shoot…that’s some pretty cute merch.
What’s more interesting, and also related to the broader topic at hand is the amount of engagement on the original announcement for The Hundreds’ Twitter account.
In fact, if we were to look at the most popular Tweets from the The Hundreds, 3 out of the top 4 most popular tweets are related to NFTs.
If you’re still wondering why all these ‘random’ brands like Jarritos are getting in the space, these engagement levels help to provide a better idea.
WonderPals Summer WonderHunt
My fiancee and I spent our Saturday outdoors visiting a potential wedding venue…and participating in a scavenger hunt!
This wasn’t any old scavenger hunt though. It was one hosted by WonderPals, another NFT project.
ALL THAT for a chance of winning some hats or stickers?
People have done a lot more for a lot less 😂
But regardless of the opportunity for some stylish hats, it was a great date idea on a day where we weren’t too busy.
Several hours and one tweet later, the deed was done!
The scavenger hunt had us calling out “BICYCLE!!” every time we saw a bicycle. Even our lunch was based on items from the scavenger hunt
To satisfy the mushroom requirement. I wouldn’t normally order this pizza (no meat lol), but it was tasty!
To satisfy the fresh fruit requirement (under that pile of prosciutto lol).
Would we do another scavenger hunt if our schedules allowed? Probably, because they’re fun. Not because they’ll make us rich.
NFTs don’t need to provide some crazy benefit or utility to its holders. Sometimes, it’s a great way to provide inspiration for a new way to spend quality time. Similar to how we’re approaching the Wood Elf Wine experience.
BAYC Hits 1M followers
When I wrote about NFTs and their social media accounts last month, Bored Ape Yacht Club was at 977k followers.
Today, they’ve reached the 1 million follower milestone.
This was accomplished in 17 months. From an account that mainly just retweets community content lol.
Many BAYC holders celebrated with their own takes on the milestone
And…what’s this…A Twitter Spaces (this basically never happens, they’re pretty) from the account?! Probably something worth listening to tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped a big announcement during this.
So what?
TPan, thank you for sharing updates on your weekend and wasting my Monday.
My pleasure, dear reader.
Engaging your community in meaningful ways is hard. Engaging your community consistently and in this bear market is way harder.
Web3 projects and brands are doing it in their own ways as shown above, and there are also platforms like Hang that are bringing Web3 solutions to Web2 brands to evolve what loyalty and engagement could be.
IMO, engagement is not entirely the same as retention. It’ll take me a separate piece to dive into engagement and retention, but this is the way I see it from a brand perspective.
Engagement - Interacting with a brand. This can include but is not limited to purchasing something from the brand, following their social account(s), or just talking about the brand.
Retention - Continuing to be a consumer of the brand (vs. one-time). This can be inclusive of engagement, but usually involves more meaningful interactions such as continuing to use a product or pay for a product.
Visualizing this into one of my world famous charts.
The goal of all these efforts is to move to the top right quadrant. Having consumers or users that are not only engaged, but retained with the brand.
Will initiatives like scavengers hunts and community councils work? Only time will tell. But as we can see, the the NFT crowd is one that is highly engaged and retained with the right initiatives and growth loops.
For now, I can only hope that my brain doesn’t scream “BICYCLE” the next time I see one thanks to that scavenger hunt 😂
See you tomorrow folks! 🚲 🚳
Can’t believe Kat Cole is in on this!