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- Wen Marketing?
You call that a pullback? We’ve been here before. Welcome to Crypto, Wall Street.
Flamingo Joe #4
Here is what happened in N3 the past week:
The entire market has dumped over the past few days. It’s not the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last. On March 19, $NEO hit a seven-day low of $13.25, down 27.6% from the seven-day high of $18.29.
“Wen Marketing?”
The American actor and writer Will Rodgers made famous a phrase about first impressions. He said, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
If I were someone looking for information about Neo and found the Neo community online, my first impression would not be a good one. Twitter, Discord, and Reddit represent Neo's digital doorstep. These are the online forums where people are most likely to first find Neo and its community. They are littered with the sour gripes of Neo “investors,” grievances of developers, resentment of salty bag holders, and lack of information from the people at the helm of the blockchain.
Despite the boisterous presence of genuine advocates seeking to educate these forums about Neo, the good energy is shadowed by members' constant vitriol. These complaints have a running theme: “Wen marketing?”
The number one criticism of Neo that you’ll find online is that there is a lack of marketing. A quick search on Twitter and Reddit shows that this question has been asked many times over the past three years. More importantly, no search has to be made to understand that marketing is a perceived problem in the Neo ecosystem.
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The bitter tone and genuine inquiry surrounding marketing are serious problems. How can Neo be expected to continue to grow and gain adoption if the first impression newcomers and potential developers have is of a bitter community yearning for marketing?
Contemplating this marketing problem leads to three questions: (1) What is marketing? (2) What role does Neo Global Development have in marketing?; and (3) What role does the Neo community have in marketing?
What Is Marketing?
The answer to this question is a juxtaposition of complex and simple framing. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” This definition is marked by the gravitas of the organization that put the time, effort, and consideration into crafting it. It is complex because a reader is led toward further inquiry into “activities,” “creating,” and “communicating” rather than arriving at the core of what “marketing” is.
Seth Godin is an extremely well-regarded marketer. His simple definition is: “If you need to persuade someone to take action, you're doing marketing.” Whether you write copy on your website, post selfies on social media, or answer questions in an online forum, you’re marketing.
In the crypto context, marketing is generally associated with community-building efforts. This is because with a healthy community comes adoption, and with adoption comes growth. With growth comes investment, and with investment comes NUMBER GO UP.
“Community” is a very broad and encompassing term. In a bear market, a community was anyone who believed in a token enough to be willing to HODL. In a bull market, community means more. It means that people are persuaded to choose one blockchain over others at a time when all projects seem to be doing well. Thus, persuasion and the actions to invoke it become a focal point in marketing and community building.
The Seth Godin definition above arrives at the core of marketing and also provides a framing for what I think most of the people in the Neo community are complaining about. They may not have a definitive answer for what marketing is. Still, they know when they don’t sense any effort to meaningfully persuade people to take the desired action of building, buying, participating in, and using the Neo blockchain.
Neo’s marketing problem is that of actions to persuade people. On the one hand, are the people at the helm of the blockchain, Neo Global Development (NGD). These are the people presumably led by Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang to continually develop the blockchain. On the other hand, are the Neo community at large. The people developing, using, investing, and generating content in and around Neo.
Each has its role in marketing. Each has its problems. Both can improve together.
Neo Global Development’s Role
The role of Neo Global Development is to attract and keep builders—plain and simple. Every blockchain starts with builders, then creators, and users. Every blockchain also ends with a lack of builders. No developers means inadequate coding, deprecating tools, and nothing for creators to build on for users to engage with.
In the past, NGD has taken specific action to attract builders. After rebranding to Neo from Antshares in June 2017, NGD hosted the first Neo Dev Con in San Francisco in early 2018. Since then, Neo has hosted hackathons, funded new projects and content creators like Neo News Today, and, most importantly, invested in hiring people that represented the promise of a bright future of growth for the blockchain. John deVadoss, the former head of NGD Seattle, and Harry Pierson, the former Chief Architect of NGD Enterprise, are great examples of the actions taken by NGD. Both have now moved on from Neo and are missed. Especially Harry, a.k.a. DevHawk.
What has happened recently that gives community members the impression that NGD has stopped making significant marketing efforts? Why do people think there is no marketing to attract developers?
Online and IRL Presence
To attract builders, you have to go where the builders are. Online, builders are looking for information on the blockchain website and tooling documentation. They are looking for support in better resources and access to information. As mentioned above, DevHawk was not only someone working on documentation but also someone available “in the trenches” online, on Discord, for example, to provide information and answer questions.
Today, the impression is that documentation is “lacking and knowledge gaps can’t be filled.”
On both Reddit and Discord, there has been a growing sentiment that NGD is losing focus and letting things fall through the cracks. NGD’s primary focus should be on the action that attracts and keeps developers.
To their credit, NGD has taken some positive steps towards attracting developers. The Da Hongfei articles on toxic MEV bots (see the newsletter from March 6) published recently have driven the NEO X narrative. The sidechain itself is marketing for NEO. By creating an EVM sidechain, NGD is taking action to persuade Ethereum developers to come build on NEO X and NEO. Also, NGD has provided funding for projects like Linkd Academy via GrantShares to address education and information availability.
At the same time, NGD has made some poor “marketing” decisions. The first is the inaction around documentation and tools. If a small community of would-be developers is complaining about a lack of these things, there should be immediate action to address this. In the past, these issues would most likely be handled by DevHawk (mentioned above). However, his absence is obvious now. NGD should increase “marketing” by finding the people to fill the gaps of maintaining the tools, providing the knowledge and updating the documentation.
The second poor marketing decision is the online impression NGD has chosen to present. The Neo website needs more frequent updating and a road map of what is being done. It has been a long time since it was updated and the information and people on it are outdated. The @Neo_Blockchain X account could be more active with original posts instead of reposts. NGD member could use that X account to host spaces and engage with community members.
Above all else, Neo could end the nonsense of an AI-generated brand ambassador engaged in “lifestyle marketing.” Naeomi, the creation of Fame AI, became the official Neo Blockchain brand ambassador on March 1. It’s unclear what brand she is promoting when the daily posts take inspiration from wannabe Instagram models at the Soho Beach House in Miami.
None of the daily posts have done anything to inform or educate people on Neo. In a “this would be funny if it weren’t real” series of tweets, she posted about eating a “cheat meal” hamburger and then the next day working out to make up for the burger. This woman isn’t real.
Step into the shoes of a developer who is frustrated because they cannot find answers to their questions about Neo documentation. They go online, and they see this AI-generated woman creating lifestyle marketing posts. Would you blame them for wondering what kind of community members NGD is trying to attract? Are those community members in alignment with the kind of community that the developer wants for their app?
Lastly, NGD is making a poor marketing decision by not engaging more with potential community members in the West. This can be done “in real life” (IRL) by having a presence at conferences in the West. It can also be done by engaging Western content creators to fill the gaps in knowledge and information about Neo.
Neo created a buzz at Consensus last year with their booth. It was a shame to see NGD members at ETH Denver this year who didn’t present at the conference or have a booth, especially because of the news about NEO X. To my knowledge, there will be no Neo presence at Consensus 2024 in Austin. These conferences are IRL opportunities to meet devs, answer their questions, and remind people that Neo is still BUIDLing. It isn’t a 2017 “dino chain” slowing degrading into nothing.
Despite these mistakes, it is indisputable that NGD is taking some action to attract developers. This is the one marketing role community members should expect of NGD. A newsletter, a website, and maybe an ad or sponsored content are great, but without developers, there is no long-term project. Convince the devs to BUIDL on Neo and the growth will follow.
The Community’s Role
Community members have a fair expectation that NGD engages in “marketing,” as described above. Is it fair to say that the community shares part of that marketing role? I think it is.
Communities are only as good as their members. Crypto is such an interesting space in the context of marketing because of the differences between Web2 and Web3 communities.
In Web 2, once communities take shape, it is the role of a company to engage in traditional marketing “plus plus.” So, think of newsletters, websites, and ads as the marketing used to build a community. Then, community managers step in with Discord channels, Telegram, Slack, etc. The community entity becomes an asset to the Web2 company and an extension of its marketing department. The community will buy into the service or product being sold to them, or they won’t, and members will leave.
In Web 3, communities take shape, but blockchains must share them with members who have a stake. The community becomes a shared entity to be actively managed by both the blockchain developers and the members who “bought into the chain.” Members can’t simply leave if they no longer buy into the chain if doing so incurs a financial loss. In crypto, a long-term community member may just be a bag holder forced to HODL in a bear market while hoping for an exit opportunity in the next bull market.
Neo has a few forced HODLers. Some are realistic about the nature of bull and bear markets. Some have a sense of humor and joke at their own expense about waiting for “$NEO to pump.” Some have a caustic attitude driven by the consequences of their own investment decisions.
The latter of these forced HODLer community members, “The Salty Boyz,” gather in a troop of cackling macaques online to gripe, make incognizant entitled demands, and chant “wen marketing?” to any and all who would listen to or platform them.
These community members may have some valid criticisms of Neo and NGD; however, any lucid point to be made is lost in the manic hyperbole of complaints and requests that NGD satisfy their personal checklists for demands of satisfaction.
SALTY BOYZ
The glaring problem is that this is marketing. The community forums of Discord, Twitter, and Reddit are littered with these Salty Boyz engaged in the marketing of “everything in Neo is bad, and I’ll complain no matter what.”
The front doorstep of Neo gives the first impression of unassisted devs, angry community members, and a community of complainers. How is this impression going to induce anyone to take further action concerning Neo?
Mind the Gap
The community has the important role of filling some of the gaps they see not being addressed by NGD. While NGD should concentrate on marketing to the builders, the community could do its part to educate, inform, and positively spread the word about Neo.
Content creation, like this newsletter, is one form of community marketing. Other community members create much more informed content regularly, and others just simply inform people all the time (Thank you, dylan.neo). There are opportunities for Spaces on X, channels on Discord, and posts on Reddit.
Complaints about marketing in Neo aren’t unique to that community. Before 2019, there were many complaints and demands for “wen marketing” in the Ethereum blockchain community. Members of the community formed a marketing DAO to constructively address the marketing demands they had. They took action. Maybe it’s time for a NEO Marketing DAO?
If a Neo community member sees a gap in the “marketing” effort they desire, they can “mind the gap” and fill it by stepping up. Community members have “skin in the game” by simply holding $NEO. If they share the end goal of a better Neo blockchain, it’s incumbent on them to create the kind of marketing they would like to see.
Better Marketing. Better Community. Papa Joe’s.
The international pizza chain Papa John’s has a well-known slogan: “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza. Papa John’s.”
What does pizza have to do with crypto or Neo? (IYKYK)
I think Papa John’s slogan applies to crypto marketing, especially Neo. NGD has the marketing responsibility to attract the right devs - to use better ingredients. The community has its role to play in minding the gap and being part of a better blockchain.
Great! That settles it. Better marketing will lead to a better community, and a better community will lead to a better Neo blockchain.
So, Wen marketing?
As soon as we take responsibility for the marketing we do and the marketing that’s done to us, we have a chance to make things better