What Does it Take to Build Successful Communities in Web3?

If you’ve been following the crypto and NFT space at all, one thing is abundantly clear with every successful project: they focus heavily on community building. It often isn’t clear on the surface what strategies are used from one project to the next, and it turns out a lot happens in the background behind the scenes.

We reached out to Skye Ruedas, a reputable web3 consultant who specializes in community development to learn more. He has helped build, moderate, and maintain communities for multiple projects alongside PennyFly Entertainment including Macroverse, DashLeague, BitBuddies, and ESTN.

“The most important element of any web3 initiative, especially NFT based projects, ultimately boils down to the community around it. Of course you want everyone to be active and excited, but it’s that exclusive ‘SoHo House’ feel that projects aim to cultivate. If people feel like they’re a part of something truly different and unique while meeting new like-minded friends along the way, you’re on to something.”

Skye went on to explain that building strong communities is not an easy or overnight effort by any means; it takes persistence and a wide range of marketing approaches to generate interest in something new within already-existing communities, and arguably even more effort to maintain engagement once more and more people join. Running giveaways, AMAs, and cross-collaborations with other projects are among the top performing methods. It’s all about providing value – going around asking other projects if they’ll help advertise your project to their already proven community won’t work unless you’ve got something to offer in return. Actually purchasing their NFTs in support of their project and immersing yourself as a true member of their community can go a very long way, as well as offering cash giveaways to their community in return for exposure.

To achieve ideal results, Skye emphasized that custom strategies are required to fit the unique style, tone, and demographic of the project. While there are some fundamental building blocks that are common across all web3 endeavors, a true one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t exist.

“There are also a lot of questionable tactics utilized that we’ve seen in the marketplace as well, such as scripting Discord bots to spam the members of other communities, and devs involved with the project buying their own NFTs on the secondary market for absurd amounts of money to create the illusion of popularity and value.”

Everyone in the space knows that Discord is the app of choice for where these communities live, but few understand how complex and tedious it is to maintain an active, well-organized, and secure server adhering to cultural “best practices”. According to Skye, vulnerable Discord servers are often the #1 way most projects collapse. All it takes is for one member’s Discord account to be compromised – if they have a high level of administrative or moderation privileges, there are a number of malicious actions that can permanently damage the project. Deleting the entire discord server can be done in only a few clicks – while some hackers will post announcements from the compromised trusted account, directing the entire community to click links designed to solicit crypto. 

“At the end of the day, if you take care of your community and communicate openly, this goes a long way as it is easier said than done. The real challenge is building a great community from scratch, but it is also incredibly fun when you’ve been immersed in the space as long as I have and work with the right people.”

Ruedas recognized that there are a lot of teams struggling with these foundational aspects of project development, and is currently offering a free consulting session for a limited time to anyone interested in learning more. His management can be reached via info@pennyflyent.com with any inquiries.