GoViral Case Study: Setting Up an NFT Campaign
As we venture deeper into the Web3 era, many marketers wonder what role NFTs play in their work, and how they can get more hands-on with this new type of digital asset. At GoViral Blockchain we recently tackled these questions for a client, artist Jennifer Strings.
We’re committed to learning from experience, and we invite you to learn along with us.
First things first: Are you still fuzzy on what NFTs are and how they can be useful for marketers? Start with our essential guide, Intro to NFTs for Marketing.
Got the basics down? Great. Let’s go over the process of minting NFTs and listing them for sale.
How to Mint NFTs on OpenSea
Our client, artist Jennifer Strings, created a new collection of stop-motion animations during the COVID-19 pandemic. She wanted to share them with the world as NFTs, so GoViral got to work on the first step of making NFTs available: minting them.
Minting an NFT is another way to say creating an NFT. In simplified terms, minting means converting a digital file (in this case, a stop-motion video) into a digital asset to be stored on blockchain.
Because it is stored in a decentralized database or distributed ledger, the newly minted NFT cannot be edited, modified, or deleted.
OpenSea, which operates the largest NFT marketplace, is the gold standard NFT platform. See the overview below for the steps involved in minting NFTs on OpenSea.
1. Set up a crypto wallet and connect it to OpenSea
In order to mint NFTs on OpenSea, you will need cryptocurrency stored in a crypto wallet.
OpenSea accepts a range of cryptocurrencies, with Ethereum being the most popular. If you don’t already own Ethereum or another accepted currency, get started by buying cryptocurrency on an exchange such as Coinbase or Binance. These exchanges accept “fiat currency” (traditional currency like US Dollars or euros) in exchange for cryptocurrency.
How much do you need to get started? The number can vary based on your goals, your budget, and the ever-changing gas fees. A good range to have in mind is the equivalent of $100-$300 USD.
After purchasing cryptocurrency, choose a crypto wallet for storage. We recommend using MetaMask, the most popular wallet.
2. Create an OpenSea collection
After you’ve connected your crypto wallet to OpenSea, follow the steps below to create a collection:
A. Click the menu icon in the top right corner of the OpenSea homepage.
B. Select “My Collections” from the dropdown menu.
C. Click “Create a collection.”
D. Fill out the form with your collection’s name, description, and other relevant information, including categories and tags to help potential buyers find your work.
E. Choose a Logo Image, Featured Image, and Banner Image for your collection.
F. Choose whether to use your own contract or use the “Lazy Minting” method. If this is your first time minting NFTs, we recommend using Lazy Minting. The benefits include not paying any gas fees until someone buys your work.
G. Click on “Create” to finalize the creation of your collection.
3. Upload your work
You’re in the home stretch! Now it’s time to decide which of your assets you’d like to make available as an NFT in your collection.
Visit your new collection page and click “Add item” to mint and add an NFT.
OpenSea accepts the following file types for the creation of NFTs: JPG, PNG, GIF, SVG, MP4, WEBM, MP3, WAV, OGG, GLB, and GLTF.
How to List NFTs for Sale on OpenSea
Once you’ve uploaded your work to your OpenSea collection, you can list each item for sale. Simply click on the Profile icon on OpenSea and select the NFT you’d like to list from your wallet.
When listing an NFT for sale, you can choose Fixed Price or Auction. There are pros and cons to each.
In general Fixed Price is a good choice for those who are new to OpenSea, don’t want to negotiate on price, and have limited time to monitor the sale.
Auctions can be unpredictable and require more monitoring. Consider choosing Auction if your top priority is generating excitement and having the chance to sell for greater than a chosen list price.
Tips for Campaign Success
Congratulations! If you’ve followed the steps above, you’ve entered the new and exciting world of NFTs. A few more important tips from GoViral to ensure campaign success:
- Tell the story. Use descriptions that hook readers’ interest. Consider creating buyer personas for your work to help understand the mindset of potential buyers.
- Supplement your NFT listings with other digital marketing assets. Take a look at the video introduction to our client Jennifer Strings’ work, which GoViral supported from start to finish.
- Build the buzz. Our client has built an impressive Instagram following, whom she also keeps updated on her NFT listings.
Interested in starting your own NFT campaign? Tell us about your idea and we’ll be in touch.
Web3: What Is It and Why Should You Care?
You may or may not have heard the terms Web1, Web2 or Web3. Don’t worry if you haven’t. With so much technological change underway, it’s hard to keep up. In this article, we will cover the basic history of the World Wide Web and how Web3 will affect how marketers do business.
What is Web3?
Web3, or Web 3.0, is the third generation of the World Wide Web that is built, operated and owned by its users. New technologies are used to make a decentralized infrastructure of the internet, all while protecting personal privacy. Our GoViral Managing Director also talked a little about Web3 in the Takeaways from a Blockchain Convention blog. But before we dive deeper into Web3, here’s a little background information about how we got here.
Web1: 2001 to 2004
Web1 was the first iteration of the internet where you could view “read-only” content on static pages. Most of the users were consumers who didn’t produce any of the content. In this era the internet was decentralized, and there weren’t many protocols to govern what was posted.
Web2: 2004 to Today
In the Web2 era, the internet became a platform where you could create content, publish to forums, post on social media, create blogs, or buy and sell in marketplaces. This is the “read-write” second iteration of the net, where we currently stand today. Websites and social channels are centralized and governed by a few large tech companies.
Large companies use the internet to market to target audiences by collecting data from individuals. In a few short years, our personal data has become a valuable commodity and a debatable topic in terms of privacy concerns.
Web3: Progressing Toward the Future
In 2014, co-founder of the cryptocurrency Ethereum Gavin Wood was the first to term Web3 as a “decentralized online ecosystem based on blockchain.” Web3 uses blockchain and decentralized technologies to create a more democratic and fair online environment. The idea is that users would own the material they post and create, and even get compensated for it. The use of personal data would be transparent, both in how it is used and by whom.
Web3 would be the “read-write-own” internet where large tech companies don’t own pools of data in centralized points. Instead, data would be stored across multiple servers and not owned by one entity or group.
Gavin Wood also founded the Web3 Foundation, which is building the blockchain infrastructure of this next era. The Web3 Foundation believes in an internet where:
- Users own their own data, not corporations
- Global digital transactions are secure
- Online exchanges of information and value are decentralized
There are many other companies that are also working on similar projects to make Web3 a reality.
Why should you care about Web3?
We all get unwanted ads online. With Web3 and increased personal privacy regulations, marketers will have more difficulty accessing third-party data that is collected to run targeted campaigns. Marketers will have to find new ways to get customers to grant access to their personal data.
Web3 is still developing, but it’s good to stay informed and ahead to understand how these changes can affect your business. Here are some marketing tips that will help you grow your brand and customer loyalty in the next era of the internet:
- Community and Relationship Building – this might seem obvious, but brands will have to genuinely build trust with their customers in order to access them and their data and to stay connected.
- Better Products and Service Quality – over baseless ads and promises. Brands and businesses will have to live up to their promises to gain customer trust.
- Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Limited-Items – brands have already been starting to play around with using NFTs to reach their customers, like Nike selling 600 NFT sneakers. You can read more in our Intro to NFTs for Marketing article to find out how you can apply this to your business.
- New Loyalty Reward Systems – we all love loyalty reward systems and customers will want to be rewarded for sharing their personal information with other businesses. Digital tokens or other forms of reward systems will appeal to customers in the new Web3 era.
The Future of Web3: Is it Certain?
As we said before, Web3 is still in progress and there isn’t a complete Web3 infrastructure created as of yet. Some even are speculating that it’s a fad that won’t be developed, and questions of sustainability and scalability are at play.
What is certain is that as Web3 continues to develop, it’s best to stay informed and to prepare yourself for the possible changes in your marketing strategy. Need some help growing your blockchain business? Make sure to contact us below and we will be sure to reply!
Intro to NFTs for Marketing
What’s the deal with NFTs? You may have heard “non-fungible tokens” defined as digital artwork, but the applications of NFTs are so much greater. Here we explain what NFTs are, and how you can include them in your marketing strategy.
What is an NFT?
NFT stands for non-fungible token. No, it doesn’t have anything to do with fungi. Non-fungible means the token is unique and can’t be replaced or duplicated.
And what’s a token? A token is a cryptographic asset that lives on the blockchain and acts as a certificate of ownership.
In short, an NFT is a unique certificate of ownership.
NFTs are not synonymous with digital art. An NFT can represent art, either digital or physical, but it can also represent music, images, or clothing. Almost anything can be tokenized.
Why should I care about NFTs?
The movement from Web2 to Web3 promises to empower individuals by giving them ownership over their content and data. This includes decentralizing control—from a few large companies to individuals—through technology such as blockchain.
NFTs, which use blockchain for ownership verification, have become a symbol of the greater transition to Web3. An enthusiastic market for NFTs exists, waiting for brands to embrace decentralization and the shift in ownership from the few to the many.
Reasons to Use NFTs for Marketing Purposes
First things first, NFTs are relatively new, and the NFT market can be volatile. Think carefully before you use NFTs for marketing, and keep in mind there isn’t a long history to draw on to define best practices. That said, let’s take a look at how you can use NFTs for marketing to build your brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and create new sources of income.
1. Increase Brand Awareness
You can use NFTs to build awareness around your brand. Awareness can be difficult to measure, but it’s essential to your success. If you create and sell NFTs in conjunction with a new product or service, you can gain attention while also communicating your brand’s values.
More and more, customers care about your values, and investing time and energy in NFTs can show that you’re committed to decentralization and individual ownership of content and data. In short, that you believe in the democratization of the internet.
Norwegian Cruise Line recently minted six NFTs to mark the launch of a new class of cruise ships. The initiative created buzz and attention for the brand, and communicated Norwegian’s commitment to freedom, flexibility, and cutting-edge technology.
2. Convert Customers Into Evangelists for Your Brand
When you’ve engaged a lead enough to become your customer, it’s time to delight them. One way to do this: create NFTs out of the building blocks of your brand. For example, you can mint a series of unique versions of your logo, or the original hand-drawn concept for your brand’s visual identity.
Think of this as pulling back the curtain for your loyal customers to more deeply connect with your brand. Giving them the opportunity to own a piece of your creation story will demonstrate your openness and transparency.
3. Raise Money by Monetizing Exclusive Content and Experiences
Once you have a group of loyal customers who evangelize your brand, consider using NFTs to monetize exclusive content. Evangelists may be willing to pay for videos, how-to articles, or other content they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
Exclusive content can make your evangelists feel appreciated. You could set up an NFT that unlocks this content, much like a one-time charge for premium membership. You can also hold in-person events in which ownership of an NFT acts as a ticket for admission.
Take Anheuser-Busch’s recent event, NFT Beerfest, which gave Budweiser NFT owners a chance to tour their flagship brewery, participate in giveaways, and enjoy live performances.
Interested in using NFTs for marketing but not sure how to get started? Share your ideas with our GoViral Blockchain team, and we’ll be in touch!
Takeaways from a Blockchain Convention
Our Managing Director Belinda Filippelli recently attended the European Blockchain Convention (EBC) in Barcelona. As Europe’s premier blockchain event, EBC brought together more than 1,500 attendees from around the world to discuss the current state of blockchain and its promise for the future.
Keep reading for a Q&A with Belinda on her impressions of the event, thoughts on marketing for blockchain, and key takeaways for the GoViral Blockchain team.
Q: What was your overall feeling after attending EBC?
A: What was interesting to me about going to the European Blockchain Convention was that a lot of the excitement and passion around the event was very similar to what I experienced when I started working in the digital world in 1999. I was working in Switzerland for a nonprofit association for languages, localization and globalization. And during that time people were saying “Wow so if I have a website in another language then I can sell in different countries” and everybody was really excited about all of the opportunities that was going to bring.
But also during that time there wasn’t a lot of regulation. This industry was really young. A lot of the talk was very idealized, but you could see that it was going to take a while for the rest of the world to catch up because technology runs so much faster.
And now 25 years later, sitting in an event about blockchain and Web3 had the same kind of feeling. It was exciting once again to see this is an internet revolution that’s coming. But it’s going to be a very crowded marketplace, and it’s going to take a while before industries and legislation come together to make solutions more seamless for the user.
So my overall feeling was excitement. People are working on solutions for the future but my overall impression is that we’re still very far behind. The industry is still very immature.
Q: In terms of end users, what do you expect to come first? What would end users potentially notice first in the future?
A: One of the things that was really interesting was that one of the speakers, Benjamin Bilski from Nagax, showed statistics that in 1998 there were 200 million people who were using the internet and now in 2022 there are 200 million people who are using blockchain. So the idea is that we’re basically at the same place with Web3 as we were with the internet in 1998.
If you put yourself back in that place, what were people doing internet-wise? In 1998 there were 200 million users but people didn’t have it in their homes. They didn’t have it in their hands. They didn’t necessarily need it to work or so on. But it was something that was out there being used. And some people were saying “oh it’s just a trend, you know, it’s nothing.”
And then by 2006 smartphones were really starting to penetrate the market. So if you look at those eight years, you can see that we went from nobody really knowing what the internet was to people having the internet in their homes, starting to have to use it for their jobs, to actually having smartphones and internet in their hands at all times. And I think we’re looking at the same thing with blockchain.
What exactly will enter the market I can’t say for sure, but I know specifically that with GoViral we’re working in the healthcare industry with the first industry backed movement to implement blockchain, the PharmaLedger project. You can see why they have the ability to do this because already these companies have implemented or taken on the technology they need to move to the blockchain. And that’s going to be handed to the user through different use cases, like eLeaflets that help you to see all the information about your medication.
So what I see for end users is that it’s going to come from big providers, probably in the supply chain space. Definitely blockchain is not going to infiltrate the US by people getting on OpenSea and doing NFTs or trading cryptocurrency. That’s not going to be the mass way. It’s going to be just like in 1998 when people were on the internet to develop and create things, and then it started to come to users through their telephone providers, through their home TV providers and so on. That’s how I believe it’s gonna come.
Q: You’ve mentioned Web3 a few times. What does Web3 mean?
A: Basically Web1 was the first iteration of the internet where you could only read it. It was information that was up there for us to read.
Web2 is what all of us know now. It’s what GoViral is built on. In Web2 you can publish and you can create: blogging, people being able to make off-the-shelf websites, social media. We suddenly had all this power to say “oh I have a voice now within the internet. I can talk back to my company, I can complain about a situation.” And that was awesome.
That’s what I built GoViral on 11 years ago was empowering users and customers and teaching companies that they now needed to listen. And that meant a lot to me. But over a decade of me running this company, people are feeling less and less empowered by this voice they have on the internet because they have no control over their data, they have no control over where their data is sold and they have no governance within these platforms. So Web3 is going to be a shift like blockchain to decentralized content, where I as the publisher own my material, it’s transparent how my data is being used, and I can take part in governance.
One of the projects at EBC I particularly found interesting was Distrikt. I actually learned about them first in Dubai at the blockchain summit in October 2021. Distrikt is the first ever community-owned professional social network completely on the blockchain. So it’s definitely something that people can try right now. Right now they have 20,000 registered users. I just love the idea behind it. It’s a great way to show what I was talking about before, which is the idea that with Web2 users had a voice, but now they don’t feel so empowered and Web3 is going to give that empowerment again with ownership, transparency, and governance.
Q: From the marketing side, for Web3 and blockchain-enabled projects, it seems like one of the challenges would be to communicate what you were just talking about: the problems that this technology solves. What other challenges do you see in marketing for blockchain?
A: One of the questions on the marketing side is that there are so many barriers to people adopting new technology because they have so many years of mistrust. And there needs to be a real shift in the idea of what it means for our data, our digital data, to be centralized or decentralized. We also have to be able to explain in a simple way the importance of the shift from centralized to decentralized.
But there are still going to be barriers. The most important thing is to show people how the technology is going to make their life better. And that’s not going to happen through a marketer like me, but through an industry coming and creating a solution.
I’m also working in pharma, and there’s a big mistrust of pharma. So it will be interesting to see how people accept this kind of information. But again, it’s technology that’s being offered to users that is not owned by someone, it’s not owned by these companies in pharma, they can’t use the data in any way. So I feel excited about it, but we’ll have to deal with a lot of negativity as well. Quite frankly in the 11 years of GoViral we’ve dealt with negativity because there are a lot of people who still hate social media and hate online marketing in general.
We just strive to make sure we’re doing work within the digital field that really matters to us, that isn’t taking advantage of users in order to gain money for companies, but really creating a nice community where companies are reaching the people that are most likely to want and need and appreciate what they’re offering. And without taking advantage of those users. At GoViral our way of creating inbound marketing and digital we’ve been really successful at that, and that’s the approach we take with blockchain solutions as well.
Q: What is your perspective on the vocabulary of blockchain and Web3? How do you address that as a marketer when, for example, people think of blockchain as synonymous with cryptocurrency?
A: When it comes to vocabulary and understanding, it just takes time. We can joke about having a family member that still calls it the world wide web, you know? Even in my own company we still will have conversations with clients where they’re describing their profile as a page or vice versa, so as a communicator words are important.
This technology is going to give us a whole new language that nobody really understands. I think blockchain, NFTs, the metaverse – it’s all going to be kind of interchangeable and there’s not going to be a lot of understanding around it. And that is always the challenge.
But I find the most important thing is to always tell real-life case studies. It’s not so important to explain to the user “oh but this is ledger technology. We’re using crypto but it’s a blockchain-based, etc.” it’s more important that they just understand that now you don’t have to pay fees on transactions at your bank, you’re gonna see the money come up automatically, or you don’t have to go to a mortgage broker or use a lawyer to manage your money, or to refinance your home, or to create a will and testament in the future.
All these things are going to empower us to be able to do things on the blockchain that we weren’t able to do before, but the most important thing is to show people that they now don’t need third-party intermediaries and that they’re going to save money. And that’s going to speak to them and make them adopt way more than even transparency, trust, and governance. Which is the blockchain line right now. I think the future will be: “Cheaper, Easier, and You Don’t Need to Talk to All These Other People.” That will be enough for people.
Are you working on a blockchain-related project? We want to hear about it! Share your ideas with us and we’ll be in touch.