Figuring out how to build an nft community can be difficult, and there are some common pitfalls you’ll want to avoid. It’s more than clicking a ‘create a group’ button on a social platform.
It takes much more work and longer than you would expect. However, it’s possible to grow a community that becomes a valuable resource for many individuals.
We go in-depth on how to grow an NFT community, what types of nft communities exist, and how an nft community can become successful.
Let’s start with the basics:
What’s an NFT Community?
An NFT community becomes a group of individuals who share meaningful interactions on a routine basis while educating, information, or entertaining others.
It’s a mutual relationship based on commonalities between individuals, places, or things.
When building an NFT community, conceptualized as collectors getting together to talk about their digital art investments and what’s going on in the crypto/finance world, however, not all nft communities are like that.
Types of NFT Communities To Build
Instead, these NFT communities can be both online or in-person with a focus on interactions. These interactions between commonalities make it a community. Most communities have one commonality; however, they can have more.
Here are a few examples of the different types of communities you can build:
1. Interests/Passions
Collectors of non-fungible tokens appreciate art and new technology. So they find a set time to discuss and find out the latest on what’s changing in the industry.
2. Goal/Purpose
Individuals with the focus to flip NFT to be extra income to become a side hustle. They like to discuss ways to sell NFTs to others for profit and what did or didn’t work when doing it.
3. Struggle/Pain
Crypto investors who lose money when the market goes through a correction have experienced a challenging event that makes them able to relate to each other more. Each can help others that need it.
4. Geolocation
For example, some NFT Collectors live in NY and attend crypto conferences in the same area.
They can drive a few miles, visit a conference, or fly in from another state/country. All can enjoy their experience in the exact location.
5. Situational
Group of NFT Moderators for a specific project (co-workers). They work together and have stories or use cases where each can relate and grow from each other’s experiences.
Communities are not customers. However, they do have buyer power. Therefore, understanding how to create value for community members brings the most benefit.
What Makes an NFT Community Successful Online
Onboarding
Having a smooth recruitment process for getting new community members into the culture helps the community grow over time.
Community members want to feel they have something in common, like a purpose or goal with others. However, when arriving as someone new to the community, it can be challenging to feel like you belong or have similar interests.
What you can do to build an nft community onboarding experience:
- Setting up an onboarding section within your community or having rituals for onboarding can help make every new member feel welcome.
- Provide conversations and feedback so people feel included and accept thoughts and recommendations.
- A simple ‘hello’ from the moderator can go a long way and host games or contests, allowing everyone to participate simultaneously.
Engagement
Getting members to participate by asking questions, posting photos, or answering polls helps grow the bond between members.
What you can do to increase engagement among your nft community:
- Host live streams through Youtube, Facebook Video, or within Discord
- Get guest speakers who are experts to participate in ‘Ask Me Anything (AMA)
- Tell your members to invite their friends
Rewards
Giveaways or a rewards system help strengthen the community to stick together for long periods. In addition, some communities create a point system that allows you to own a portion of the community.
Others create decentralized treasures to allow members to decide on where to spend the money and how often it becomes available to use.
For example, The Bat Cowl collection from DC gives members a 3+ year experience and allows members to vote on what happens within the new DC comic books.
They essentially reward members by letting them become among the decision-making process for how their comics tell a story.
What You Can Do to Reward Members in Your NFT Community:
- Give badges to your most loyal members
- Do random giveaways of unique non-fungible tokens
- Freebies like whitelisting members for exclusive nft projects
Examples of Great NFT Communities
Each community can have multiple elements such as ‘interest/passion’ and ‘goal/purpose,’ or ‘geolocation’ and ‘situational.’
In order to build an nft community, it largely depends on how the community owner wants to position the group and starts with identifying the value they’ll bring to that audience.
Let’s go over some examples of great digital or physical nft communities:
1. Vee Friends
The owner is Gary Vee, a thought leader in the digital space for years. Get to attend an in-person conference exclusive to vee friend holders as an annual event for up to 3 years.
It strengthens the community around a common interest and passion for Gary’s message.
2. Bored Ape Yacht Club
An exclusive community having in-person meetups provide access to celebrities and musical or other talent performances. Additionally, their commercial copyright license permits you to monetize from the brand they’ve built.
3. World of Women
WOW represents creating a future with inclusion and equal representation for all. Individuals come together to celebrate people from around the world, from NFT collectors to first-time collectors and web3 builders. It’s a mission-driven community giving exclusive benefits to those who participate.
For other examples of nft projects consider learning about blue chip nft collections.
Within these communities, you can expect to see individuals who understand that they are in the non-fungible token space for the long haul and hold throughout the crypto winters.
Also, you are other individuals knowledgeable about crypto issues yet willing to invest time, money, and effort to see the nft space grow.
Questions Every NFT Community Owner Should Ask
Each nft discord moderator or community owner influences impact relationships between members. Therefore, learning how to create a safe environment for helpful, informative, or entertaining conversations is a must.
Using these three questions, you can dial into what makes your nft community different from others and unique.
- Are friendships made within this community?
- Can members fully express themselves?
- Is the community free of spam or unwanted behavior?
The most critical task is to identify the perks and benefits your nft community will give members. What will they like or what will they use? How will they feel, and will they come back?
Here are a few ideas of benefits you can use for building an nft community:
- Merchandise: Excellent for goal/purse communities as they can spread their message
- Events: Perfect for interest/passion communities as they can connect with others
- Giveaways: Wonderful for those who are looking to win rare NFTs or raffles
- Freebies: Great for collectors who are first-timers looking to get into the hobby
- Whitelisting: Exciting for NFT collectors looking for new upcoming projects
Pick the Right Platform To Build An NFT Community
There are numerous platforms you can use to build an nft community; however, each has pros vs. cons.
It’s good to know what type of community you plan to create first and then come up with the platform they use most often.
Deciding on the right platform for your nft community requires patience and deductive reasoning.
If you find less success on one platform, you can change to another; however, you could be damaging your brand reputation by abandoning the platform.
1. Discord
A discord online community connects multiple people using many devices such as smartphones, computers, and tablets through audio and written communications. It’s a dedicated server where you can create individual channels separating conversations. Here are the ’11 best nft communities on discord’ you can join. If you’re looking to become a discord mod, our guide can help you.
2. Facebook: (Meta)
Facebook groups allow users to post photos, videos, polls, and written text for others to see. In addition, there are numerous within these communities, such as creating an e-commerce store where collectors can shop directly within the community.
3. YouTube
A YouTube channel has subscriptions, and they can get notified when a new video is available via a community tab. The community tab also gives them the chance to answer polls, and each video has comments making it easy for everyone to engage on one topic at a time.
4. Reddit
Like online forums like Quora, Reddit operates with sub threads where users can ask questions and get others to answer them.
It’s known for being the original internet before the internet. NFT collectors use Reddit to stay up to date with the latest upcoming nft projects before they become mainstream or over-hyped.
5. Twitter
Twitter spaces is an audio-only community that focuses on providing value for those within the app searching for a specific hashtag or topic. Brands and individuals have the opportunity to create a ‘Twitter space’ conversation creating an open mic-like experience digitally.
Audience First Creates a Successful Community
Ask yourself questions such as ‘Where do I find others who express interest in this topic or product?’. Another question to consider is ‘Where do these individuals have the most excellent chance to express themselves?.
You may find that Twitter is better for the type of community you want to build than YouTube since you want lots of conversations and opinions.
If you’ve enjoyed reading about the process of building an nft community, you may also like:
- How to Become an NFT Discord Moderator in Communities
- Why Failed NFT Projects Happen (How To Avoid It)
- 5 Best NFT Roadmap Examples for Creators
