How NFT communities work

It is important to recognise that communities are the most important part of NFT projects and subsist in many different ways on many different platforms. These community members are a project’s customers, marketers, future employees, testers, and friends. In this step we outline how NFT communities work and where you can find them.

Twitter

Twitter is where NFT communities generally originate, NFT projects will begin by launching their twitter profile to start interacting with the community. It is here that they have a direct line to a community and if their marketing strategy is done right and they can create good connections, the team can build a large community very quickly. One way to do so is to engage with celebrities and accounts with large followings to buy you NFT and get them to post it on their account. These endorsements can provide great exposure to your project and is an effective marketing technique. You will also see larger projects such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) form and leverage strategic partnerships with brands or celebrities to grow their community. However, if your project grows too rapidly it can be hard to manage their rapid influx and you may lose some of your early members to all the noise.

Discord/Telegram

At the same time as creating a Twitter account, the team will often create a discord or telegram (sometimes both) to provide a forum for community members to engage. The discord or telegram group often offers an intimate experience to cultivate the community with others who are passionate about the project. It also provides a direct line to the project creators. From there those that engage in these channels will begin to form relationships with others and the team. Those that are active are often asked to help out on the project either via test minting, helping build the community and even just suggesting ways in which the founders can improve the project. This can lead to further paid work and opportunities within the project. Furthermore, in these channels, the project team will often host fun activities such as scavenger hunts, puzzles and riddles or host giveaways to help grow their community. They will also use these channels to notify the community of updates, announcements, and any other important information.

DAOs

Some NFT projects are also establishing Decentralised Autonomous Organistions (DAOs) to help manage the large treasuries that the projects amass in a collective manner. The community members will use forums to submit and discuss proposals for allocationing funding from the treasury, the DAOs governance rules, the opportunity for partnerships, and marketing amongst other things. An interesting example is NounsDAO who have in the past used their treasury for marketing, creating comics and colouring books. They even sent one of their NFTs to the international space station. However, how the DAO operates will vary between communities and is up to them to decide collectively.

Website

Going to the project’s website is a great way to learn more about the project, its team, and often where you will first mint the NFT before they go up for resale. So, if you want to be the first one to mint the project’s NFT you will often have to go to their website. However, some projects do launch straight onto platforms like Rarible or OpenSea. A good example of a project’s website is Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which we will explore further later this week.

Metaverse

NFT projects are beginning to explore the metaverse as an opportunity to further engage with their community. Bored Ape Yacht Club for example is building out their project “Otherside” which will become a digital economy for the BAYC community, where members can purchase digital plots of land, have virtual avatars based off their NFTs and transact using the projects native token “APEcoin”.

NFT Art Galleries

Digital Art Galleries have been created now where NFT owners or Artists can display their NFTs for people to browse. Additionally, exhibits have been created in the metaverse for people to get a more immersive experience. There are also physical art galleries that are displaying NFTs for people to come and view in person. In-person events Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is a good example of an NFT community transferring over into the real world. They have begun to host private events for their NFT holders, in the form of yacht parties, Halloween dress up parties etc.

In-person events

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is a good example of an NFT community transferring over into the real world. They have begun to host private events for their NFT holders, in the form of yacht parties, Halloween dress up parties etc.

Conclusion

This is a brief overview of where pfp and art oriented NFT communities exist and how they work across various platforms. Often these community platforms will interweave with each other. There are many different ways that NFT communities will operate and will change depending on their goal. For example a community for a pfp NFT project will behave differently to a community for a NFT gaming project. Therefore, it’s worth exploring them yourself to get a comprehensive understanding.