As the original 3 months is now at a close I wanted to open up this space on the forum to talk about what we did within the community hubs, what we delivered, what we learned, and to start planning for the future.
I’ve seen some reports and updates that were published on the forum previously ( ) but would love to invite each of you to add some comments here against the following three points for your hub / group:
What we did (activities)
What we achieved (metrics)
What we learned
I’d also like you to think about (and ideally share!) where you see the most significant opportunities in your hub going forwards in terms of establishing the Pocket brand, particularly within developer communities. Our marketing priority for the next 6 months is to grow demand and therefore protocol revenue.
No need for polished posts.
Absolutely no need for powerpoint.
I’m just keen to hear your thoughts, experiences, and learnings.
I would really appreciate if you could able to add some comments over the next 48 hours ahead of a call in discord voice channel where we can come together to celebrate the successes and regroup about the future?
I’ve created a Lettuce Meet to try to help us find a time (or times). If none of these are good, let me know and I can add some more.
Jonatan and Coineasy - I wasn’t confident of forum handles for the rest of the LATAM / South Korea hub teams - could you please help me co-ordinate? I’ll also drop a link to this post into the discord.
Create contents to emphasize the decentralized infra narrative, and explain the fundamentals of Pocket Network to the community
Translate English contents to Chinese to clear the language barrier and keep the Chinese folks updated
Draft routine weekly/monthly recaps to help Chinese community members on track
Hold online meetup to get more familiar with Chinese community members, maintain the morale in community, and seek for new chance of growth.
What we achieved:
Keeping the community mood in a moderate even positive level. The Chinese community members might be unhappy with the market conditions, but still be positive to Pocket’s DNA and the potential of decentralized infra narrative.
Maintaining the number of community members in a stable state, avoid the sharp drop in community scale.
Emphasized the narrative of decentralized infura and its potential.
What we learned:
It’s not easy to attract the retail investors during the bear market, but it’s necessary to keep the awareness in the market. When the de-infra narrative bloom, people will definitely think of Pocket Network.
Meetup is essential to maintain the confidence and keep the community solid.
The opportunities:
If we can hold a meetup in the real world, would be much helpful to publicize Pocket Network’s de-infra narrative, and attract the potential community members/builders
The potential in Dev community is huge, but currently we are lack of incentive to promote Pocket’s service in Dev community. If we can establish the effective referral program, some community members would proactively sell the RPC service.
Hope to see commentary from @coineasy , @Igboze , and @jonatanmaria soon and then we can book the call - although it looks like it may need to be multiple calls.
If you are able to make any additional time slots work for the retro, please go back and add them to the letucemeet link in the original post… Thank you!
Hello!
While we will post our regular report later, a highlight of all we did, faced and have learned of are below.
OUR MAJOR ACTIVITIES
Grew the community from scratch through partnerships with existing blockchain/crypto communities.
Given that Africa is diverse in terms of languages but English being common, we wrote original articles for proper education
Created videos to simplify major aspects of the ecosystem, and developer centered videos for easy learning by devs
Kept the community active via bounty activities such as quizzes, contests, etc
CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED
The market situation proved that majority of the people find an ecosystem as this complex and did not want to bother.
Collaborations with some online communities are not ideal to grow a community for pokt given how it’s developer centered.
Onboarding of experienced developers without incentives makes the whole process difficult
THINGS WE HAVE LEARNED
Focusing on irl events is key to the kind of community that POKT needs. Either attending existing events or hosting our own event is key to this. On this point, we are considering this event Web3Lagos Aug 31 - Sep 2, 2023 to begin our full fledge marketing journey to get developers
Local hackathons for grassroots builders is key to enabling many projects to using POKT endpoints.
Onboard developers to combine forces with us (POKT Africa) to launch multiple nodes instead of trying to get them set up their own nodes.
Focus on activities that will get developers active. Such as throwing contests within ecosystems that POKT supports. EG, NEAR, ETH, and other EVMs.
Thanks for taking this upon you to redirect us to the way forward.
We organized meme contests, AMA sessions, and partnered with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) for events. These initiatives were aimed at growing the community in a fun and interactive way, enhancing member engagement and excitement.
To cater to the high-speed culture in Korea, we developed easily understandable one-page infographics, co-pilot style POKT tutorials, weekly recaps, and news follow-ups. All of this was translated into Korean to bridge the language gap and keep our Korean community members updated. The objective was to explain POKT in a simple, clear manner, and highlight its benefits as a decentralized infrastructure.
What we achieved (metrics):
Despite challenging market conditions, we successfully fostered a thriving POKT community in South Korea, upholding a positive atmosphere and promoting an optimistic outlook on the decentralized infrastructure narrative. Even amidst market uncertainties, the community members remained steadfast, demonstrating a solid understanding of Pocket Network’s ethos and the benefits of POKT. Through these efforts, we not only raised brand awareness in the South Korean market but also succeeded in cultivating a healthy community culture that encourages learning and a firm belief in the POKT ecosystem.
Partnered with numerous Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in the South Korean market to attract new users to our POKT Korea community.
Established connections with notable institutions and societies including Hanyang University, Korea University, Ewha Womans University, and the KAIST Societies. This widened our network and increased our influence within the South Korean educational sector.
What we learned:
We learned that Pocket Network should be the default introduction for the developer community as they start their developer journey. Currently, other developer academies introduce platforms like Alchemy or Infura by default.
*Attracting retail investors during a bear market is challenging, yet the need for consistent, high-quality POKT education remains essential. Many potential users may not yet be familiar with Pocket Network or understand its importance in the decentralized infrastructure narrative. Therefore, it’s crucial that we continue to provide educational content about POKT, presented in an easily understandable and localized manner.
The importance and potential impact of conducting a hackathon in South Korea. This could serve as a meaningful opportunity for networking, education, and spreading the decentralized narrative.
The need for an improved chainlist to add public RPC on the POKT website for better user experience.
The need to redesign the POKT website for clarity and ease of use, as the current layout seems to confuse Korean users.
Users want us to introduce choices trusted validators where they can stake their $POKT token.
The need for an improved web wallet as we introduce platforms like Sendwallet to our community.
The opportunities:
We are assisting PNI in hosting an event during Korea Blockchain Week 2023. This will help spread Pocket Network’s decentralized infrastructure narrative and attract potential community members and builders.
Pocket Network should be the default introduction for the developer community when they begin their development journey.
Organizing a hackathon could provide a unique opportunity to attract new developers, spread awareness about POKT, and showcase its functionalities in real-time applications.
There’s a need to improve the POKT website and related tools (like chainlist, web wallet, etc.) to cater to the Korean community’s needs better, increase usability, and ultimately drive adoption.
Created and established a community presence on various social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and Discord.
Developed a content strategy to regularly post educational and informative content five days a week to engage the community and increase their knowledge on relevant subjects.
Conducted thorough research and curated high-quality content to ensure accuracy and value for the community members.
Encouraged community participation through interactive open questions and content, motivating users to ask questions.
Responded promptly to comments, messages, and inquiries from community members to maintain an active and supportive online environment.
Utilized data analytics and insights to track the performance of different content types and adjusted the content strategy accordingly to better serve the community’s needs.
Joined the pocket hubs to launch bounties and unite different hub communities.
Got verified on Twitter in order to be allowed to advertise content.
Attended Hackers & Founders events to chat with other communities and motivate them to join our hub.
Proposed and are running a 2-week pilot of Node Hunterz initiative aimed to unite hubs in a constant rolling content contests schedule and enable 7-days-a-week posting of content about POKT by community members.
What we achieved:
Established connections with other POKT hubs to build a rolling schedule content contest and strategies in order to stimulate community posting about POKT.
Build a community in the different POKT LatAm platforms that receive high impressions and visitors who have yet now followed us, but show interest. The top social media platforms where most people look for information are:
Instagram: 52 followers
Twitter: 75 followers
Telegram: 18 members
Started the first week of the Node Hunterz initiative where POKT Community hubs joined to launch a Bounties Program.
We have successfully posted our first bounty and chosen the winner of this one. We made sure to post the winner on all platforms as an opportunity to increase brand knowledge. We have received 17 applicants for the first two bounties.
What we learned:
We learned that POKT Network and the market it belongs to, works with a different digital marketing strategy than the rest of the brands we’ve worked before. It’s part of a community of users that don’t use the most known social media platforms and that have to be spoken with another language and approach.
The importance of building a strong community. A strong community is essential for the success of any blockchain project. Creating a welcoming and inclusive environment is essential in order to motivate users and developers to learn, collaborate, and share ideas.
The value of customer support and being proactive. Providing excellent customer support is essential for building trust and loyalty with users. Being responsive to user questions and issues, and resolving them in a timely and efficient manner, can build a visitor to a user and client.
The importance of organizing and attending community events. Community events are a great way to bring users and developers together, and to generate excitement and awareness for a blockchain project. In this market, networking is key.
We believe that one of the primary causes POKT is underrepresented in the region is simply lack of knowledge, presence and brand trust.
The opportunities:
Partner with local crypto exchanges and influencers. We have been waiting for the right moment to invest in KOLs to reach a wider audience and promote POKT LatAm to potential users. This could involve running joint marketing campaigns, hosting educational events, or simply getting the word out on social media.
Host community events: Hosting community events is a great way to bring users and developers together, and to generate excitement and awareness for POKT LatAm. It can also help a better penetration of the region and helping POKT supporters as well as local engineers to speak up about POKT as speakers from the ecosystem.
Sponsor LatAm countries crypto summit events as an opportunity to increase brand exposure.
Quick question @cpvalera - can you give me a sense of the audience you’re engaging with? Are they mainly retail investors, developers, node runners… other?