I was in the middle of my Web 2.0 marketing career when I was pushed into Web 3.0 marketing and now I have the best of both worlds. My life as a marketer is as exciting as ever. Here’s everything I’ve learned in just two months.
Back in October 2021, I was taking up strategy courses on CXL and Linkedin, bracing myself for 2022.
I had planned to start positioning myself as a product marketing strategist for small businesses and I needed that additional ‘education’ to boost my career goals. I was (and still am) employed as a Product Marketing Strategist for a crowdfunding marketing agency and I knew that I found my passion in helping small businesses succeed with online marketing.
But then in November 2021, my boss started handing me small NFT related tasks. Writing an NFT roadmap, a PR, a couple of emails, etc. I thought it was just something one-time and didn’t think about it much.
Until, by mid-November, my boss dropped me a bomb – I was going to handle a crypto project for a client & an internal NFT project. I was given 3 weeks to learn as much about NFTs and cryptos as I could. And that’s when life changed for me.
Come December, I was planning strategies for our NFT project and most of them got rejected. My boss kept telling me I had to shift my mindset from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 marketing and I just couldn’t understand why, or how.
For someone who was still in the middle of a Web 2.0 course, a shift to Web 3.0 wasn’t as easy! As I kept working in collaboration with my boss and colleagues though, I understood how Web 3.0 marketing was so much simpler, yet so much more difficult than Web 2.0 marketing!
It was no longer about SEO strategies, content strategies, or paid media.
It was about SEO, content, plus PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS.
The entire premise of NFTs, Meta, Crypto was built on one thing – community. And that formed the whole basis of Web 3.0 marketing.
Flashback to My Cave Life When I Avoided Crypto like the Plague
I admit. Despite being in the tech industry I’m one of those people who didn’t take crypto and NFTs seriously.
In fact, I was constantly shocked at how people were spending millions on ape art. Why would anyone want to spend $530Million on an ape cartoon? It doesn’t make sense. And maybe it never will. But what I figured from all of the discussions, articles, and questions that I asked, it wasn’t about the art – it was what came *with* the art.
NFT artists are not just random cartoon generators. They are community leaders. They are revolutionaries and the artworks always had a profound concept or purpose behind it.
For instance, the most expensive NFT ever sold was Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days at a staggering amount of $69 Million. According to The Verge, there were many factors that led to Beeple’s work becoming a part of NFT history.
For one, ‘he’s developed a large fan base, with around 2.5 million followers across social channels. And he’s famously prolific: as part of a project called “Everydays,” Winkelmann creates and publishes a new digital artwork every day. The project is now in its 14th year.” Combine Winkelmann’s work, fan-base, and a 255-year-old auction house (Christie’s), this blew up beyond expectations.
The deal was sealed in cryptocurrency – the value of which was equivalent to $69 Million.
As I kept reading about these stories and the motivations of crypto investors, I began to understand the impact cryptocurrency and blockchain had on our world. This was ushering in a new era of equality and decentralization where people from anywhere in the world could make money without being victims to restrictive and destructive policies of financial institutions.
I devoured videos, articles, interviews and I finally understood that Web 3.0 wasn’t just about robots and AI or Mark Zuckerberg’s creepy virtual clone. It was truly about empowerment.
