Today, online communities are everywhere and in pretty much every sector. However, cryptocurrencies were among the first to take advantage of online communities to rally people around a singular goal, starting the need for managers to develop their crypto community management.
Perhaps that’s because the two ideas share a lot in common: Crypto offers a decentralized currency free from traditional modes of banking and online communities offer a decentralize platform away from traditional social media. Online communities also give crypto enthusiasts a way to connect with other like-minded people from around the world in a way that wasn’t possible or as easy as before.
While many online crypto communities focus on backing or discussing ideas around a singular coin, today, we will go over best practices for crypto communities for wider audiences.
That means online communities for people interested in learning more about the space, investing, or just hanging out and talking to other enthusiasts about the potential of crypto.
How Do Crypto Communities Differ From Other Online Communities?
In short, best practices for crypto communities don’t differ drastically from best practices for other types of online communities. However, with that said, it’s important to keep in mind that every online community has a different goal and purpose.
Things like learning materials, operating structure, and even community culture should play into how an online community is built and managed. For example, a community centered around crypto might need many different options when it comes to discussion threads, but that’s not the case with most other types of communities.
Best Practices For Crypto Communities
Introduce a goal
Like many other types of online communities, figuring out your goal before you launch will be paramount for success. It won’t only help you succeed, but it’ll help you manage and craft everything that comes after the initial phases of starting a community.
This step doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Think of it more like creating an outline in the same way you would if you were in university and preparing to write an essay. All you need to do is get the key points down, and it makes everything that comes after that much easier.
Some things to consider when thinking about your community’s goal:
- What sort of topics will the community focus on? (For example: investing, ideas for the wider crypto space, new coins, exchanges, how to invest, and potential uses could all be topics)
- What kind of value can you provide to your members?
- Will the community have an end date, or will it be up perpetually?
It’s also a good idea to search around and see if there are any other communities similar to the one you’re thinking about starting. If so, what are they doing well, and what could be improved?
Set clear guidelines
Setting clear guidelines from the start is another common step that’s vitally important for online communities. Once again, this doesn’t have to be an overly-exhaustive list of items. In fact, around 10 to 15 items will usually do it.
However, you want to ensure that you’re enforcing your guidelines consistently to cultivate the best culture possible. It’s also not a bad idea to either pin or casually bring up the guidelines every now and then just to remind members that they’re there.
Some items you might want to consider including in your guidelines:
- Things like hate speech or berating other members will not be tolerated
- Who to report to if a member experiences harassment or mistreatment
- Remember to give every member space to share their ideas and comments
Be active and up to date
In crypto communities, it’s especially important for hosts to be active and up to date. Put simply, seeing an active host or managing team will encourage community members to be more engaged.
Nobody wants to join an online community only to see that the host or the community managers have already checked out.
Being up to date will also allow you and your team to better figure out what kind of content the community might best respond to or enjoy. Crypto is a much faster-moving space than some others that online communities are usually focused on.
However, that shouldn’t be too hard since if you’ve started a community focused on crypto, then odds are you’re already interested in everything about the subject.
Hire and empower community managers
While it’s important to be active within your community and stay up to day, nobody can monitor their community every hour of the day. (Seriously, get some sleep when you need it).
That’s why it’s important to bring on community managers or moderators to help out when you’re gone, just to make sure things are running smoothly. Community managers also have a role to play when it comes to creating engagement and getting feedback.
It may not be absolutely necessary to bring on a community manager or moderator in the early stages, but as your community grows, so too will the need to ensure everything is working as it should all the time.
Charge something
There are a couple of ways to tackle this, but in general, you should charge something for your work in building your community. Some choose to do this by charging for a membership, and others decide to do it by charging for things like courses or events.
Whichever option you choose is completely up to you as a community host, but it’s good to figure out before launching your community.
If you plan on hosting things like networking events or live discussions fairly often and already have a following, then charging for those types of things might be the way to go. However, if you think the community is going to be more about the space, it offers your members to explore ideas, and you only plan on going live once a month, it might be better to charge for memberships.
Get creative to engage members
Speaking of going live, it’s one of the best ways to get your community members engaged and ready to talk and ask questions. It’s beneficial for crypto communities as it allows them to have much more in-depth discussions than are typically allowed through text-based channels.
The same thing applies if you decide you want to host a live discussion with only your best members. What we’re saying is to try to get creative when bringing events and content to your community.
Of course, the events and content you bring to the table depend on your community’s goals (this is where the first tip comes in). However, ask your members what they’d like to see.
Asking your community managers is also a great way to drum up more ideas. Your managers are with your community when you’re not, so they’ve likely noticed questions or topics that are being repeatedly brought up. Try building content and events around these.
Create the right spaces for interactions
This is one of the few things that doesn’t generally apply to other online communities. But, it’s a good idea to ensure your crypto community has multiple channels and topics for discussions.
These will depend on your community’s goals and focus, but when discussing or learning about crypto, there are usually numerous potential channels you could create.
If your community is just starting out, you don’t want to overwhelm or stretch thin your members. However, crypto communities generally have the potential for more avenues of discussion than other online communities.
Once again, if you’re not sure if it’s the right time to add more channels or threads, just ask your community. You could also pay close attention to members’ discussions to see if a certain topic might be garnering enough interest to qualify for its own thread.
Use analytics and feedback to see what’s working
Nobody likes numbers, but luckily some platforms make understanding numbers easier than ever with built-in analytics and easy-to-read charts (like Nas, but more on that in a minute).
Your analytics are one of the best ways to gauge member engagement and feedback on things like discussion topics, courses, or events. You can also glean insight into things like who you’re most active members are and who might need a little encouragement or help.
However, even with analytics, it’s worth just asking your members what they think is working and what’s not. Not only will this probably give you insight into something you may have overlooked or not thought about, but it’ll show your members that you care about fixing issues and take their feedback seriously.
Conclusion
Crypto communities are wonderful for bringing together people who’d normally never have the chance to meet one another, despite sharing similar interests. They also take a lot of dedication. However, if you keep these crypto community best practices in mind, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
If you want to make life even easier, then consider hosting on Nas.io. We’ve built it from the ground up with online communities in mind. That means we give hosts the tools they need to ensure their communities are thriving with things like custom-made resources, access to a sprawling network of other creators, analytics, built-in payments (that supports crypto, of course), and a community manager if they so choose.
There are many other perks to joining Nas.io, and you can check out all of them here. So, why not start building today?
