2 Major reasons why blockchain projects should be on social media
Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey admits to the role marketers have played in adding to the adoption of blockchain — without the hype and the marketing superlatives where would blockchain be?
Deloitte’s survey says without marketing: “new technologies such as blockchain would be released with the hope that someone might stumble upon them, try them, and find them useful, which is hardly a practical way to do business or to technologically advance processes, companies, or industries”.
The reality is that the adoption of blockchain and its related projects has been slower than expected. An article by the Harvard Business Reviewparallels the adoption of blockchain with that of email/TCP/IP. The review and its analysis don’t see blockchain as the type of technology that will catapult to success quickly as most had anticipated. The reason for this is that when you study the evolution of technological innovation, there are still a number of barriers that inhibit the blockchain revolution. According to Harvard Review, the process of adoption will be gradual and steady, not sudden, as waves of technological and institutional change gain momentum.
Blockchain has not been as disruptive to the mainstream as originally thought by early adopters.
12 years after the Bitcoin whitepaper, blockchain is in the late stages of what the article refers to as the novelty stagehand is heading into the dimension of complexity, represented by the level of ecosystem coordination involved — the number and diversity of parties that need to work together to produce value with the technology. The blockchain, crypto, and the new Defi communities are well-coordinated and growing even more so. Now all that is needed is that more users need to be brought onboard to generate value for all participants and thus be able to scale and build more use cases for the blockchain movement.
What does this have to do with social media?
The barriers to entry mean that the people involved in blockchain need to work harder to get users onboard and for adoption to grow in order to scale the industry. If we look at some of these barriers we will make the point that larger adoption rates can only be achieved by creating more awareness about blockchain and its implications. And how do you do this in today’s world? Through social media.
The blockchain and crypto market size is tiny compared to traditional money and its impact on the real economy is actually minuscule. Blockchain projects challenge the status quo and seek to undermine an established, prevalent, and powerful existing system which is far less volatile. The general public would be less inclined to utilize crypto or the projects produced on blockchain for that reason additionally the traditional system has all its checks and balances in place. Because it is established within a legal framework and is regulated, it has credibility, plus the purveyors of these services are anonymous and the services don’t require too much understanding. Regular Joe may not be keen to understand the underlying dynamics of blockchain — he just wants to know what the service offers, that it is trustworthy and will deliver on the promised benefit.
Intangible concepts like verification and the consensus protocol aren’t easy to grasp. You can’t trust something you don’t understand.
An article we recently read about blockchain and mainstream adoption claimed that only 8% of blockchain projects ever launched remain and the average lifespan of a project is 1.22 years. This is not because blockchain doesn’t work, it is because of the lack of adoption and funding that allows scaling as we mention above. This sort of “hit rate” doesn’t exactly spell success to the outside world because they don’t understand the dynamics involved. It’s really hard to get a fully market ready product in 14 or 15 months. These projects are expensive to fund and run — the hardware needed and what you pay for experts and developers in the field does not come cheap and they are complex projects that require time.
That said there is palpable interest in blockchain’s development. PWC’s 2018 Survey supports this saying that most organizations are gearing towards this eventuality by allocating budget and initiating projects in this regard. There are also about 40 million blockchain wallet users mostly distributed across the US and Europe or 99% if we included ASIAPAC. There is a massive market still open to conquer and probably proportionately related to those who are unbanked in South American countries and in Africa.
The future remains bright for blockchain and thus we must forge on and push forward for broader adoption.
We believe the way to overcome the challenges mentioned above is through education and creating awareness and tailoring content to audiences that grow their understanding and adoption of blockchain, crypto, and Defi-related projects. At WeCova, we know that building awareness through platforms who already have mass adoption rates is the only way to go. Yes, advertising on social media for cryptocurrencies can be tricky but with our expertise, that can be navigated furthermore building awareness and education of use cases can be done through clever, well-thought-out content planning and execution.
Social media is one of the most pervasive technologies in people’s daily lives no matter if they are in the Sahara desert or the heart of New York City. Leveraging that penetration with the right messaging is what we believe will drive familiarity, comfort with blockchain terminology, understanding, adoption, and then trust. All we need to do is get people to start wetting their feet and before long they will be fully submerged in the benefits of blockchain especially the unbanked and disenfranchised.
Some 68%of Asia-Pacific companies don’t understand blockchain and require education for their executives in order for the adoption of blockchain. About 35% of Brits don’t trust blockchain with their personal information, because they don’t actually know what it is.
The reality is that blockchain is in a bit of a quandary — the chicken and egg one. The industry needs to start showing a clear ROI before it becomes relevant to most companies. A minority of companies may have the funds to launch experimental pilots but in reality, the vast majority don’t and smaller budgets won’t be able to pull the trigger on technology that doesn’t have a clear use case in their environment. But how do you scale and grow and provide ROI without someone pulling the trigger?
At WeCova, clever marketing is at the core of what we do. For example, people didn’t really care about the technology on which the internet was built. What they cared about and wanted were the applications built upon the web. We position our clients as such so let us help you and your project to penetrate the social media landscape and show the mainstream how you can impact them. Let’s grow and build more use cases together so that the snowball of mass adoption is put in motion. WeCova and marketing through education and awareness building is the key to this lock!
Increase transparency and show the public where and how decentralized technology comes from. On numerous occasions, we have shown our customers our mining facilities with the intent of educating them about the physical realities of blockchain. As a community, we must continue to imagine creative new ways to show people that these burgeoning technologies are grounded in real science and secure practices.
If we can candidly address the public’s concerns, while painting a picture for everyone of the potential that is embedded in a decentralized future, then we will see greater adoption.