At AmaZix Official, we call ourselves “the world’s leading community management and engagement firm”.

In hindsight, the phrase represents several misnomers. Firstly, we weren’t a traditional community management firm, so we couldn’t really draw comparisons with those formally in that line of business. Secondly, the crypto industry didn’t have a traditional community make up — unlike other digital communities, crypto communities are incredibly tech savvy, highly-informed, typically pseudonymous and extremely distributed. And finally, the crypto industry didn’t actually do community management — at least, not to the level AmaZix did.

AmaZix was a leading firm but we hadn’t realized then that we were pioneering a new breed of crypto marketing, through dedicated community management centered around organic content and engagement.

A new breed of crypto marketing

Back then, what we did for our early partners like Bancor was unheard of in the space, and was not typically categorized in the realm of digital marketing or PR, which is what ICOs were used to. The big ICOs of 2016 and early 2017 were successful because of big launches into the mainstream consciousness via advertising, sponsored content across multiple media channels, or by entering into alliances with strong advisors and networks.

By mid-2017, the ICO boom was well underway, and AmaZix was heavily engaged with global communities on online forums, social media, and particularly on real-time channels like Telegram. And that was what AmaZix excelled in — we managed 24/7 dedicated channels for projects, often opening at least 2 channels (one for main project updates and information, and another for community rewards) per community.

And when traditional marketing social channels like Twitter and Facebook suddenly cut off crypto, even Tim Draper acknowledged to Forbes that Telegram basically kept ICOs alive, saying:

“People need free speech, and it is nice that Telegram provides a safe environment for free speech.”

A luxury feature

But online community numbers alone did not correlate with ICO success, rather, it was activity that seemed linked to successful fundraising. Moreover, it was painfully obvious that many Telegram channels were poorly-managed by ICOs — project owners were simply unable to keep up when channels grew from hundreds to thousands of members, and beyond.

This is also where AmaZix stepped in: with highly-trained moderators, each deeply knowledgeable in partner projects, working in shifts round the clock to attend to community members’ invariably wide-ranging needs and questions.

It may have been seen as a luxury feature that AmaZix offered, but one that projects later realized was necessary as it freed up the development team, allowing them to focus on building their products. In this way, community management was done more efficiently, keeping people happy and engaged, without jeopardizing product development.

A new benchmark for success

Although ICOs were simply a quicker and more efficient new tool for crowdfunding, what the early startups might not have known then is that they were about to deal with an entirely new definition of communities.

If traditional marketing saw online communities as merely the customer, crypto communities today are a highly complex make up. They are still the consumers but they are also the product: cryptocurrency cannot grow without utility and the community tends to be the first adopters, who then grow the user base with network effect.

Bitcoin’s success today, ten years after it first emerged, owes everything to its community. It never had to pay for marketing and its status now is purely attributed to organic marketing by a community that is satisfied with the product and driven by self-initiative. This is why I believe that organic content and marketing brings eventual and lasting results in crypto. In this sense, crypto marketing finds common ground with traditional marketing, especially because it seeks to create psychological ownership within communities.

I had a chat with Jeremy Epstein of Never Stop Marketing, who recognized the value of earned/owned/inspired media, and the role of communities in the content cycle. Where online communities are well engaged, and where we generate content to answer community needs, that will “inspire them to share and get engaged”.

Perhaps we inadvertently demonstrated that with ICOs — the community is all-encompassing. They are the investors, the stakeholders, the end user, even potentially developers in open source projects.

The community makes or breaks the ICO. Managing and engaging with them are no longer a luxury. They are the industry standard for successful ICOs.