Swelly Goes Live With Kin
Back in August, Swelly, a survey platform that lets brands and consumers receive feedback from their target audiences, became one of the first partners to offer ways to earn Kin in Kinit, the first publicly available app dedicated to the cryptocurrency. Now, we’ve taken the relationship to the next level as Swelly launches peer-to-peer Kin-powered experiences in their independent app, available for download on Android and iOS.
A bit about Swelly
Swelly is a social network, developed specifically with Gen-Z and millennials in mind, that lets users express themselves through their opinions. Swelly keeps their survey/feedback exchange as simple as possible with a standardized image based ‘this or that’ format, which is called a ‘Swell’. Both brands and users can create Swells and post them publicly, or to specific targets, in order to crowdsource opinions. Swelly currently exists both as an independent app and on multiple chatbot platforms including Facebook and Kik.
The culture fit
Swelly is a young team that is deeply in touch with the needs and behaviors of Gen Z and Millennial audiences across the U.S. and Europe. They believe in providing a more fair and honest way to connect brands with users. They understand the overlap with Kin’s mission to create a more fair, open, and accessible digital world.
Why Kin and Swelly are such a great match
- Swelly can potentially be the first app, apart from Kinit, where 100 percent of users are Kin users, rather than a test segment
- Swelly helped us test and prove our co-working process with design partners as they have the motivation and development power, and they can deliver fast; working with them taught us about how to form successful partnerships
- The fact that there’s only one live experience in Swelly is a huge benefit, as Swelly has the potential to organically grow with Kin and have native experiences that are not ‘forced’ into place, but developed seamlessly into the app; we can build experiences from the ground up
- Swelly has a well tested and liked app that shows high rates of user engagement and retention; they have spent time thinking about how to engage their user base and have the experience and insight to quickly develop and implement new experiences
- Since Swelly is currently working with brands like Red Bull, Swarovski and Vresh, it can help to quickly bootstrap the economy, and immediately bring money in from brands in form of branded earn opportunities in for users
A win-win partnership
One of the Kin Ecosystem SDK goals is to continually scale and improve the product we offer our partners, and, of course, their users. The best way to achieve this is through real users who are actively engaged (so we can run quick iterations of UI, and improve the overall user experience by monitoring server and client updates). Swelly has a strong team and we’ve built a great partnership that allows Kin to learn and grow, while Swelly implements new methods to engage users in the app.
Creating together: the Swelly workshop
During a workshop in the Tel Aviv office, the Swelly and Kin team created the foundation for immersive Kin experiences in the Swelly app. We ran a two-day product workshop to allow the Swelly team to see how we can work together to create value, as well as review the SDK and its capabilities.
On the first day, we learned more about Swelly, their product, users, goals, and unique needs. We also shared Kin’s mission, vision, culture, and values to help showcase the synergy between Kin and Swelly. We then ran a focused brainstorm session using design thinking methods and ideation techniques to generate feature ideas and potential solutions. On the second day, we discussed execution challenges, mutual goals, and success metrics, as well as shared our technical knowledge for implementing blockchain technology in consumer apps.
Kin experiences in Swelly
Swelly users can now encourage other users to vote on their swells. Each user will get 1 KIN simply for sharing their opinion. The maximum number of Kin available for each Swell is determined by the user who uploaded it (based on how many votes they’d like to collect). The Swell offering Kin for votes is promoted and appears first in the feed.
This experience encourages both content creation and voting, and it can increase app engagement for existing users. Users can also gift content creators they like, meaning that users are incentivized to share more content, which will improve the overall app experience for the Swelly audience — more content creates additional actions that users can take. Everyone can get started right away by getting their first Kin by completing offers in the Marketplace.
Moving forward
Kin has provided Swelly with a new monetization tool that allows them to grow their user base, while simultaneously providing users with a new, even more engaging experience, which is a clear win-win for everyone. Swelly believes content creators in social media should be rewarded for their contribution. Kin enables Swelly to add this new layer to their platform.
We are excited to continue working with not only Swelly, but other partners as well who also share our vision and who believe there is a better, more fair way forward. Stay tuned here for more updates!
