How to build trust in web 3.0 projects
For decentralized apps, building trust is essential.
And that is exactly where web 3.0 projects have an opportunity.
You can also access this article hosted on the blockchain, on the Nuance blog, hosted entirely on the Internet Computer Blockchain from DFINITY
To build a loyal community, web 3.0 projects should follow a few steps:
- Feedback expects feedback — Give users a platform to voice their opinions and that allows users to upvote what matters to them.
- Publish a Roadmap — and include links to the user-feedback that generated those improvements.
- Publish summarized news, for those who don’t follow that closely.
- Explain the technology, generate content.
- Promote a welcoming community.
- Tools/Platforms to use and be active on.
Positioning
Talk about the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
When a project talks about everything openly, it sounds believable. When a project only mentions the good things, it sounds like marketing.
So be sure to talk about all aspects of the project, not only the good ones.
Users who come to Web 3.0 are looking to move away from the type of companies that invest in marketing while neglecting customer satisfaction. This new generation of users believes that “if it is too good to be true, it probably is”. So avoid the type of marketing that only talks about the good things to avoid looking like the next rug-pull waiting to happen.
Users come to Web 3.0 for full transparency.
Not only is this better for users, but it also makes it much easier to generate content. No need to worry that much about formatting, looks, or even typos. When talking/writing, use a natural tone, like when explaining things to a friend, and do your best to avoid sounding like some cheesy sales advert from the 90s:
“You have never seen anything as exciting, electrifying and spectacular like this before” is a great example of language that should have died in the 90s.
This makes it much easier for devs to participate in the marketing effort, engage in the forum, show true humanity (including mistakes) in their actions, and, by doing so, sound much more believable.
Feedback expects feedback
Have a forum and allow users to upvote ideas and comments
Be sure to have a platform where users can send feedback and vote/support other users’ ideas, as well as see the responses of the development team to those ideas. Forum platforms are perfect for this, but be sure to use a forum that allows users to (up)vote on ideas, bug reports, and questions.
When user feedback can be upvoted by others, it allows the team to focus on answering posts that have high support from the community. It also allows the team to see which issues should take higher priority, as well as reply to each idea in a centralized point of contact without having to answer individual Twitter/Discord messages over and over again.
Web 3.0 projects are all about the community, and the community joins these projects to move away from platforms like Google/Facebook/Amazon, where users don’t have much say in what directions the project goes or even what is done with their personal information.
This is why it is important to create an environment where not only the user’s feedback can be collected but also where users can see the results of their feedback.
Platforms like Twitter, Discord, and Reddit are great for reaching more users, but their timeline-oriented format is lacking when it comes to collecting feedback efficiently. Messages quickly get pushed up the timeline, and as the project grows, it becomes harder to make sure all users are getting timely replies. In this format, tracking how many users support an idea can quickly become an impossible task.
And it is important to display to the users what happened with the feedback users give. Was it discussed? What do other users think about it? Was it accepted/planned? Is it under development? Can users search for the top-supported content in a category?
The lack of these features is how some projects lose the most engaged users and transform them into the most engaged spreaders of criticism or FUD: The project will have some form that users can use to send feedback, but after using it, the user will usually only receive some automated thank-you message. Even if the feedback is received by the team and ends up implemented, this usually happens months later. During all this time, the user is left feeling ignored, frustrated, and believing the project does not value him as a customer.
Crypto-projects have similar issues, usually using Twitter and Discord as main forms of communication. The end result tends to be the same: after a brief exchange, the conversation moves on and the user’s message gets pushed up the timeline, often forgotten.
Publish a Roadmap
And include links to user-feedback
Users want to see which direction the project is heading to and what is being prioritized. This is also the perfect place to include links to the forum posts that generated the planned/implemented improvements. If users can see that the issues being worked on come from user feedback, they feel more confident that the team will listen to the user base in the future.
A roadmap can take a lot of time. Even more when the team keeps a separate internal project-manager tool that isn’t visible to the public. Keeping these two separate platforms in sync often has to be done by hand, which is why many times, the public roadmap is not updated enough or ends up lagging behind.
Alternatively, the team can use the forum as a public roadmap. Platforms like Talkyard (https://www.talkyard.io/) allow the team to display the status of ideas and bug reports in a way that users can follow what is planned, what has been started, and what has been implemented.
This way, the team can use the forum as an informal roadmap, with the bonus of showing the community that their input is valued. This is especially great for smaller teams that often don’t have that much manpower to spare on keeping a formal roadmap up-to-date and presentable.
Publish summarized news
For those who aren’t that active
Have a dedicated space to publish an overview of what has been happening, free from the clutter of daily content.
For apps being built on the Internet Computer from Dfinity, Nuance (https://exwqn-uaaaa-aaaaf-qaeaa-cai.ic0.app/) is the perfect platform for publishing IC-related news. Nuance is a blogging platform built entirely on the Internet Computer, and as such, its community is the ideal target audience for these apps.
Most users will only check in from time-to-time, and if they don’t have a place to see an overview of what has been happening, they might feel like the project is not moving forward. This is especially useful to attract investors, who first want to see that the project is moving along nicely before diving into individual posts and discussions to learn more.
Explain the technology
Make it easy for users to understand decentralized apps
Most people still have trouble understanding web 3.0. This is a great opportunity to generate content that helps understand why users should care. It is great to publish simplified content that anyone can understand, but don’t be afraid to support those articles with more technical publications that really go into the details of what makes these apps different. You can always add links between those articles, so that those users who wish to dig into the details have a place to go for that information.
Promote a welcoming community
Where questions are welcomed
Be sure to have an area where new users are welcomed for asking questions, no matter how often those questions might have been asked before.
There are so many projects where the community starts to treat new users in unfriendly ways for asking the same questions over-and-over. It is important to have clear moderation rules against this type of behavior. Make users understand that, for the project to succeed, new users must
Again, this is another reason to have a forum, where users can find answers to frequently asked questions. It also makes it easy to send links to those FAQ’s to users on other platforms, like Twitter or Discord, saving time in support and allowing the community to scale much easier.
Tools & Platforms
To use and be active on
Forum
- I can really recommend Talkyard (https://www.talkyard.io) for its reasonable pricing, ease-of use, and the ability to add a custom domain to the service. Having the forum hosted on the same url as your webpage (e.G.: https://forum.example.com) greatly helps with SEO, since google will treat all those pages and posts as part of the main domain.
- If your project is being built on the Internet Computer, also be active on DSCVR (https://h5aet-waaaa-aaaab-qaamq-cai.raw.ic0.app), which is a reddit-like platform being built entirely on the Internet Computer.
- Reddit is great as well, for its huge user-base. But be sure to funnel those users into your own platform because Reddit’s timeline-oriented format brings issues.
Blogging
- Medium (https://medium.com) has become the go-to place for crypto articles. So be sure to also post your content there. But maybe keep a second blog somewhere else since Medium has been greatly taken over by articles trying to shill bad projects to users, which often leaves people with a sour taste on the platform.
- If your project is built on the Internet Computer, be sure to be active on Nuance (http://nuance.xyz), the new blogging platform that is built completely on the Internet Computer, making it perfect to target your main user-base.
Social Media:
- Careful with social media, these platforms are all built for short engagement thrusts. This is great for reaching new users (advertising) but not great for engaging with them and gathering feedback (satisfaction).
- Twitter is a bit of a no-brainer. Twitter has been a bit player in the crypto-space for a long time. Just be sure to use it only for peaking user’s curiosity and not for having long conversations. Reel those users in to your forum as quick as possible where they can find real answers to their questions.
- Discord is great for having informal conversations but doesn't scale very well. So use it, but be sure to also educate your users to use the forums for leaving true feedback, requests or questions. In our team, we usually answer discord questions by sending links to existing forum posts or creating new forum posts to answer those questions. This way it creates a growing FAQ which reduces the effort over time, as well as helping with SEO.
That's all for now! I might add more to this article later, or maybe even expand it into a series. Let's see how things go :)
