Original title: Crypto Twitter: How to Grow and Monetize Your Audience

Original author: Ignas, Crypto KOL

Original translation: Luffy, Foreisght News

I never thought about becoming a KOL, the word "KOL" sounds a bit cheesy.

People generally have negative feelings about influencers and the entire influencer economy. I understand why, the crypto world is full of scammers who sell and dump to fans and ultimately hurt them.

But not all KOLs are scammers. Money is not my motivation for posting on Twitter. I originally posted just because I was bored during the bear market in 2022.

Now, I am bored again, so I asked on Twitter what to write next. The most popular ideas were sharing insights into becoming a KOL, how to grow your audience, and revealing some secrets of crypto KOLs and marketing. Since I already had 100k followers on Twitter, I thought it would be a good opportunity to share something different.

In this post, I will briefly share my story, provide advice on growing your audience, discuss popular monetization models (including pricing), and more.

First, do you want to be a KOL?

I was working at a Korean CEX when the market crashed in late 2021. Suddenly, the crypto market became unusually quiet.

For a few months, I went to the office just to check Twitter, and nothing interesting happened. To make matters worse, my boss was promoting CEX, so there was no real work to do in the office.

This is the second bear market I’ve experienced, so I know a new bull market is coming.

The 2020-2021 bull market started with DeFi, but few people understood how it worked. Most people traded on CEX and didn’t know how to use MetaMask. When the DeFi summer came, those who understood the basics of DeFi reaped huge profits. I also started farming YFI on Curve early on, and the annual interest rate once reached a terrifying 10,000%. What a great time…

My plan was to keep researching to find the next opportunity as soon as possible.

I originally wrote on Twitter to record personal notes to prove that I really understood the topic. That's why my Twitter name is "DeFi Research".

Tip: If you think you really understand a concept, try writing it down. You'll find that it's much harder to explain your ideas clearly on paper than to imagine them in your head.

But I still felt bored. So I wrote a big study on 25 DeFi protocol roadmaps to find out their common trends. It took me a week to write this separate manuscript.

I was worried that it might fail. After investing so much time into an article, you really hope it will succeed.

I was lucky that the article went viral quickly. DeFi Edge, Miles Deutscher, DeFi Dad... a bunch of DeFi bigwigs participated in the interaction, and it is still one of my top 5 most liked posts (with 244k views).

I only had 300 followers at the time. But then, the followers increased rapidly for several consecutive days. With this post, my followers grew to about 3,000, a 10x increase!

Tip: The quality of content on Twitter is important. While popular posts can be accidental, sustained follower growth requires insightful and unique content, which takes time and effort. Some posts will fail, but successful posts will attract high-quality followers.

I continued to learn and share content about token economics, stablecoins, SBT every week, and soon grew to 10,000 followers.

Tip: Persistence is key. Once you gain momentum, you need to keep working hard. Otherwise, the Twitter algorithm will "forget" you and your posts will not appear on other people's feeds.

The first milestone has been achieved, the first 10,000 followers were the hardest. After that, you can cover a wider range of topics. I'll cover more advice on growing your audience next.

Why You Should Write on Twitter (Even If You Don't Want to Become a KOL)

Two other reasons that motivated me to start writing on Twitter were: my girlfriend and Naval Ravikant. Naval completely changed my perception of "success". He shared his own success story in his famous post "How to Get Rich (Without Luck)".

The post is great, but the book is more detailed. You can read his book here.

Interestingly, as an experiment, I wrote a (viral) post about how I got rich from cryptocurrencies, which earned me thousands of followers.

In short, Naval teaches people to pursue wealth rather than become rich. You can become rich by arming yourself with expertise and leveraging it through the internet, which greatly broadens the scope of career development.

This specific knowledge is very specific and creative, and can be acquired through curiosity and passion. You can apply specific knowledge through coding and media, “You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep.”

But this part was a surprise to me:

“If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.” This will eventually allow you to apply “specific knowledge, plus leverage, and eventually you will get the rewards you deserve.”

In the attention economy, having an audience is an advantage.

We have limited attention, but unlimited information. With so much information competing for your attention, your attention is more valuable and harder to attract.

For crypto projects, whether or not to attract your attention can mean the difference between the success or failure of the protocol, and technical features come second.

If this isn’t an attention game, then what is it? Valuations are largely driven by attention, and crypto is still 99% speculative.

Stacy interprets Delphi Digital's report, attention is everything

This is why I support Polkadot's use of influencer marketing strategies. I believe this is the most effective way to spread information to native Web3 users. Polkadot's problem is poor execution.

Since crypto is largely driven by narratives and emotions, crypto companies want to work with influencers.

As Edgy said, this leverage makes it easier for individuals to get jobs and trade, thus reducing their reliance on a single source of income.

In short, Naval’s book says it all for me:

· I was bored but curious about cryptocurrencies, so I started researching, which helped me build a specific body of knowledge.

· Since I can’t code, I chose to write to increase my audience and gain influence.

· As my audience grew, I gained multiple ways to make money.

· Cryptocurrency is like a game to me. (When I was a teenager, I played Lineage 2. Leveling up in the game is similar to getting followers on Twitter. Money in crypto is like Adena in the game, and being a KOL is like being a hero in Lineage, expanding your influence.)

Tip: What are you really curious about? In the long run, you need to stay motivated by curiosity.

Business Model

Before I share tips on gaining followers, I want to share an important reason to become a KOL: making money.

This is the biggest problem for many KOLs, and monetization is harder than attracting audiences and fans.

A few months after I started writing, I quit my 9-to-5 job. This was the best moment I ever felt.

I went to a cafe and opened a Notion spreadsheet with all the popular models that KOLs use to make money. My first idea was to find investment opportunities for VCs while learning about great protocols in the crypto space. Long story short, I ended up with a blog, pitches, Instadapp ambassadorships, and launched my influencer marketing agency Pink Brains.

I have at least five sources of income (including airdrops) in addition to my salary.

Note: This Notion sheet was created by me and I haven't touched it in a year. So, it's not finished and has a lot of typos.

So, here are the most popular monetization models for crypto influencers:

Paid posts: Seems simple, but it can hurt your reputation.

· One bad collaboration with a shady crypto project can ruin your reputation, so make sure the project is credible. Accounts with less than 10,000 followers rarely attract mainstream projects, while accounts with more followers are overwhelmed and spend a lot of time researching projects.

· Payouts vary based on private negotiations, the reputation and influence of the KOL, and the KOL's knowledge of other rates. Posts usually start at $500 for KOLs with less than 20,000 followers, but can reach $3000-5000 for KOLs with hundreds of thousands of followers. Mainstream projects have lower reputational risk, so the fees paid are generally lower.

· When the market turns from bullish to bearish or from bearish to bullish, the payouts will also change accordingly.

Blog Sponsorship:

· Dedicated section in blog posts. Prices range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on the number of subscribers. Expect to pay upwards of $1,000 for a 150-word sponsored content in a blog post.

· Featured Blog Posts: One well-known KOL I know charges $15,000 for a dedicated blog post, and generally speaking, a blog post costs much less.

· Paid Subscriptions: Unpopular because it limits the development of KOLs, and you can earn more income from the above two methods. For example, I earn $13,000 per year before taxes from paid subscriptions.

Private Equity Investments in KOLs:

· Private equity investments are becoming more and more popular among KOLs. Projects also like this model because KOLs will voluntarily participate in project construction without having to pay for commissioned articles.

· Investments are usually between $1,000 and $20,000 per KOL.

· Terms like unlock period, valuation, etc. are better than most VC firms.

· Requires you to post about the project, usually a few tweets per month. High earnings potential.

· Previously, it was considered almost risk-free due to short unlock periods and low valuations. Now the situation is a bit different because low circulation and high FDV tokens are constantly being sold off.

Advisor/Ambassador Positions:

· Both have a minimum requirement for monthly posts and are long-term. Compensation is usually paid in project tokens, while one-time paid posts on Twitter are paid in stablecoins. Compensation varies, but typically you can expect to receive $5,000-$10,000 or even $15,000 per month.

Referrals:

· I like referral models that give special benefits to the referrer. Airdrops are a good fit. Another common one is that CEXs reward referrers with a portion of the fees they get from new users. This income is unstable.

Dumping tokens to followers

· Buy tokens and recommend them to your followers. This is very common and even done by the "most respected" KOLs on Twitter.

There are more ways to monetize KOLs, such as becoming a representative of a DAO. The upper limit of your monetization ability depends on your creativity.

Finding a profit model takes time. It took me 9 months and more than 40,000 followers on Twitter to find my first blog sponsor. I decided not to do paid posts (only one for Pancakeswap V3) and started a KOL agency.

In fact, I make more money posting paid posts than I did with our influencer agency, and it’s less work. But I’m more interested in growing Pink Brains than making money.

How to Grow Your Audience

This topic could be a blog post in its own right, and you can find many related posts on Twitter, such as this one from Edgy. To keep it simple, I’ll share my personal advice:

1. Start with a focused area and then gradually expand your reach.

· Start by focusing on a hot area or even just a protocol, and then become an authority in that area. Write guides, share updates, connect with core communities and share your insights.

· Make sure you are really passionate about it, rather than feeling like you are working for it.

· As you grow, expand your coverage: a popular protocol → similar protocols → DeFi → cryptocurrency → others

2. Find what you are good at:

· You may be good at on-chain transactions, making memes, and looking for airdrops. It is best to combine multiple skills to make you irreplaceable.

· For example, CC2 ventures shares airdrop guides while farming those airdrops themselves.

3. Provide value first, then seek monetization.

· First, you need to provide something valuable to your audience without asking for anything in return. Write guides, share insights, and connect with like-minded people.

· Monetization needs to wait. If you start monetizing paid posts too early, it may hinder your long-term development.

· For example, ELI5 of TLDR grew to 13,000 followers by commenting on popular posts.

4. Avoid using hashtags and use tickers instead. Too many hashtags will make your posts look like spam.

5. Choose a striking avatar and use it all the time. NFT avatars (like Pudgy Penguins) can attract community members and increase your number of followers, but NFTs are expensive.

6. Try new content: Yesterday's success may be tomorrow's failure. As crypto trends develop, stay ahead of the curve by constantly reinventing yourself.

· I've seen more than a few influencers lose influence because they failed to reinvent themselves.

· Stand out by being unique. Take inspiration from your favorite writers, but don't copy their content.

· Mix light content posts (like this one) with topical and long posts. Light content gets views, and long posts attract followers.

5. Tag a few experts on the topic at the end of your post. But please don't tag the same person over and over again, it's annoying.

6. Don’t post meaningless spam. Insightful spam is a high-level art form that requires wisdom and expertise.

7. Use tools like Typefully to help you write posts: fix grammar, use AI to help brainstorm, and track data.

· Check analytics to see what type of content resonates best with your audience, then adjust your strategy.

8. Reply to comments on posts, participate in discussions, and thank your fans. Building a community is a two-way street.

9. Try other platforms: Start with Farcaster, Debank or Lens to build your audience without fierce competition. Once you have a solid following, bring them to Twitter.

10. Don’t look for easy shortcuts, there are none.

· Avoid Twitter campaigns of likes, retweets and comments. These will skew your engagement metrics. After the campaign ends, the algorithm will show future posts to the same reward-seeking users. If they stop engaging, your influence will shrink. Prioritize small, focused communities.

· Don’t just go for eyeballs, go for quality. Forget vanity metrics and attract “valuable fans” with top-notch content.

Ultimately, it comes down to whether you have a unique insight, know how to write and keep working at it. It took me two years to get to 100,000 followers.

Unfortunately, it’s harder than ever to grow a following. There are very few new people on crypto Twitter, so posts are made and articles are read by the same people.

Twitter’s “recommendations” feature reduces the need to follow accounts directly.

I recommend following Alex to learn about changes in the Twitter algorithm and how to adapt to grow your audience.

How to market to others on Twitter

An unexpected side effect of being a KOL is increased sales power. This isn’t just because of a larger audience.

I get dozens of direct messages a day, but can only respond to a few of them. Unfortunately, I can’t respond to every message because it’s too time-consuming and most direct messages don’t make sense.

Most KOLs do this. The number one reason for not responding is not mutual follow-up: If I don’t follow anyone who follows you, you’ll pass.

That’s why, even if you’re not a KOL but a developer, researcher, company employee, business developer, etc., you should get followers if you plan to reach out to people on Twitter.

I get a lot of pitches every day, and they teach me how to pitch. Here are some tips:

· Keep it brief, long messages will be skipped.

· Introduce yourself, state your needs and emphasize your value.

· Don’t put links in the first message, especially Calendly!

· Be persistent but polite.

· No reply? Your pitch may not be what I need, don’t mind.

· Nothing is worse than a Calendly link in the first message!

All in all, this is just my path, yours will be different.

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