One of the hardest parts about creating and executing an NFT project is trying to get exposure to attract investors and grow your community. Time and time gain projects have to be shut down for good because they cannot efficiently build and maintain a community. Mainly due to the over-saturation of NFT projects.
However, it doesn’t have to be as hard as you think. Some requirements for a successful NFT project launch and promotional run are time, detailed and attention-grabbing infographics to reel in viewers, and money. But how you apply these resources makes the difference, which we are talking about in this post.
1. Create Immersive and Eye-Catching Teasers
For all examples in this article, creating good teasers will be beneficial in multiple different ways. You’ll be setting yourself apart from projects that don’t at least appear to be as severe as the community you’re trying to create and the product you’re selling.
If you do this successfully enough, you’ll also be more memorable to those who find these teasers, possibly leading to them sending friends and family.
Among other things, you might catch the attention of people who could help contribute to the project. This could be a huge bonus!
2. Social Media/Boosted Posts
Creating and frequently posting on social media is a great way to start. Because of the way social media is algorithmized, creating content and using the right hashtags alone can get your posts in front of the right people.
But there’s also a way to pay for ads and “boost” your posts so that they get preference in explore pages and promoted feeds.
You can even pay for targeted ads on Meta (previously Facebook) platforms, but…
I will warn you that targeted ads can become very expensive quickly, and because of the heat, Meta came under fire for its blatant disregard for how its algorithms and ads were being used and their effects, these targeted ads aren’t as effective as they used to be.
3. Utilizing Tik-Tok
I’m aware that Tik Tok is a social media platform, but because you can’t “boost” posts, the method of gaining popularity on TikTok is very different.
For Tik Tok, you’re going to have to stay up to date with trends, as well as try to create at least three pieces of content a day to try to circulate better through the algorithm as well as gain a good following and keep user engagement to not get cycled out.
Also, because the NFT space is a particular niche, it might take a reasonable amount of time and consistency to achieve the success you wish to see.
However, at certain points, you do get access to a lot of Tik Tok-specific bonuses. For example, if you get access to the Tik Tok creator fund, you’ll be able to help fund more social media promos without dipping into your project’s funding.
As of right now, Tik Tok seems to be the most popular and effective social media to promote businesses on, so realistically not using it is a huge mistake.
4. Influencer Promo
Getting influencers to promo your project is also an extremely effective way to make sure your project is seen by many as well, although this might be an expensive way to do it (depending on who you hire).
Using an influencer that is already well circulated with an algorithm or a media platform boosts your chances of not only getting seen but of retaining investors and viewers because the influencer has already gained the trust of an audience, so you don’t have to try as hard to convince people of the vision of the project.
This might be more difficult to pull off because an influencer may be challenging to believe. Essentially, the influencer becomes the project’s spokesperson, and they need to know what they are talking about.
They are less believable if they don’t have some NFT street cred.
This goes in the other direction too. The influencer needs to know the project will be a success and be able to really back the project. At this point, they are risking their integrity. We have already seen influencers crash and burn in the NFT space.
So, bringing influencers on board might prove complex but lucrative if executed correctly.
5. Discord Channel Pages for Exposure
All over the internet, there are pages set up as “bulletin boards” where you can post your discord channel. Discord has an official page like this too, but it’s much more difficult to get onto that list.
This is why you can go to a smaller page where you can post your channel both for free and for a price if you want to be promoted on the bulletin.
Doing this has yielded varying results. It depends a lot on how interesting you can make your post, as well as which website you use.
But if used correctly, it would funnel (hopefully a lot of) people directly to a central information center for your project. Plus, it can be used as a point of holder verification if your project needs something of that nature.
6. Google Ads for the Project Website
Google ads are also an effective promotion method. The idea is that you pay google to recommend your website when people make google searches that are somewhat similar to what your website offers.
This can work, but only if you can create a good hook to get people to click on your website instead of the website they were searching for.
Perhaps it’s better to implement this option if your project is already somewhat established as opposed to if the project is still new and building, as you want to be able to retain the web traffic that comes to the website.
7. Collab with other projects
Another great way to get more attention from audiences already interested in NFTs is to collaborate with other NFT projects.
The level of collaboration is up to you and the dev team of the other project. However, most projects like to create limited and rare NFTs to push sales for both projects as well as bring more attention.
At a very base level, if you aren’t able to do this, joining live streams with other teams or offering specific benefits to different groups for joining your community with special codes or unique verification options will also draw in more interest.
Plus, if the projects you collaborate with are farther along than you are, there’s always a possibility to get connected with the official pages for the blockchain you’re using (Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, etc.).
8. Partner with well know Developers or companies
Another power move in showing your commitment to the development of your project is to partner with companies and get insight or work with well-known developers and make it very public that this/these partnerships are happening.
This builds a level of trust with people who not only know of who you’re partnering with but also with those who like to research heavily because it will allow them to understand fully that you’re committed to your community and the project it surrounds.
Plus, you’ll be able to upgrade the quality of your product, which will look good farther into your journey as well. And most likely make things easier for you and your dev team.
9. Getting your drop date put on NFT drop calendars
All over the internet, there are websites made to showcase NFTs projects and their release and mint dates (such as https://nftcalendar.io/).
These websites are very popular with serious investors and YouTube influencers as of right now. Therefore, by getting onto these websites, your project is getting set up to get a lot of free promotions as well.
From that point on, it would be up to you (just as before) to retain the new members you gain.
10. Start a thread on Reddit/Bitcointalk
Starting around 2020, when Covid 19 hit, traders and crypto projects as a whole embraced forum-based social media like Reddit and Bitcointalk to grow support as well as deliver info in a faster way (and post memes).
Ever since then, Reddit has become equal with discord in growth creation for projects. If you were to create a forum for your project and advertise it correctly, both Reddit and Bitcointalk could be advantageous assets for your project.
Delegating this would be a bit difficult, though; you can run bots and such but having a social media manager would be necessary for forums not only to answer questions but also to make sure that anything “goes wrong” can be corrected quickly.
11. PR article/s
Hiring people to write articles for you on sites like Medium to promote your project and what it is offering is another method that could be more expensive (depending on who you hire and the engagement the post/s get).
But this method could also prove to be very lucrative for your project as the article(s) could have all of your main links and teasers on it, giving the readers all the info in one place to help make a faster and more informed decision.
Before this PR goes public, I would warn you to ask to look over it to make sure you’re getting across what you want to say and that there wasn’t a miscommunication or that your project wasn’t misrepresented.
The last thing you’d want is a PR disaster early in the project.
12. Become a collector
As a creator, publicly collecting NFTs from other projects is a great way to not only get noticed by those projects but also a way to show that you know about NFTs beyond a base level and that passion carries over to what you create.
If you can catch the attention of the projects you collect these NFTs from, it’ll play back to what I was saying earlier about forming relationships and collaborating with other projects. Here are five other reasons to put your money where your mouth is.
While it will take some resources and time to collect NFTs along with the project you’re creating, it may pay you back in multiple ways.
One of the best ways I’ve seen this be done is to create either a DAO type system to hold these NFTs to put back into the project.
Or, if you don’t necessarily have the means to do this, you can create a wallet (for the same purpose) and have the community contribute as well. (This is also an effective burning method to take some of your project’s NFTs out of circulation.)
If you intend to collect NFTs, you need to read this: How To Buy NFTs When They Drop in 3 Steps.
13. Giveaways
Let’s be honest; everyone loves free things. Especially if the free thing can possibly make the recipient money on the backend. Doing giveaways is a great way to get your project shared by all the community members you have at the time.
You can even do these giveaways in collaboration with other projects, essentially doubling your exposure. The formula is simple, tell your people that you have NFTs that you want to give away, but first, they have to share something, repost something, or post one of your teasers and tag you in that post.
Then all you have to do is monitor and keep track of who does it for the random selection. This is similar if you were to collab with another project. Only you’d have a more challenging time tracking the people who participate.
It’s also worth noting that collaborating with the other project to make a special NFT to give away is exceptionally effective as well (possibly more so than a regular NFT from the existing collection).
Parting thoughts
While creating an NFT project that is lucrative is very difficult, getting exposure and creating a community to support your project is even more challenging.
I hope that somewhere in this article, I’ve given you at least one method of gaining this exposure that you or your dev team hasn’t thought of yet.
Or possibly given you a breakthrough method. I hope that the project you’re creating succeeds and that you can create an active community around your project.
I’ll say too that it’s very possible that as Web 3.0 develops and gets more adopted and easier to use that these methods might either start to fall off or be replaced by more functional and engagement earning methods. So as with anything else you might be doing as a side hustle or taking a chance on a new career, discernment is necessary to figure out where your project is going to get the most engagement.
Another recommendation is to educate yourself even further. Here are our top articles, which will hopefully help you get to the moon.