Here is an overview of free resources and best channels to drive your ICO marketing campaign, including reddit, telegram, steemit, facebook and InnMind
So many startups all over the world are now thinking on how to make an ICO (Initial Coin Offering which is an alternative fundraising method, we will tell more about ICO itself in another post) and raise necessary funds after a successful ICO campaign.
Lots of important questions should be considered while preparing for an ICO, such as legal set up, regulatory issues, token economy, business model, technical aspects... and ICO marketing as an essential part of a successful crowd-sales campaign.
When demand is high, the number of offers increases, which brings tons of new ICO marketing service providers to the market. Among them you can see groups of SMM freelancers, willing to establish business on this hype; marketing newbies, trying to make quick money on the hot topic; branches of traditional marketing agencies, etc. Some of them charge insane fees in advance, others are more humble and establish for more or less reasonable pricing. The common thing between all of them is that the market itself is so new and fast changing, that no one can have rational reasons to call themselves real “specialists” or “gurus” in ICO marketing. As a matter of fact, it is still a learning curve for everyone.
That is why we on InnMind start building the knowledge base about ICO ourselves and share the outcomes with you, so that we all together could create solid understanding of how to make an ICO in a proper, legal and efficient way.
In this post we start to cover questions about ICO marketing, in particular - the most interesting and free-of-charge channels for your crowd-sales campaign.
Best free channels for ICO marketing:
What is it?
Reddit is a platform for community-generated content. It can be a very efficient marketing channel, if you know how to use it in a right way. It is a platform for user-generated content that can be upvoted or downvoted by users. You can create a subreddit for your project and focus on showing that you care about your customers, community and ICO investors.
How to use reddit for ICO marketing?
There are two types of posts on Reddit: links that simply direct users to an external site, and text posts which are hosted on Reddit. Make sure that you submit links to various sites, not only your project webpage and link to quality content.
First, you should do when starting your promotion on reddit is to find the right subreddit for posting. Reddit is full of smaller communities called subreddits and big subreddits that generate lots of traffic. Try both and see what works best for your marketing objectives.
Be aware: you should pay a lot of attention to what you post and how you behave on reddit to avoid getting banned! Redditors hate promotional posts and marketing stuff 🤢 And always follow posting rules of subreddits, no matter how small they are.
Subreddits about ICO and blockchain:
BlockChain - all the stuff about blockchain
Blockchain Startups - dedicated subreddit for blockchain startups
CryptoCurrency - all subjects related to emerging crypto-currencies and crypto-assets
Icocrypto - the place to come for discussion of everything related to active and upcoming ICO / Crowdsales
ethtrader - Ethereum news, memes, investing, trading, miscellaneous market-related subjects and other relevant technology.
ICOAnalysis - a place to analyze cryptocurrency ICO companies.
CryptoICO - ICO listings, information and discussions
InitialCoinOfferings - discussions related to ICO, Crowdsales and Token sales in the fields of Blockchain and Datachain
Best of Crypto - this subreddit is for sharing and archiving the best comments regarding cryptocurrency within Reddit
IcoCrypto - Discussions related to ICO, Crowdsales and Token sales in the fields of Blockchain and Datachain
What is it?
Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app both for web and mobile use, which is told to have a high level of security. It has over 100 million users and over 15 billion daily messages. An interesting fact is that there are no paid advertising! Telegram users are not annoyed by enormous number of sponsored ads, posts and promotional campaigns, which makes this resource an interesting and efficient marketing channel.
How to use telegram for ICO marketing?
Start from choosing the format of your communication with audience.
In Telegram you can create a group or chat, which is similar to Facebook groups, where people can communicate and interact with each other. Or you can create a channel, where only admin can make posts and communicate with the audience.
The advantages of telegram group is that it really helps with community building: you can talk to your customers and receive immediate feedback, get to know them better and improve your company presence. But the drawback is that open groups need regular moderation (to avoid trolls) and active involvement from your side. Checking your telegram chat once per day as you may do in other social media channels is not an option: audience wants to communicate with you, and you have to react rapidly.
Telegram channel doesn’t require so much involvement: you make posts as many as you want and it is the one way road. But it lacks of engagement: your subscribers can only read your news and can’t share their feedback.
Whatever format you chose you need to promote your group or channel in external resources to fill them in with interested active audience (this topic requires additional guide about telegram channel promotion, but meanwhile you can use such resourses as ListMe). And keep in mind that even when you have no limits of the amount of posts you make, consistency is more important than quantity: treat your content seriously, make posts regularly and be sure that it is relevant and useful for your audience.
Telegram chats and groups about ICO and blockchain:
SmartContracts - channel with news about blockchain and ICO
Thecointelegraph - the official channel about Cointelegraph media about Fintech, Blockchain and Bitcoin
Preicoved - listing of Pre-ICO and Pre-sale crypto projects
ICO, Blockchain, Startups - group of investors, experts and entrepreneurs, discussing the regulatory issues, insightful news and trends of blockchain and crypto market and analysing ICO startups.
Cryptocurrency - telegram channel posting news about cryptocurrencies (mostly from Cointelegraph) and upcoming ICOs (rarely)
CryptoCommunities - listing of global crypto communities in telegram
ScienceBlockchain - community around The Science Blockchain ICO Pre Sale
Trezortalk - community interested in Hardware Wallet TREZOR ICO
Bitnationchat - Telegram presence of the Bitnation community
Blackmoon Crypto - a telegram group for the project Blackmoon Crypto, which provides a tokenization platform for real-world as well as crypto investment funds. They raised recently $30 mln for ICO campaign. Good case to study on ;)
MicroMoney ICO - another good example of how to attract and engage crypto community around your ICO.
InnMind
What is it?
InnMind is a global platform for startups and investors, joining over 10 thousand of active community from 60 countries in the world. The big advantage of InnMind is the relevance and focus of its audience: there are startup founders, VCs, crypto funds, angel investors, accelerators, mentors, experts and service providers - it is an online hub for global professional community around startup scene.
How to use InnMind for ICO marketing?
In addition to many other useful features InnMind is a great channel for marketing of startups planning to launch pre-ICO or making an ICO campaign. There you can make a public announce your crowdsale, promote your project among the target audience and even reach directly ICO investors and crypto funds.
First you need to register your startup profile on InnMind. Verify it and make sure your profile looks great: upload video, project description and WP. If you make pre-sale, also upload the conditions of pre-sale for your investors.
In the news and announcements section you can publish a post about the start of your pre-sale or ICO campaign. It will be included to the weekly newsletter and also announced in InnMind social media channels with a global outreach. On the Blockchain and ICO section you can share with like-minded community your experience of preparation for the ICO, the details about token structure, useful tips on tokenizing of business model or any other valuable and relevant information. And it is for free!
>>> InnMind can also be used to reach directly investors for your pre-ICO and main ICO campaign. And it won't cost you a fortune - visit the webpage for startups preparing for ICO to learn nore. <<<
Facebook groups about ICO and blockchain:
Token Booster - facebook group about token economy, blockchain and ICO, where you can tell about your project and share crypto market news
Blockchain Entrepreneurs Billionaire - group to place Your ICO, business Adverts
ICO, Funding, Angels, Seeds, Investors, Startups - for people who are looking for investors and co-founders
ICO Investing Group - to discuss upcoming Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)
ICO, crowdfunding & crowdinvesting - english and russian speaking facebook community to tell the story about your ICO, preICO, crowdfunding or crowdinvesting campaign
ICO - Initial Coin Offering/s - group is only for discussing ICOs and tokens that had an ICO.
Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Token - a bit messy FB group, but here you can also announce your token sale.
Linkedin groups about ICO and blockchain:
Blockchain, Distributed Ledgers and Smart Contracts for Business
IT | Blockchain Developers, Investors, Traders and Consultants
Payments; Fintech, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, MPOS, Mobile Banking
Media & Blockchain - Executives
Blockchain Network - Forum for discussions, ideas, investments in the rapidly growing blockchain arena.
Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technology ( DLT )
BLOCKCHAIN Professional Network
Blockchain and Bitcoin Startups
Blockchain Professionals & Developers: Smart Contracts, Ethereum, Bitcoin, MoIP & Cryptocurrencies
Blockchain Academy - a collaborative network of education for multidisciplinary training focused on bitcoin, blockchain and similar technologies.
Blockchain News - the first online publication that is dedicated to blockchain technology and theory.
There are new resources and channels about ICO and blockchain appearing every day on the market. Impossible to list them all. But if we missed some important of them - share feedback in the comments, let's build the knowledge base together!
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