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NearingNFT | NFT Calendar
NearingNFT | NFT Calendar

Posted on • Originally published at nearingnft.net

How to promote your NFT Project

Are you curious about how you can promote your nft launch? Recently, a project reached out to us asking how one would gain organic exposure for their project. Many are launching their NFT collection these days, which is why this guide was created: to help you stand out in the masses of digital art. The purpose of this guide is to show you the basics of promoting an nft collection in general.

Answering important questions

Before we start discussing the ways of promoting an NFT collection, it is important to have a couple of things clear. First, it is important to understand what your project’s purpose is and the benefits it has. This guide will briefly discuss these questions and a few others to help you understand why it is important and what questions you need to be asking yourself.

Many NFT collections are simply created to get rich fast. Sorry, but if this is your goal, then you will not get far. An nft project's longevity is strongly dependent on its purpose. If your nft project does not have a purpose it will be killed sooner or later. Ensuring that your project has a purpose that will benefit holders for a long time will attract new nft owners as well as help you get through tough times.

Let us briefly mention a few nft collections that are doing this. Illuvium and Axie Infinity are for example using NFTs to power their game. Others are using NFTs in the Metaverse as avatars and virtual land (property). Continuing, we have also seen that nft collections distribute royalties from resales (also known as NFT royalties). Some are even combining all of these together and you can just guess what their result is! Don’t be afraid to get creative when you’re finding your purpose as it certainly will be worth it. Maybe there is a void in the NFT world that you can fill.

As a result, there may be a lot of work that needs to be done. Let us look at how we can tackle that problem and why having a strong team will help you.

Who is on your team?

Ask yourself, how identified is my team? Have you heard about the term “Doxxed NFT”? A “Doxxed NFT” simply means that the creator(s) of the NFT is publicly identified. Why is this important? Well, in the web3 space being doxxed increases transparency and trust with your nft community.

This allows possible nft holders to do their research on the nft creators. Thus, if they find something positive it will reflect positively on your project. On the other hand, there are also benefits for the nft creators such as reputation and respect. We recommend reading the article “What Is a Doxxed NFT?” by CyberScrilla if you are wondering if you should dox or not.

Much work? Then delegate tasks inside your team

It is also important to mention that delegating tasks is important if you feel that you cannot do everything. Find yourself a team or a teammate whom you trust to handle certain tasks. This will not only help you be more efficient but will increase the quality of your project as each individual can focus on a set of tasks. Let us briefly look at why having a fancy website is important.

Is your website fancy?

Why is having a fancy website important? Well, by saying fancy we do not mean having high-quality videos all over the place, crazy scrolling effects, or crazy designs but think about these questions. What does a poorly made website say about my project? Does my project have a proper domain (not a subdomain hosted by a 3rd party website such as Wix)? How easy is it to find information about the nft project on my site? And most importantly, what does this website say about my project?

Asking yourself these self-examining questions will help you answer whether your website is fancy or not. After all, the quality of a website is correlated to your NFT collection and reflects back on your community, therefore, it is extremely important to make it look good.

Why a “bad” website is harming

If your website is shady and messy it can easily sway away potential nft holders. You want to provide visitors with a pleasant experience when they are browsing the site. After all, a website for NFT creators is often where most, if not all information regarding the NFT is put. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the website is secure, works as intended, and has relevant information present.

What type of information should I put on my site?

Well, we researched a few sites and came down to the conclusion that your website should at least have these sections present on your site (in no particular order):

  • The nft project's story
  • Graphic showcasing the art
  • Social links for your nft project
  • A Roadmap
  • A FAQ
  • Information about the founders/team

Here are some sites you can take inspiration from:

Showing Doodles elegant website

List your project on the NFT calendar

Believe it or not, listing your site on an nft calendar can go a long way. Most nft calendar sites let you submit your project for free and have hundreds if not thousands of visitors every single day. Therefore, it is a great way to organically gain a following. Start by Googling "upcoming nft" and list your upcoming nft project on as many sites as possible.

On most nft calendar sites, all you have to do is submit your nft for listing and wait for it to be reviewed before it is publically visible. NFT Calendar is a place where upcoming nfts are displayed. Having a lot of upcoming nft collections present in one place makes it easier for nft collectors and nft enthusiasts to find nft projects that are interesting to them.

How to submit your upcoming nft project to the nft calendar?

To submit your project to nft calendar all you have to do is fill out a form. It normally takes a few minutes. The forms often ask for information such as:

  • Your nft project name
  • Your nft projects price
  • Your nft projects launch dates
  • Your nft projects collection size
  • Your nft projects official links

Some of these sites also offer the option to feature your drop and send a mail to their newsletter. By publishing your website on these sites, you also have the chance of increasing your domain authority which in return may put your website higher in Google's ranking. However, dealing with SEO is a very tedious process, but listing on as many sites as possible can be rewarding in the long run.

An image showing the listing process on NearingNFT

Using social media to grow your brand

Using the different platforms to gain exposure for your project is a necessity and a dominant tool for promotion. Today, Twitter and Discord are probably the most used platforms for NFT owners. The simple reason for this conclusion is that almost all projects have a Twitter account and most have a Discord server.

If you’re not familiar with Discord or Twitter then you should start by following nft projects, nft communities, or people in the NFT industry who you find appealing. See how they tweet, interact with others, and interact with their nft communities. You can for example try tweeting! You may notice no to little engagement, but the most important thing is that you gain practice. Join Twitter Spaces and engage in conversations. All of this will give you the knowledge to one day do it yourself! It is also important to mention that spamming the NFT community is a no!

Additionally, on most social media platforms, you have the option to promote your collection on themed social media accounts which we will discuss later. However, it is hard to determine how effective this option is. Furthermore, the guide will now look at how we can use those Twitter and Discord specifically to grow a community.

Twitter

As of Q2 2022, Twitter has approximately 237 million active users, and the #NFT tag on Twitter has been posted anywhere between 19K to 53K times daily in August 2022. It is therefore no wonder that many see Twitter as the main nft platform for everything happening in the crypto and NFT space. If something is happening in the NFT space Twitter will most likely see it first.

It is simple to start with Twitter. To get started you first need to create an account for your NFT drop. Tweeting often and engaging in conversations are extremely important when building an organic following. It is all about engaging with your community.

Furthermore, you can join Twitter spaces. Everyone can host a Twitter Space, but it may be hard to host one without a community or knowledge. Therefore, you should join other Twitter Spaces and note down how some of them are held. Once you are ready to host your own you can for example host an AMA session. If you find it hard to host one on your own it is possible to find someone to host an AMA with you. Here's an example of to announcement an AMA on Twitter.

In connection with this, it is possible to host a giveaway with a Twitter NFT promoter. While you may gain hundreds or thousands of followers within a few days, those new followers could also be gone as quickly. For this reason, you may be left with a considerably low amount of people or even "fake" people that are interested in your nft collection. Many have also experienced getting scammed by this method. It is therefore extremely important to tread with care!

Discord

Lately, many have voiced their concerns and problems with Discord in the NFT space. In spite of this, a lot of projects still have a Discord link associated with their nft project. Discord is another social media platform that allows you to interact with your community.

There are many ways of structuring a Discord server for your nft drop. You can join the Discord servers of top nft collections and copy their layout. If you are thinking about utilizing Discord for your nft project, then make sure you invite the appropriate bots to help you moderate the server. Sadly, many use Discord to scam and it is important to have the correct tools to stop a Discord raid and have appropriate warnings displayed about scams on your server.

On top of that, it is also possible to join multiple NFT Discord servers and advertise your project. How effective this method is we cannot tell; however, it is a lot better to hold conversations about your project with an audience. Continuing, it is possible to use Discord to offer WL to those who invite their friends to your server. Offering fun and rewarding perks to those who are willing to do the little extra will go a long way. You may have seen something like this: “Invite 2 members to the Discord server for whitelist.”

Because of that, many nft projects have seen that members invite friends using their unique invite link. As a result, they saw growth in their nft community. On the other hand, others have rewarded them with a special rank in the Discord server to show them your further appreciation. Again, be creative! Let us now look at the importance of contests.

The importance of contests

Contests keep your community engaged as well as attract possible holders of your NFT collection, and it is not difficult at all. A common contest in the NFT space is the chance to win a whitelist (or presale) spot. Let us briefly look at the benefits holding a contest can bring:

  • Gets your project out in the nft world
  • Gives you an indication of how weighty your nft community is
  • The possibility of engaging with your nft community
  • The possibility of attracting holders to your nft project

Delegate this task to someone on your team to host contests regularly. Take a look at how Mekaverse held a NFT giveaway on Twitter.

In connection with this, Banana Ballers held a meme contest on Twitter to reap the benefits of holding a contest. For most entries, Banana Ballers used the community's engagement to further increase the engagement by liking and retweeting an entry. Is this something you can do for your nft project?

What type of contests can you host exactly?

As mentioned above, be creative. There is no limit or exception to what you can do. However, we have collected a list of contests that have appeared in the nft space before that are not hard to execute:

  • A giveaway contest – Like for a WL spot
  • A drawing contest – Draw for a WL spot
  • A writing contest– Write for a WL spot
  • A meme contest – The funniest meme wins a WL spot
  • A karaoke contest – Best entrants win a WL spot
  • A game contest – Highest high score wins a WL spot

Of course, hosting contests does not have to be done only on Twitter. Why not do some research on how the top projects held their contests?

All in all, hosting contests is a great and fun way to keep your community engaged and give something back to them. Don’t forget: the most important part of your project is your community. Do everything you can to optimize your contests so the engagement within your nft community increases. Another way of gaining an organic following is to set up a premint list. Have you set up a premint list?

Have you set up a premint list?

Have you heard of premint.xyz? Well, it is a website that allows NFT owners to create an access list. You can then randomly select nft collectors and nft community members to win a premint (whitelist) spot. They state that over 800,000 collectors have joined lists without spending any gas!

This resource has been used by top nft artists and collections such as XCOPY, Coldie, Cool Cats, Known Origin, and DeekayMotion. But why is this resource good for your nft project? Well, this resource lets you define exactly which NFT fan can join your list. In other words, you can either allow everyone to join the list or set requirements for who can join the list.

What could the requirements be?

  • Have at least 0.1 ETH in your wallet
  • Must follow your Twitter account
  • Must join your Discord server

For this reason, your project can notice a growth on their social media channels as well as grow their nft community if you decide to use this resource. However, we recommend that everyone does their research on premint.xyz if you want to use this resource. It is also worth mentioning that we are not sponsored in any way by this resource. Ultimately, you can also develop a similar resource if you have the team/knowledge for it. Let us briefly look at why setting up collaborations is important.

Set up collaborations

As of lately, there have been many talks about NFTs turning influencers into scammers. As a result, more and more people start to worry whenever they hear about an influencer being tied with an nft project. However, this is still a good way to get your project out. The purpose of collaborating should always be "recognition" and "exchanging audiences".

However, you can skip influencers completely and collaborate with other NFT projects, fashion brands, studios, musicians, or an nft artist if you wish. But do not partner up with just anyone! Make sure to do proper research on those with who you want to establish a collaboration. Maybe you love their art or think that you have a similar audience, then reach out!

If you do end up establishing a collaboration, use that moment to further grow your community. Share the collaboration on different social media channels to generate more engagements. Of course, establishing a good collaboration is not easy, you may not even find one at all. But, if you have followed the guide then, someone will most likely notice your project.

Why being an NFT collector matters

If you are an NFT collector the chances are that you have some recognition within the NFT space. The reason being is that many often post about their recent NFT purchases on different social media platforms. NFT Artists or NFT collection owners often like those posts resulting in exposing your name to different audiences. Others simply post about nft collections that they are genuinely excited about.

If you are an NFT collector with a following, then use that to further grow your nft community. If you’re not collecting, do not fear, it does not have to be expensive to get started, because it is a great investment for your future NFT collection.

Choosing the right nft market for your nft drop

Choosing the right nft market for your nft drop is important. The most popular NFT marketplace is OpenSea. An NFT marketplace is created to help you sell your digital assets. On OpenSea an nft creator can make a collection for free, without any coding knowledge. Maybe you want to drop your nft art on a specific blockchain? Therefore, it is important to find out which nft marketplace is the perfect one for your nft drop.

Conclusion

To sum up, make sure you have a solid marketing strategy before you start promoting your nft collection. If you have a weak marketing strategy it will be hard to grow your nft community and you may find yourself wasting time. As mentioned earlier, many projects are released in the nft world. Launching the NFT project may be all fun and exciting, but it is extremely important to properly promote your nft collection to stand out in the masses.

All in all, this guide gave you an overview of the different ways when it comes to promoting your nft collection. Be genuine and keep your promises, failing to do so is often what kills a project. But do not forget to enjoy the process and have fun! Do not forget to follow us on Twitter @NearingNFT and tell us how you liked this post!

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