Why ICOs Need To Hire a Community Management Company

From time to time, every business venture may see the need for more funds. Quite frequently, these required funds may not be readily accessible, and the company’s executive members need to hustle to meet the required amount of resources.

Some other categories of business projects require fund sourcing from the very first phase; at the stages when the business is still an idea waiting to be implemented. Regardless of the business’ position, the bottom line is that money is needed, and the funds must be made available if the projects would get the expansion or become established, as the case may be. Entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts, especially start-ups, find it difficult to find major funding. Entire projects may wind up and be quickly forgotten simply due to the lack of funds.

ICOs are fundraising events announced by cryptocurrency project managers and developers. In the last two years, it has become increasingly popular as a reliable means of sourcing funds. But unlike the IPOs which are centralized, ICOs are different in that they are decentralized forms of gathering capital investment. Hence, all of the ‘agreements’ between investors and the said project, occur on virtual functioning blockchain using cryptocurrencies (tokens).

Unlike traditional companies, there is no physical product which investors can hold onto. Instead, projects put simple goals of reaching the soft and hard caps to keep the business running. This has proven to be powerful. ICOs have shown extreme potentials for raising funds. In January to March 2018 alone, about $3,235,645,638 was raised, while over $ 72, 985,851 was raised in less than 55 hours in April (icodata.io). These are some of the peculiarities of ICOs!

Branding and consistency matter. Investors will try and test the team and the management on their knowledge of the crypto space, and the product they are selling. The ICO management team must be able to plan out the best response and methods to handle the questions and demands. This includes:

• How to effectively advertise the ICOs on the cryptocurrency space so money and time is maximized.

• Branding decisions for the project managers and development team.

• Convince and lure prospective investors to buy into the project through active interactive engagement.

• How to proactively make company announcements at the right place and time.

All of these responsibilities are simply too unimportant for CEO’s and leaders of development teams. Handling business relations and developing the platform simply take too much time. Properly planned projects that make use of ICOs require a reasonable amount of manpower so that duties can be rightly distributed, and optimum productivity achieved. If a singular person or just a small team take on all the responsibilities, it cuts down their productivity as well as their morale.

What Does Your ICO Management Team Need?

When launching an ICO, don’t forget that the investors that you have to reach out to, only exist in the virtual space. There are no chances to impress on their investment thoughts on a physical platform like the product companies would do, aside from expensive roadshow events.

With the proliferation of ICOs, people are beginning to get very selective in the type of projects that they push their money into. This is coupled with awareness of shady ICO practices which have risen considerably. ICO exit scams are almost becoming a tactic of the past.

With news like the LoopX project, where over $4.5 million of investors’ funds were carted away, investors are a lot less trusting with random ICOs. Any ICO that would even reach its soft cap must be that which would pass detailed information across to the public and create long lasting trust.

The success of ICO marketing and sales are largely dependent on how much the ICO company can harvest the trust of the investors. Now, all of these drives down to how much public relationship and communication, the company has built over time.

This is the reason why every ICO company needs to consider hiring an ICO marketing agency. Every running or intending ICO should make financial and personnel planning for community management services. This would be one of the most useful tools that would enable your project reach its hard cap in no time. It could be close to a useless decision if you intend to run an ICO without the services of a community management company. The truth is, you cannot always look out for yourself.

So Why Do You Need A Community Manager?

Before diving into the important marketing tools for the community management company, it is good that we be familiar with their responsibilities, or you may want to refer to it as the job description.

Community management companies are mostly saddled with the task of representing the ICO project in a community of investors and critics as well. This means they help in authenticating the online presence of the ICO development team by posting regular and updated information about the project, as well as answering all the questions that are directed towards the company. When hiring the services of a community management outfit, specific requirements must be placed in the criteria.

Depending on the nature of the project, it is advisable to employ the services of a company whose team members can adequately relate to the project. This is unavoidably important because it would determine the approach that would be used in communicating the intents of the ICO to people. For instance, if the ICO wishes to raise funds for an agricultural project, and the community management personnel were only knowledgeable in transportation and logistics, there is all the tendency that they wouldn’t be able to adequately engage the community in an interaction that aptly describes the project. In the case when this becomes obvious, you would have launched a major blow on the project, on the overall. Thus it is not about securing the management personnel alone but making them adequately grasp the idea.

Other considerations for making a choice, are the level of cryptocurrency knowledge that the team can display. Since the crowdfunding works on a blockchain, questions may arise as to how the smart contracts would run, and also how the participants would benefit from the project in future. The community manager should be able to explain if value returns would be dependent on token adoption and hence market value, or if investors profit would come as a percentage of the company’s profits from sales of a physical product, or whatever methods at all.

One major factor that keeps any investor in an investment program is the fact that he understands the methods, and knows via what routes his profits would come. An ideal community manager would have incorporated an ability to give clear details of every information in a way that is appealing to the listener, and that is why not just anybody can perfectly fit into the job.

Then, you should know that the language of communication is important. For instance, if the target audience is predominantly English, you wouldn’t want someone who just learned how to speak and is not fluent enough, to handle your public relations. Even if he knew what was required to be said for an answer, incoherent language use could make him sound clueless, or look unaware of the subject matter. In another instance where the target audience comprises of people of different language background, it is most necessary that the person be able to communicate in all of the languages. Otherwise, there should be provision for an interpreter who consequently translates what the community manager is passing across. Language skills test could be conducted before the start of the job. Language is key to communication, and this point cannot be overemphasized.

Top ICO Marketing Tools That Your Company Should Know

Although the digital currency arena is becoming larger and more dispersed as the days go, there are still result-proven platforms that can be used for the ICO marketing. These platforms are the basic tools used by all community management experts. This is because the platforms allow them to interact with a big chunk of cryptocurrency users.

We shall discuss these platforms and their basic how-to-use.

Telegram and Slack interactive forums

These platforms are easy to use. ICOs connect people with similar interests in a group and then disseminates the information as they come. Participants also have an opportunity to respond and give their feedback on what they think about the project, while clarifications are then made. To make it serve it’s purpose well, the team members should engage the community in discussions and answer every question promptly, and with every show of professionalism, as much as it is needed. Usually, there is a pinned post on the page that should contain the basic information that a newcomer needs, to make them remain in the group. A strategy that has proved useful in driving an influx of people to the chat rooms is to organize an airdrop where participants would be required tinkling the channel for a few of the tokens.

Bitcointalk

Bitcointalkforum has become the niche for cryptocurrency users, investors, and even mere enthusiasts looking to understand the whole concept of decentralized transactions. It is a very important place to advertise your ICO is it guarantees a good number of views on your project. Many people make use of this platform to post news, trends, and observations as about cryptocurrencies. When posting information about the project, it is important that the advertiser makes an exquisitely detailed description, that is never devoid of professionalism. When listing, you may talk about the team, as well as all the great prospects and plans for implementations after the crowdfunding.

Steem-it

The fact that steem-it works on a blockchain makes it popular among many cryptocurrency users. People especially flock to the platform because it awards free steem coins to users who post or engage in relevant contents on the blockchain. It is a good place to share the vision about the project that is about to touch the ground. It allows users make tags on their posts which makes it easy to locate the main posts from the home page. The community manager who would adopt steem-it for adverts purposes must be able to build a reputation in no time, as this is what determines how well people follow the posts.

Above all, remember that your community manager has the expertise and would know the best methods to get investors to come around.

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Why ICOs Need To Hire a Community Management Company was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.