"Hey, would you mind buying my NFT?"
As we are onboarding new podcasters on Uncut.fm, we start learning more and more interesting stuff about NFT Memberships...
Photo by Mats Hagwall on Unsplash
For those who don’t know, Uncut|fm is a new startup helping podcasters and creators in general create token-based communities. We're providing a blockchain infrastructure where creators can mint, share and sell their content as NFTs.
The cool thing is that no coding or web3 experience is required. No complicated signup and it’s 100% free!
We are still in private BETA and we are onboarding new podcasters everyday who are fired up about Uncut.fm. Meanwhile, NFT is new and a many of them are wondering how to introduce these tokens to their audience.
Just recently, one of our Podcaster in Residence was telling us on our Discord how difficult it was for him to ask his audience to buy his NFTs. Clearly, he was uncomfortable and afraid of his audience’s reaction.
As creators, we have been so used to giving without receiving anything in return, I can relate to that feeling.
It’s never easy to ask for buying
Here are his words:
“I minted 99 copies but I don't know how to share the news with my audience because I don't want to start writing to them and saying "hey, would you mind buying my NFT".
On the other hand, I don't want to show that only a few copies were sold out...
I shared the news with close friends to get their opinion. They are all interested in buying or supporting but most are not doing it not for financials reason but because they don't know how to buy or don't have a wallet. Have you experienced this too?"
Actually, I thought the same thing when I started minting my own NFTs with my podcast but my community proved me wrong.
For the record, I do about 20,000 downloads a month with Silicon Carne. I estimate my community to be about 3-4,000 regular listeners. I've minted 185 NFTs so far, 143 people have bought them, all sold out and I've already collected +3 ETH. Â
I mint NFTs for my fans, not my listeners
In fact, as creators we all have fans (probably 2-3% of our overall audience). They are people who love what we are doing and are willing to help and support our shows. Your NFTs are meant for THOSE PEOPLE, not the peeps who just listen to your show and don't give a dime to you.
The reality is that traditional podcasting platforms have never allowed us to get to know our audience, so we think the audience is a monolithic block of people. This is not the case and it's time for us to take back control and start identifying who our super fans are.
Oh and by the way, your friends are not your fans and vice versa ;-) Fans are a very specific category of people and should be considered as such.
With Web 2.0, we all focused on creating the largest audience possible; with Web 3, we create fandom and invent new forms of interaction and monetization WITH them.
Remember Kevin Kelly's essay on the 1,000 true fans?
Kelly advises you to build a direct relationship with your customers, especially in the early days. Because you only need about a thousand, it’s relatively manageable to offer these people the very best experience. Let them message you directly. Make a limited edition of your product and give it away to them for free. Organize an exclusive Q&A session with them. Just do whatever you can to get personal with your first customers in order to make them true fans.
Create FUN through NFTs
What I try to do with my fans is to have FUN with them.
My NFTs are just a gateway to unique experiences that I want to share with them. I view my NFTs as limited rewards that give them access and status.
Here are some examples of how I use NFTs with my community:
The Hacienda is my NFT gated-space. It's a kind of a Townhall where my fans can meet and learn from me before anyone else. I use it like a private newsletter with my fans. What's cool is that this space is directly accessible from my page on Uncut.fm and the platform automatically sends an email to all my NFT holders every time I post something there.
I created a WhatsApp group just for my fans to chat (you can also propose a Discord). I send the link via email (Uncut.fm provides you with the email addresses of your NFT holders). To be honest, I barely participate but I'm there and react to what they say. I throw out some crazy ideas and see how my fans react to them.
I think I'm going to start doing LIVE videos with my NFT members. Basically, I'll pick an interesting debate they had on WhatsApp and invite them to join me LIVE on Zoom to talk about it. I'll record/post-prod these conversations and probably create a YouTube channel. NFTs are your only gateway to becoming a guest on this new show.
I'm also going to start creating FREE NFTs for my guests (password protected). This is actually an idea from one of our resident podcasters. It's a nice gift and status for my guests and also a way to get them involved in my community.
I mint each of my episodes as 10 NFTs each week. I initially started with only one but it used to sold out in just a few minutes and fans started asking for more. Again, these NFTs are the only way for my listeners to support me, collect rare digital items from the show and access my very limited community of true fans.
I also use NFTs to support causes and align my community with my views. I created 80 NFTs to support Ukraine (all gone) and of course 100% of the proceeds went to the Ukrainian crypto wallet. I am doing a new one soon to support diversity in Tech in partnership with Becomtech.
I also want to start creating fun NFTs related to moments from my show with nice visuals and audio or video clips. They're like reminiscences or insider jokes. People who don't know the show or haven't listened to the episode won't get it, but the fans will.
etc...
Get your audience used to it
Personally, I talk about my NFTs in each single episode I do. They are now part of my show. It's just a 2 minute chat at the beginning of the podcast where I explain what these NFTs are about.
This is the promo message example:
"We just launched the first Silicon Carne NFTs a few weeks ago and the first four editions are already SOLD OUT!
As you know, we don't want stupid ads in Silicon Carne and we refuse to put our content behind a paywall, we prefer to offer you NFTs to allow you to own our content and get access to our community.
From now on, EVERY episode of Silicon Carne will be available as 10 NFTs.
Each week you will be able to become the owner of an episode of Silicon Carne and we have a lot of surprises for the owners of these NFTs.
You can purchase them on http://siliconcarne.uncut.fm and NO you don't need any crypto or crypto-wallet. You can buy them with just credit card if you want.
Hurry up because I think that the NFT of this episode is going to sold out fast!
Now back to your episode..."
And if you still wonder how your (true) fans will welcome this, here is a message from one of them posted on WhatsApp this morning (sorry it’s in French, translation below):
"in the meantime, i cracked again. I'm Elie and I'm NFTolic. the one responsible for the sold out status on the last episode of SC (sorry). but I wanted to have the NFT of the episode that announces the end of the world. too hard to resist. thanks for your support."
It’s so exciting to build something new. Of course, everything is to be invented but still… Feel free to join us!