The Creator Economy Goes Social
Jun 27th, 2022
By now you probably have heard about NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) and how they provide proof of ownership for digital art. This is great for creators, allowing them to profit from their work, and exciting for investors who can afford six-figure sums for an image of a bored ape.
Securing and authenticating digital artwork is just one use of NFTs (and, yes, there’s a lot of hype and scams in that area.)
But there is another side of NFTs that is just as exciting: Creator Coins.
A Creator Coin is a fully customizable, branded form of digital currency that is unique to the individual creator. Holders of creator coins get rewards and discounts as members of the creator’s community. Unlike discount coupons and other forms of promotion, creator coins have intrinsic value in that they can be exchanged for real money (aka: Fiat Currency.)
Here’s how it works:
Say you have a product or service to sell. You’ve created a lot of content and built a trust-worthy brand. By publishing your content on your website/blog and platforms like Medium, LinkedIn and YouTube, you’ve amassed a considerable following. And, by promoting it in your newsletter and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, you’ve extended your reach and built an audience receptive to your products and services. Good for you!
The next step is to convert your audience into a community.
What’s the difference between an audience and a community?
Members of your community are invested in your success and you’re invested in theirs. They are your super-fans and will seek you out first for new products and services they need.
What do you need to do as a content creator/publisher?
You “mint” your own creator coin and offer it to your audience as a reward for taking actions you want them to take, such as sharing your content with friends or attending your events.
For example, Joe Pulizzi, author of Content Inc. and founder of the Content Marketing Institute, rewards every new subscriber to his email newsletter, The Tilt, with $5 USD worth of $TILT coin ( Subscribe to The Tilt newsletter and earn $TILT. )
Holders of $TILT get exclusive access to the Tilt community on Discord. Additionally, they can use $TILT to purchase reports, training, or other educational opportunities. (Read more about the $TILT coin.)
Joe Pulizzi is also selling lifetime passes to CEX conferences (Creator Economy Expo.) The pass is an NFT (Joe calls it an NET for Never-Ending Ticket) which you can purchase using Ethereum or other digital currency. Only 100 NETs have been minted so, if you hold one, you can be sure of your elite status. Holders get special VIP access and SWAG at CEX events. Since they can be sold, traded and gifted, just like any other NFT, NET holders’ investments are protected.
Mark Schaefer, author of Cumulative Advantage and Marketing Rebellion, is also offering creator coins. Submit an article to his blog, {Grow} and, if it’s accepted, you’ll be rewarded with $200 USD worth of $RISE coins. Like $TILT, $RISE coins are traded on the Rally.io network which returns rewards to users of their network (note: Rally.io was a main sponsor of CEX.)
Mark puts 90% of his Rally rewards back into the $RISE coin for long-term growth of the community. See: https://bit.ly/growblogpost for further information.
Holders of $RISE get access to Mark’s exclusive Discord learning community. Additionally $RISE can be used to purchase Mark’s books at a steep discount, or a personal Branding Master Class.
The major social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok are all adding support for creator NFTs. How this will work out is still somewhat uncertain at this stage. Meanwhile, new platforms for minting, buying and trading NFTs, social tokens and creator coins are popping up every day. Stay tuned.
