@victoriaobee and I have been working on this for some time now and even though it’s not finished nor perfect, we thought it was time to release and share with the community. Please go through and offer additions and suggestions on how to improve, things that are missing or would be helpful for you. Most importantly, let’s put this into action.
As firm believers in non-manipulative marketing and promotional strategies, we see the opportunity to grow the project’s awareness and community size through collective content creation, organic outreach, and word of mouth. It’s much more powerful when people share about a project than when a project shares about itself.
Making ThreeFold a success story depends on all of us - members of the (internal team) as much as members of the community. While the team is here to support as much as possible, action has to be taken by all! The sooner we empower the community to participate independently, the sooner our project will fly.
The following exists to explain how this content creation & outreach strategy can come to life in a decentralized project such as ThreeFold. All comments and feedback are welcomed – together we build!
Who participates?
Anybody in the community can get involved here – no matter how small or large your circles might be. In this effort, it’s all about the collective. It’s all about participation. Remember, collaboration is key in building a new world.
Let’s think of the network effect for a second. If a community has 1,000 people, and each month each member brings or attracts just one new person into the community, after six months, the community will be 64,000 people.
Just inside of our own circles alone, there are thousands of people around the world who believe what we believe. Let’s bring them in – and then let’s encourage them to bring their circles in. Growth is inevitable this way.
What do we want people to know?
ThreeFold is a big project, so every outreach should be handled individually and contextually based on the person or people we are getting in contact with. Here are some key topics people should know about:
- Our co-founders have deep experience in Internet & Cloud. With the belief that the centralized Internet is not the way forward, they came together to rebuild a new Internet from scratch, decentralized, for and by the people.
- ThreeFold is a peer-to-peer open-source Internet platform that connects users directly with local Internet capacity provided by farmers. There are no intermediaries such as centralized servers.
- ThreeFold unlocks a participatory model for the Internet, whereby people can connect hardware to electricity and a network connection and provide Internet capacity for the communities around them while earning a reward in the form of TFT.
- While ThreeFold uses the blockchain for some aspects, we do not consider ourselves a blockchain project. And while ThreeFold has its own token, TFT, we do not consider ourselves a crypto project. Blockchain and digital currencies are tremendous technological developments that bring value to what we are building, but they do not define us.
- We want to set ourselves apart from the manipulation and intransparencies of the crypto industry which have led to massive ups and downs. Instead we are building a sustainable and balanced economic model for the benefit of all in the ThreeFold community.
- We are a project based on the values of putting our planet and people-first, and authenticity. The actions we take must benefit the planet and the people around us. And without authenticity, we have no solid foundation from which to start. This extends out to who we choose to collaborate with. We believe that the fight for a better Internet is inseparable from the fight for a better world.
Below, we have included some solid outreach materials which can be shared or used to inspire your own personal communication with others.
Outreach Materials
Knowledge and Resources
Blogs
- A look back into the origins of the Internet and what we are here to do
- An organization building a decentralized Internet (community-created)
- On Money, and a much-needed new financial model for our world
Forum Content
- ThreeFold Today Tomorrow & Beyond
- How to Tell People About Deploying Workloads on the ThreeFold Grid (community-created)
- ThreeFold Video Gallery (community-created)
Video Content
- ThreeFold Intro Video
- Internet by People, For People and Our Planet (Playlist)
- ThreeFold Contributors Share From the Heart
- Opportunities for Grid Utilization
- TFT Tokenomics + Regional Internet Model
- ThreeFold End of 2022 Community Call
Community / Social Links
Sharing and engaging with ThreeFold on social platforms
While current Web2 social media platforms are ultimately part of the world we are trying to move on from (important to note we do not see them as competitors or “evil”, we just want to present an alternative), in the end they still remain some of the best ways to broadcast, share, and engage with big audiences all around the world.
ThreeFold has active accounts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube. If you’re active on any of these platforms, please follow us, turn on notifications, and do your best to engage with and amplify the content that’s being shared there. This is an easy lift and super helpful.
Creating your own content
Feel free to share any of the above (or other) materials that have already been created – that’s why they exist! But creating and sharing your own content from your own perspective can be even more powerful. Content creation comes in all types of shapes and sizes. It can be as simple as writing a short post on social media, a bit more involved like writing a blog or a tutorial or recording and sharing yourself talking to the camera, or for those with a bit more experience, designing an image or infographic or producing and editing a video.
Here are just a few examples of content created by people:
- Sam wrote about his personal journey with ThreeFold
- Ashish wrote about how a decentralized Internet could help India
- Nelson created videos about and tutorials for ThreeFold
The outreach process
We can summarize the outreach process in three key phases. Phases may take different amounts of time depending on the individual(s) we are reaching out to and the method of outreach.
1. Discover (Connect)
This part of the process is all about finding the right audience. This could be as simple as going through your personal networks and identifying who might have an interest in ThreeFold either from a technological or philosophical perspective. Alternatively, you might need to go and seek these people out, either digitally or physically. Perhaps you’ll find forums or other online spaces where they gather, or local events and meetups where you can share in-person.
2. Engage
Remember, we are not here to sell anybody to anyone. We are simply here to help people understand what we are building and why. It’s always best to establish a clear connection and reason for reaching out – then provide the information and the ask. If they feel the calling, we guide them towards resources and people for them to take action. If not, no problem, we continue either way and seek out others. Don’t forget to speak from the heart. People feel whether you’re trying to share something with them or whether you’re trying to convince them of something – which might lead to the opposite of the desired effect.
3. Empower
If someone shows interest, now it’s our job to empower them with information so they can participate, whether that’s through building on the grid, buying the token, becoming a farmer, bringing forward a collaboration, forming a local group, or … well, there are many ways to get involved. This is when you can share different resources with them – blogs, forum posts, library links, etc…
A few reminders:
- Be human, be yourself, there’s nobody else like you!
- Always establish a connection with the person
- Don’t try to sell anything, we’re not here to sell, only to show what’s possible
- It’s still important to explain the benefits to the person
- Don’t spend too much time on the “wrong” person
Where to connect with people
Inside & outside of your own networks, the Internet is a big open landscape full of communities of people who believe what we believe. There is no right or wrong answer, the important thing is to find spaces where you feel the message will be well-received or will spark interest/discussions. Trust your gut instinct.
Notably, Twitter and Reddit both have strong “search” functionalities which make it easy to find people talking about topics that matter to ThreeFold and engage.
See Open-Source Research for additional information about the open-source space specifically.
Goals
It’s difficult to put concrete metrics on this type of initiative, but we can at least say that success would come through growing the community, growing the grid, bringing more utilization, and more token holders.
Incentivization
The forward progress of the project should be the main incentive for anyone in the community. However, the team is open to providing referral bonuses or other incentives in certain circumstances. Feel free to create a topic on the forum or reach out directly to @samtaggart on Telegram if you have something exciting brewing.
