By Global Director of Reddit’s KarmaLab, Will Cady
What is your Metaverse strategy?
Whether that question induces your eyes to roll or your eyebrows to raise, it’s sure to be one you’ll encounter from your customer, your boss, or your investors soon. That is, if you haven’t already.
Yes, here we are at the gates of yet another great paradigm shift in the wild wide world of digital marketing. We’ve navigated the waves of excitement around VR/AR technology. We’ve awaited the rising of tides promised by 5G connectivity. We’ve anticipated the tempests of the blockchain raining down hailstorms of cryptocurrencies and NFTs in blustering newsletter headlines that continue to flood our inboxes. The Metaverse, though. Ah, the Metaverse. It is the perfect storm that promises to combine all three.
Is the Metaverse just another hype cycle like the others that came before it? Or were they the harbingers of something truly transformative? Are we on the cusp of the big heavy in Phase 3 of the Digital Marketing cinematic universe?
The initiated have come to refer to the Metaverse as Web3. Not, mind you, “Web 3.0”, which is almost by design the shibboleth to make apparent the uninformed. To refer to the Metaverse as Web3 is truly helpful, though, for framing what exactly this particular moment means.
The Metaverse is to Web3 as the Blogosphere was to Web 2.0. It is, by all sober assessments, the next great civil engineering project of the Internet. There is much being said and still more to come about the exciting details of the technology powering this great transformation of our digital economy. What remains missing, though, is a clear understanding of why it matters and how marketers can build a strategy around it. I hope to provide that here with this simple frame: It’s about Space vs Time.
The Metaverse, Web3, is a shift into digital spaces moving out of the digital timelines that defined Web 2.0. Web 2.0 brought us time-based platforms such as social feeds on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snap, and Instagram alongside publisher platforms like Medium. These are timelines that we scroll through. A series of moments that rapidly pass you by if you miss it. Web3 exists on space-based platforms. The obvious digital spaces are the VR/AR experiences promised inside of Oculus headsets and habitable gaming worlds like Fortnite or Warcraft. The not-so-obvious digital spaces are Clubhouse chat rooms, Reddit subreddits, Discord Servers, and Slack Workspaces.
These are not timelines that we scroll through. These are spaces we stay in. Whether we click in or boot up to go to them, we’re there when we mean to be there. The digital spaces of Web3 aren’t just powered by attention, they’re brought to life by intention. For marketers, evolving with this shift means evolving from a strategy of reach and frequency, which maximizes the moments your brand is a part of in time, to a strategy of depth and connection, which maximizes the connection that your brand makes with a space.
Simply put, Web3 for brands is about engaging with online community.
Our experience on Reddit is unique, because it bridges the worlds of both Web 2.0 and Web3. As a platform, it presents a feed of spaces. Altogether, these spaces are communities that in their interconnection already offer a blueprint for the map of the Metaverse-to-be. KarmaLab, Reddit’s in-house creative strategy agency, has helped hundreds of brands make meaningful connections with communities. With that, we are confident that we can share a formula to help you build a Metaverse strategy for your brand – regardless of what the glimmering technological details of its future may be.
First, a map of the different spaces that matter to a brand’s business:
Spaces by your brand. Built, owned and operated with your business’s resources.
Spaces for your brand. Built by fans, run by fans. Dedicated to your product or service.
Spaces into your brand. Built for cultures that embrace what your business provides.
Second, a compass to help your brand navigate how to move between these spaces. Start with who you are and then ask some questions about the space your brand is entering…
Where you are…what is the culture of the space your brand is entering?
Why you belong…what are the needs your brand fulfills for this space?
How you engage…what are the behaviors that foster connection between people in this space?
What you want….what are the key business results you want to achieve from this space?
This formula has led brands on Reddit to foster a community of collective art as Adobe has demonstrated with r/PsBattlesLive or even to unite beer lovers in the creation of their very own Reddit brew, as we saw Lagunitas do this summer. And it doesn’t have to be big, custom campaigns. This formula has also ushered insightful discussions with brand experts and luminaries ahead of product launches as well as simple games between brands and communities. The common thread is meaningful, two-way engagement, and online communities provide the blank canvas to harness this connection.
It’s a complex, incredible future we have ahead of us as people and as marketers. For all of the wonders in the sea changes of the ever-evolving world wide web, it’s the places where people gather that provide us with a comforting shore. There are many such shores waiting for you in the open spaces of Web3 and its Metaverse-to-be, so find your ground and start building.
