Project Community Management Practices: Points System Sweeps Web3

The founder of Blur, Pacman, is sweeping the NFT market and entering the Layer2 market with a points system: the Layer2 project Blast, born on November 21, 2023, saw its TVL soar to $2.2 billion in just a few months.

The operational strategy of introducing points has a long history. Pacman is not the first to bring a points system into Web3; last year's hottest social project, Friend.tech, also integrated points into its mechanism. In the first half of 2022, there were projects linking points with airdrops. Undeniably, points have become a powerful tool that allowed Blast to break the Layer2 landscape, steering the operational methods of Web3 projects in a new direction: more and more projects are beginning to build their own points systems to enhance community user retention and engagement.

• After Manta launched its points system, its TVL quickly surpassed Starknet and zkSync, currently ranking 10th across all public chains.

• Projects in the Solana ecosystem, under the effect of Jito, have launched their own points systems, with various crypto communities and individuals actively interacting and accumulating points.

For projects and crypto communities, 2024 is a bull market, an airdrop year, and a year dominated by various points. There are many ways to improve community user retention and engagement; why are more and more projects choosing to introduce points systems? How can they quickly build a points system that fits their projects? The following may provide some answers.

Why are projects adopting points systems?

Optimization and Flexible Design of Token Economic Systems

For projects that have already issued tokens, points can help supplement and design a dual-token model. The dual-token model was initially used in the GameFi sector, with projects like StepN and Axie Infinity achieving rapid growth due to their excellent token model designs. Over time, other sectors have also begun to adopt dual-token models.

The dual-token model consists of equity tokens and utility tokens, with the tokens already issued by the project serving as equity tokens, while points act as utility tokens. Equity tokens relate to the benefits of holders, and points can be linked to community engagement and loyalty. By clearly defining the rules for points distribution, projects can utilize a redemption mechanism to connect points with utility tokens, incentivizing loyal community participants and bringing new vitality to the community and ecosystem.

For projects that have not issued tokens, points can help design a more rational token economic model. By considering the total number of points and users' point holdings, projects can cleverly plan their token economic models and community airdrop rules. A well-designed token economic model not only aids in the long-term operation of the project but also addresses the issue of declining community interaction quality and quantity after airdrops, which can lead to a loss of competitiveness in a fierce market.

User Expectation Management

Introducing a points system provides projects with an effective means to manage user expectations regarding airdrop rewards more precisely. In past project experiences, many users often felt that their contributions did not match the rewards received after airdrops, leading them to withdraw support for the project. By implementing a points system, projects can define the value of each action and design corresponding points, effectively managing user expectations; public and transparent rules are conducive to establishing a fair and sustainable community ecosystem.

Continuously Attracting User Attention

In a bull market, attention is a scarce resource. Market segments rotate quickly, and users have limited patience for each project. How can projects maintain users' continuous attention without a token issuance plan? Through a points system. As time passes and points accumulate, the cost for users increases, enhancing their stickiness to the project and raising their expectations.

How to Quickly Build a Points System

Once the decision to introduce a points system is made, how can points be designed to better stimulate community user engagement and improve retention?

In the early stages of points design, especially when determining the point values for each action, it is essential to clarify which user behaviors the project aims to incentivize: in Web3, user behaviors can be broadly categorized into transactional and non-transactional behaviors.

• For projects focusing on user transactional behaviors, points distribution can consider factors such as transaction frequency, transaction volume, and the duration of user funds being held. This encourages users to keep their funds on the project platform for extended periods, which helps increase the project's transaction scale and liquidity. Additionally, as users invest more time and resources on the project platform, it fosters a more stable and lasting user base.

• For projects centered on non-transactional behaviors, points design should consider users' daily activities. SocialFi projects need to emphasize communication between users; knowledge sharing and platform promotion should aim to enhance community user engagement through connections between users.

Even if the advantages of a points system are recognized, most projects currently face insufficient operational resources and personnel, making it challenging to establish a points system and define point values for each action. The market is moving quickly, and if a project cannot launch rapidly, it risks missing the opportunity to capture users. Projects in this situation can leverage third-party platforms: there are already mature community solutions in the market, such as Wormhole and Zeroland, which allow projects to build their communities on third-party platforms to promote user engagement and retention:

• Platforms like TaskOn Community provide comprehensive tools to help projects establish their points systems: once a project creates its community on the platform, it can quickly design the points system required for each level and display the upgrade curve.

• These platforms support task categorization, making it clear to users what tasks are available upon entering the community, whether they involve transactional or non-transactional behaviors. Additionally, these tasks can be set to repeat, allowing operators to avoid the need to recreate tasks each time, thus avoiding a significant amount of repetitive work.

• Compared to projects designing their points systems independently, third-party involvement enhances user trust. It allows users to feel that the points system is guaranteed by a third party.

Projects with sufficient resources will embed the points system directly on their product pages, while those with fewer resources often stimulate community user engagement through administrators posting tasks in Discord and Telegram communities to improve conversion rates. This method involves a high volume of repetitive work and, since points are also tracked by personnel, cannot be updated in real-time. At this stage, user behavior is clearly utilitarian, and time spent on different projects needs to yield returns and timely feedback. The community solutions available in the market are mature enough, with timely incentives and real-time updated leaderboards serving as powerful tools to stimulate user behavior.

The Inevitable Trend of Points Systems

Points systems are an inevitable trend and a standard operational strategy born from long-term competition in the Web2 world. The adoption of points systems by Blast, Linea, and other projects, along with their impressive data performance, demonstrates the advantages of points systems. If there is no systematic template for building a points system or if there are insufficient resources to construct one, leveraging third-party tools for rapid establishment can also foster greater user trust.