Web3 Community Manager Handbook: How to Improve Community User Conversion Rates

In the early stages of community building, community managers spend a lot of time, energy, and resources every day to develop channels, attracting more users to gather in the community. However, when the channels provide enough traffic, it is found that the community has not become more active, and the number of users truly using the product has not increased.

It's like drawing water with a bamboo basket; the faucet is turned on wide enough, but because the gaps in the basket are large, most of the water still flows away. What should community managers do to minimize the gaps and retain as much water as possible?

Before seeking solutions, it is essential to clarify the root of the problem.

Why is it difficult to convert community users?

The number of members on Discord and Telegram is increasing daily, and the community size has expanded significantly, so why hasn't the number of product users changed noticeably?

Disconnection between SNS and Web3 addresses

Currently, most community members' accounts do not have a corresponding relationship with Web3 addresses. Community managers cannot match active accounts within the community with active addresses on the blockchain.

The time, energy, and resources invested by community managers are focused on SNS: growth in community size, daily active users, accumulation of chat records, etc., while the number of active addresses that Web3 users truly rely on has not been allocated reasonable resources.

Lack of long-term incentive mechanisms

Community operation is a long-term task. In the early stages of community building (0-1 phase), community managers need to focus on expanding channels and growing the community size. By the growth stage of the community (1-100 phase), community managers need to pay attention not only to the quantity of community size but also to the quality of members. This means ensuring the participation, activity, and value contribution of community members during community operations. Limited team resources and budgets lead to most community activities being time-sensitive, posing certain challenges to the conversion rate from community members to product users.

Lack of systems and low automation

Since most Web3 teams are still in the startup phase, facing resource and manpower shortages, community operations primarily rely on human labor and time investment, resulting in a large amount of repetitive work piling up. Community managers spend a lot of time on user acquisition and answering questions, leaving them unable to focus more on how to convert community members into actual product users.

How can these problems be overcome? Perhaps we can find answers in the market:

Market Choices: Built-in Community & Long-term Incentives

Built-in Community

Users are active in the community using their SNS accounts, while they are active in the ecosystem using their Web3 addresses.

Currently, most community setups still center around Discord and Telegram. After users join the community using their Discord or TG accounts, they are redirected to the official website through links in the community, but they cannot immediately experience the product; they still need to link their Web3 wallet address, an additional step means an additional loss of users. Why not complete user acquisition and retention all on one page?

Some large projects have already realized this issue of user loss; they choose to build a built-in community on their official website. For example, Arbitrum has set up a Community section on their official website, allowing users to directly experience the product upon entering the community.

In the operation of such built-in communities, community managers can directly interact with members' Web3 addresses rather than SNS accounts, and they can improve conversion rates by optimizing the Community interface and the processes involved.

Building a built-in community on the official website requires a significant amount of team resources, involving page design and development. Community managers also need to consider what tasks should be configured in the built-in community to convert community users into product users. For the vast majority of Web3 teams, this is not an easy task, especially since they are still in the early startup phase and need to balance various aspects, making it difficult to allocate so many resources and time to community building.

So, can community managers leverage external forces to solve the current community building dilemma? Are there mature solutions in the market to help project managers quickly build built-in communities?

Yes, several products have emerged in the market, and TaskOn is one of the more comprehensive platforms:

Various task templates help project managers quickly run through the entire process from new users joining the community to experiencing the product.

Custom domain management allows community managers to directly customize the community's domain, seamlessly embedding the community into the official website, creating a community that truly integrates with the project.

Long-term Incentives: TGE + Points

To promote the product usage rate among community members, long-term incentives need to be introduced.

For unlaunched projects, TGE is a method adopted by most projects, using airdrop expectations to guide community atmosphere, influence user behavior, and stimulate users to use the product.

TGE can extend community users' patience towards the project, but during the waiting period for the airdrop, which may come at an unknown time, many users may give up midway. How can we reduce the loss rate during this period?

A points level system can be introduced. By utilizing a points mechanism to build a complete user level system, every valid action is rewarded, allowing community users to receive timely feedback, while community managers can also view the community's points holdings in real-time to assist in decision-making.

Blast has adopted the TGE + points approach: staking assets and invitations can earn points, and the number of points held in an account is linked to the future airdrop value. There is even a dedicated leaderboard page to stimulate community users' enthusiasm.

Coincidentally, Bitget recently adopted a points strategy when issuing BWB. Unlike Blast, they chose not to build a dedicated points page on their official website but instead opted to transplant the project's points system to a third-party community solution platform, utilizing the platform's native community management features to quickly integrate TGE + points.

For launched projects, points can help supplement the project by designing a dual-token model. The dual tokens consist of equity tokens and utility tokens, with the already released token serving as the equity token, while points act as the utility token. Equity tokens relate to the benefits for holders, and points can be linked to community participation and loyalty. By clearly defining the rules for points distribution, projects can utilize a redemption mechanism to connect points with utility tokens, rewarding loyal community participants and bringing new vitality to the community and ecosystem.

Moving Forward with External Support

In a bull market, user attention is a scarce resource. If users are not retained immediately after joining the community and are not encouraged to use the product, resulting in a very low conversion rate, then spending more money on user acquisition will yield diminishing returns.

Focusing community operations on users' Web3 addresses rather than SNS accounts is essential to fundamentally improve the conversion rate of community users. The resources of the team and the time and energy of community managers are limited; using tools can better assist the team in moving forward on the right path.