How Creators Can Drive More Value Using Tokens
The Power Of A Community token
In previous years, before the advent of blockchain technology powering Web 3.0, there has only been one way to increase and drive value to a craft, business, etc.
In the case of an up-and-coming musician, it involves toiling the paths of creating several pieces of content and distributing it across different social groups, hoping to build an atomic network of audiences that would love their music, and, ultimately, signing a deal With a label. These steps are the route nearly all successful musicians have taken to reach stardom and hit the spotlight.
For a business owner, it’s a similar process. It starts with identifying a product the market needs or wants and selling it to the most accessible buyers. Next is finding a way to distribute the product to reach a more significant number of people who will buy. Just like the upcoming musician, most businesses depend on hope.
On the creator’s end, practically everyone is, such as YouTubers, Twitch streamers, Instagram influencers, and creators. For them, it’s building content around a particular niche, getting many followers, and sometimes leveraging other social media platforms and monetising from there.
In each of these stories, these individuals are similar in their path to monetisation or hitting the limelight. What’s that? Monetisation is an afterthought; it comes after much effort in creating and accepting their content by a vast majority.
This is how every business or craft in the real world operates. The downside to this is that it can be costly to operate. Think of it; an up-and-coming musician will need several instruments to make good music, studio recording, band, and accessories and might even need to finance a few concerts just to get a little fame. These are all expenses that might be hard to fund.
Still using the case of the artist, the other problem is this model only rewards the musician when they hit success; there needs to be a way to return value to the audience who have supported them from day one.
Although this model has been influential across the board, it doesn’t define the most appropriate ways to do things.
How Tokens Bring More Opportunities
The introduction of the blockchain and cryptocurrencies has led to many innovations that will change the landscape and bring a different model that guarantees higher chances of success, expand different monetisation strategies and also introduce ways for fans and audiences to benefit more from the creators’ success. This particular innovation is regarded as the “Token community.”
Token Community
A Token Community defines how a community can drive more value and added utility through its token. In a nutshell, rather than having to put monetization as the last thing when building and bootstrapping, or fans not having any benefit of being loyal supporters or fans.
To demystify this further, let’s go over what having a “token community” would mean for the upcoming musicians and creators by citing real-world examples.
Story One: How Daniel Allan Built An Atomic Network:
This is about Daniel Allan, who harnessed the power of a token community in scaling through the tedious process of having other musicians like the one above had to experience. He didn’t create multiple contents, spend thousands of dollars to purchase instruments, and wait for a record label signing; he took a different path.
Allan harnessed the power of a token community. He decided to raise funds for his new project, “Overstimulated.” He sold a token associated with his upcoming album to raise funds.
What followed next was that Allan garnered the support of many and eventually raised 49.5 ETH, approximately 150% more than he had planned.
To summarize all this, not only did he raise enough money to fund the production and post-production of Overstimulated, he built an atomic network of an audience, who got 50% of whatever he made from the Album and dedicated fans who will promote his work across many more listeners.
Allan later wrote about his experience: “For the first time, I owned all of the music that I was putting out, and people were assigning an actual value to my art.”
This story depicts how Daniel Allan got to monetize early, skipped several tedious processes and uncertainty, and perhaps most importantly, fans who supported Allan’s dream could benefit from the process.
Story Two: What A Token Means for Creators.
Before digging deep here, let’s review how the creator’s model works. It involves creating content, building large followers who are interested, and then monetization kicks which either come as money received from the platform, like YouTube, for hosting ads on your video; or you can rely on other means like selling a physical product online with your niche, having a subscription-based community, brands sponsorship, and promotion, etc.
With a token introduced, creators have a better opportunity to monetize, and fans can monetize and own a fraction of the creator’s work.
How it Works:
Assuming the creator is a YouTuber, who just created an exclusive email, and the only way to access it is by paying a monthly subscription rather than going through the usual method of having them settle in their local currency, you can switch that to only holders of your token will get special access to the email. This works better because now fans feel more connected and dedicated as per ownership but also benefit from the increase in token value. This doesn’t limit the creator to making money through sponsorship and other methods; instead, it adds to it. Unit Network, a tokenisation infrastructure, allows creators to create and manage their tokens. It enables you to manage finances and engage with your community seamlessly.
Other Advantages Attached to Having a Token Are:
● Once launched, the community token can be converted to other forms of money, like dollar, bitcoin, ether, etc.
● Tokens can be used for transactional purposes like purchasing a good or service.
● It can be used as a reward system to incentivize dedicated community members or offer discounts and coupons for token holders who meet specific criteria.
Community tokens are scarce, with just a limited number of the token issued to the public; there’s accessibility, meaning creators and community members can get to use it anywhere in the world, and finally; its ownership is transparent, and transactions with it can be tracked on the blockchain ledger, which is publicly available.
This entire process completely works for any Web 3.0 creator, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, Startups, Businesses, and more.
The Power Of Community Tokens
● Dedicated Community Member: one clear advantage of introducing a community token into your brand, business, DAOs, or community as a creator is that members who own the token now become stakeholders and investors. Rather than the one-way approach that’s previously experienced by members who only consume a creator’s content, now there’s a paradigm shift as members become investors and stakeholders; they are more dedicated to the progress of the brands, businesses and ensure it succeeds — there are no passive bystanders here.
● More Definitive Path To Success: Unlike before, when creators spend a vast chunk of effort and time creating accessible content, the token model paves the way for creativity to achieve product-market fit — meaning, creators can build a small group of fans who believe in the project earlier. In the case of Daniel Allen, only 86 people were involved in the crowdfunding process to make it a success, which cut the time needed to achieve success. With this, creators don’t need large followers; all that’s required are small believers. This is the role of a community token, and it paves the way for success.
● There’s Digital Scarcity: The value of a community begins to increase over time as it gains popularity. How? Since there is a limited supply of community tokens, as a creator or its products get more attention through marketing, media, dedicated members, etc., the token’s value will increase because the demand becomes higher than the available supply.
Introducing Unit Network
Unit Network is a tokenisation infrastructure where your brand is your bank account. You can create your own token, raise funds, manage finances, have your community onboarded, etc. With Unit Network’s community features, you can also engage with your community, create groups, and events, sell them merch, ask them questions and even create contests. Of course, only those who are dedicated will see and engage.
Here at Unit, we are excited to see more and more creators grow their token economy!
For more info, visit:
To register and create your token:
https://unit.network/in/ventures
To learn about how you can build a successful token economy, join our Tokenisation Accelerator Program:
Authors:
Lai Dolapo, Roland Bernath
