Web3 Italia, the new community for evangelizing and educating no-blockchain users to this great topic.
We should direct our attention exclusively to the target audience consisting of non-blockchain users. They are not fans of a specific chain or token, and we can talk easy and educate them on the basic concepts of Web3 and present use cases on Neo N3. Interest is high, but the barrier to entry is still very high even if the UX has improved greatly in the last few years. We are a niche, we need to address those who are still on the outside and start with the basic concepts like wallet and explorer. Talk about the future, Web3, praise Bitcoin (unique) and explain what its significance should be, while explaining how tokens are basically projects/startups trying to innovate in various areas. The market is very young, like the Internet of the late 1990s, and standards have yet to be built. Standards are critical for the development of any industry. Right now, in the absence of standards, various ecosystems are emerging, and the challenge is to make them communicating and coming closer together over time. Today we are all, including ourselves, early adopters.
The purpose of this project is to create the first Web3 local community focused on the Neo N3 protocol and create standards, a start pack that can be easily replicated, adapted and reused in other markets to create homogeneous local communities.
The team consists of 3 members:
- A Key User, who has in-depth knowledge of Web3 and the Neo N3 protocol. This figure is essential, because he will be the one will transfer concepts and domain knowledge to the community and guide the project on themes and content;
- A Marketer, able to manage the website, Social Networks and to organize events, physical and virtual. This figure is essential to lead the engagement with the community;
- A Business Consultant with experience in project management to guide activities, timelines and monitor results achieved.
We built the Web3 Italia website as the first thing. The site was built on Wordpress, so even non-developer can replicate it. We used the Avada template (one of the most popular) and Siteground as hosting, which is quite commercial and cheap.
We decided to base our communication strategy starting with a very broad and in-demand keyword, "Web3", making it local with "Italia" to attract interest in the Italian market and position ourselves at the top of the search very quickly. It is a simple website, a static homepage with some call to actions, a classic "About" page and 3 main categories for our contents: Web3 basic topics, Use cases Neo N3 related and Development. The content was written sequentially, assuming a community learning path from scratch. For this very reason, the content can also be bundled into a single ebook (for educational purposes only, no commercial) and distributed to interested users. The content is not all original; much material was already available on the Web and in the Neo Community. The search for the best sources and adaptation of the texts was the most time-consuming work. Below you will find the list of our posts, which can be taken and repurposed to launch other Neo Local Communities.
- What is Web3?
- What is the difference between Web2 and Web3?
- Smart Economy
- Blockchain and cryptocurrencies: basic concepts
- Smart Contracts
- Digital Identity and the Web3
- What are dApps?
- DeFi: guide to Staking and Impermanent Loss
- NFT and Metaverse
- DAO and the organizations of the future
- Distributed Storage and Name Service
- Gaming & Web3
- Neo N3: a next-generation blockchain protocol
- How to create a Neo wallet with OneGate
- How to buy Neo on Binance
- Focus on Neo Governance: Gas and bNeo
- NeoFS, NeoNS and Oracles: what are they?
- Neo N3: the importance of interoperability
- Neo N3 & Zero Knowledge Proof
Telegram will be critical to our community. It is a mass app, compared to Discord which is less popular. A user will be more likely to join the community if they don't have to download a new app and sign up. It is important to monitor the community here, remove spam, and rely only on real users. The first few months are very difficult because there is little interaction and you have to make users feel comfortable. Remove or minimize any discussion pertaining to trading and speculation. There are users here who know very little about blockchain, you need to educate them, evangelize them with content and concepts.
Twitter is another channel that we consider most important. We already had an active Web3 account here with several followers. We rebranded it and continued to use it for our Web3 Italia community. Twitter is especially useful for commenting and doing engagement regarding news.
We also had an active channel on Reddit and now we are using it mainly for the Web3 Italia community. Here we preside over an even broader Keyword "innovation" and can therefore have a larger audience by also talking about Startups and other innovative sectors.
Meetups are another essential element of a community. They represent moments of direct confrontation and growth, as well as building confidence among members. Don't expect too many people at the first events you organize; the important thing is to create a friendly and relaxed atmosphere with the few participants. We have decided to organize an informal event, every month: Crypto & Beer, so that we can talk quietly, drink together and maybe even create new friendships. We talk about Blockchain, Neo, but we are not rigid, we can discuss other topics as well. The important thing is to give ourselves a goal per event, such as having all participants open a Neo wallet. We have also organized an online Meetup, and we aim at organize that frequently as well. With each event we try to associate a small digital giveaway ($GAS, NFT etc etc). For organizing Meetups we use Eventbrite, which is very convenient. In summary, small events with a few people in a friendly atmosphere. We plant the seed and hope that in turn, these members can have a beer, even on their own with other friends of them and talk about what they have learned. If all goes well, maybe one day we can bring all these small groups together in one big Italian event.
It all sounds very simple, but it really isn't and especially at first. How to start? From direct contacts, from people who have always asked you for Crypto info. Let's start that way, and if they get along well, they will introduce the community in turn to their friends. Think about small goals and try to achieve them. One small step at a time. Our goal is to be the reference point in Italy for Web3 and Neo N3, but it will take time. The important thing is to map out a solid plan and try to stick to it and monitor the results. The field is young, and there are a lot of intrigued people. Vision and perseverance are needed.
Regarding project management we have set up regular alignments (once a week) among us (3 members of core team), to monitor the progress of the project and the adherence with the plan. These meetings are very important to verify the goodness of the plan, to verify the ongoing activities and to agree on corrective actions, if needed. Other than this, regular touch base moments are crucial in plan such the one we have, that has been defined at high level, but is detailed in an incremental way. Firstly, you need to have a macro plan, clearly defined in terms of timing and milestones, afterwards you can work to enrich it with micro activities and ancillary initiatives. Last but not least, it is key to define precise and measurable KPIs to control the activities, to have regular answers about the work and to adjust, review, modify, when necessary.
Web3 italia was born in the fourth quarter of 2022. A small community was established with the first few months, and the results have met our expectations. In these period, we have built our base, in terms of digital, the way we work and the contacts we have achieved. We have drawn the line to follow. Our goals are the follow:
- Consolidate the community and expand it;
- Monitor digital analytics and improve KPIs;
- Continue to create more tech and Neo related content;
- Start engaging new stakeholders such as startups, companies, KOLs and makers;
- Making a dApp grow out of our community.
We subjected our digital project to an Seo audit. The output of the report provided us with guidelines for optimizing what was already built and some very interesting ideas about next steps. We have also finalized the 2023 editorial plan for the website and we have scheduled a publication schedule that respects a minimum frequency.
We are continuing to organize at least one meetup per month, we have the conviction that it is the right interval to meet our community, maintaining a "light" relationship and to continue in this way to the development of relationships with our contacts.
We have a fairly important contact with an NGO interested in using blockchain for its own internal project. In Italy, public funds have been allocated for such projects, so there is a lot of interest in it and it could be a repeatable project with other organizations as well. The analysis phase should start soon.
We produced the "New Web3 Model" document as the end-of-project output that as per our proposal was scheduled over 6 months. We sincerely hope that this document will be useful to everyone as a starting point for future initiatives. The document is the result of our ideas and comments from many of you, the Neo community and Web3 Italy. In these months we have collected a lot of feedback by actively participating in discussions on Discord, Telegram, Reddit. Please consider this document as a starting point for our future discussions.
The 6-month project is over, but for us a journey has begun that we will continue to pursue with enthusiasm. We are available to anyone who needs discussion or support and wants to start a local community. There are so many people out there who are eager to learn about our world and enter our bubble :)
Web3 Wiseman is a custom-tailored AI model based on GPT, specifically trained to understand and interact with Web3 concepts, with a deep focus on the Neo Blockchain. It transitions from broad Web3 topics to the nuanced, particular use cases of Neo, aiming to assist community moderators by providing informed and relevant responses within this specialized field.
bNeo income is a Telegram bot (@bNeoIncome_bot), designed to provide bNeo holders with instant updates on the passive income they can earn. By inputting the command /gas_update followed by the amount of bNeo owned, users can get detailed information on their potential earnings. The bot calculates key performance yields such as daily, weekly, and monthly returns, the annual percentage rate (APR), and the Gas/bNeo and Gas/Flamingo ratio. The default calculation is based on 1,000 bNeo if no amount is specified.