Influencer marketing is not new. However, it recently gained unprecedented popularity across various industries. According to statistics, it is valued at approximately $21.1 billion, with experts speculating a $30 billion valuation before the end of 2026. These influencers, through a series of social media content forms, share relevant industry information. Helping thousands or millions of followers learn more about emerging products and trends.
This piece will discuss crypto influencer marketing and how existing and nascent blockchain startups can piggyback them to increase brand awareness and onboard new users.
What is Crypto Influencer Marketing?
Crypto influencer marketing entails the promotion of products, startups, and services on multiple social media platforms via popular individuals in the industry. This marketing form became a thing after it was discovered that the average user tends to trust seemingly famous people on social media. A Hubspot research finding revealed that 71% of users are likely to make purchasing decisions based on recommendations from social media.
Making influencer marketing the ideal option for brands and startups keen on reaching a larger audience. Crypto influencer marketing is not any different from the general idea of influencer marketing.
In the last few years, we've witnessed a massive demand for crypto influencers. The reason for this is not far-fetched—they connect blockchain startups with investors and enthusiasts. Facilitated by social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, etc. By imploring several marketing strategies, these influencers can move the price of coins as well as bring additional levels of visibility to a project.
Despite the unprecedented proliferation of the crypto industry, there's still ample room for mainstream adoption. And crypto influencers are a piece of the puzzle. Unlike traditional media, crypto influencer marketing is based solely on trust. And it entails partnerships with influencers with large social media followers composed mainly of crypto enthusiasts, investors, developers, and experts. Influencers tend to be more expensive than traditional media. The majority of startups allocate a huge share of their budget to crypto influencers in a bid to leverage the trust they've garnered over the years.
Benefits of Crypto Influencer Marketing
While crypto influencer marketing incurs a larger cost than traditional media outlets, the potential returns, mostly in the form of increased users, start-up visibility, engagement levels, and conversion, are in proportion to the cost. In fact, per reports, influencer marketing provides a massive return of 8x the initial cost, per Mediakix.
Some of the benefits of working with social media influencers and specifically using crypto influencer marketing are:
1. Amplifies Brand Awareness and Reach
Partnerships with some of the top crypto influencer marketers guarantee improved brand awareness and visibility. By piggybacking on the trust built and leveraging thousands or millions of followers across various social media platforms, startups can tap into an unreached demographic. Thus, increasing project awareness and reach.
2. Builds Trust and Credibility
As previously stated, crypto influencers build their brands based solely on trust. In an industry replete with sketchy and malicious actors, these influencers are a breath of fresh air. They understand that credibility and trustworthiness are their social currencies and are committed to building on that.
By partnering with a reputable influencer, blockchain startups can improve the outward perception of their projects. And solidify their projects as credible startups in the industry.
3. Leveraging Influencers’ Marketing Expertise
Crypto influencer marketers possess a vast range of marketing skills and constantly deploy these skills to reach their followers. While some of these skills are simple, easy-to-understand videos, long threads on Twitter, giveaways, or other content forms, blockchain startups, and their teams can tap from their expertise. You can get access to market statistics, insights, and charts by collaborating with these influencers.
4. Influencers Get People Involved
Unlike traditional businesses, crypto, and blockchain startups, oftentimes, require potential users to take actions such as purchasing a token, joining a Discord or Telegram Channel, interacting with the project’s social media handles, etc. These startups cannot get people to do things on their own. Hence the need for influencers.
Crypto influencers get their followers involved, encouraging them to buy tokens, join community channels, and follow the startups’ accounts.
5. Driving Traffic and Conversion
Crypto influencers have a dedicated community of your target audience followers consisting primarily of crypto community participants, investors, developers, and experts. Therefore, by collaborating with these influencers, blockchain startups and projects can drive much-needed traffic to their websites and pages. This method increases the chances of more conversions as well as guarantees that predetermined marketing goals are met.
How to Identify the Best Crypto Influencer Marketers
As crypto influencer marketing has gained traction, we've witnessed a gargantuan influx of influencers. While most claim to offer the best services, they cannot be trusted to deliver results.
Here are ways to identify a genuine crypto influencer to work with (no matter, you want to include suitable influencers in your marketing strategy or offer them to become your brand ambassadors).
Substantial Page Engagement
Most crypto influencers have resorted to buying social media followers via third-party applications. This makes it a tad bit difficult to identify the genuine ones. Page engagements can help out, albeit to a certain degree.
If an influencer with over 800K followers on Twitter, for example, is unable to get a minimum of 80 Retweets and Likes per post after several hours, then there's a chance most of the followers were bought and are not real people. Note that this does not apply in all cases as certain factors may limit the number of engagements a post gets on social media. Generally, the engagement levels should be between 1% to 5%.
Demographic and Content
A crypto influencer’s followership is mostly made up of crypto enthusiasts, investors, developers, and market experts.
An influencer’s content should align with your start-up. Since your goal is to reach a new audience by leveraging their platform, the influencer should have a genuine interest combined with in-depth knowledge of the market.
Best Crypto Influencers
There are hundreds of crypto influencers across multiple social media platforms. YouTube and Twitter influencers are the most popular in the space. Here are some of the best:
Justin Sun
With over 3 million followers on Twitter, Justin Sun is one of the best crypto influencer marketers. His optimistic views about the trillion-dollar market and emerging trends reassure his followers of his unshakable belief in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. He leverages this trust to promote and talk about nascent projects in the space.
Michael Saylor
With over 2 million followers, Michael Saylor is the leader of MicroStrategy—a public fund with huge investments in Bitcoin. Like Justin Sun, Michael is known for his positive and genuinely optimistic views about cryptocurrencies.
Michael possesses an in-depth knowledge of cryptocurrencies. And he firmly believes in the potential of Bitcoin and blockchain to revolutionize the traditional finance industry as we know it. He tweets about almost every trend in the space and has cemented his stance as one of the most sought-after influencers in the industry.
Altcoin Daily
Altcoin Daily is a reputable crypto influencer marketer with a little over 1.3 million followers on Twitter. The page is known for constantly uploading informative yet engaging videos about the market. As an active member of the industry, Altcoin Daily is committed to educating potential investors about the crypto space through a series of videos, long threads, etc.
Altcoin Daily implores various marketing strategies to help startups reach their target audience.
How to Win in the Influencer Marketing Industry
Hiring a crypto influencer to promote your blockchain start-up is a herculean task. The influx of fraudulent, untrustworthy, and irresponsible influencers with little to no care about the market further complicates it. Hence the need for a crypto PR agency.
Crypto PR agencies help recently launched blockchain and fintech startups promote their brands, launch balanced influencer marketing campaigns to reach a larger audience, set and exceed marketing goals, and assist in the seamless onboarding of new target audience users. These agencies are dedicated to getting your start-up media coverage on some of the world's leading news outlets. In addition to this, crypto PR agencies can effortlessly identify the best crypto influencers as they have worked with a number of them. And, per your permission, they hire a few to promote your project, increase brand awareness, and reach new users. Saving you time and allowing you to focus on other equally important aspects of your start-up.
