I believe that we are in a unique period of time in business. Recently, we have been spending a lot of time in Web3 projects. It has been a steep learning curve. We do Web 2.0 projects with ease. Web3 is a completely different development game. The architecture and business practices are completely different. Not to mention, the way that brands and customers interact is also significantly different. Companies are going to need to consider dramatic changes or face the consequences of losing their customers.
If you were like me, you were in shock when Facebook changed their name to Meta. They spent $300 million for the name. Do you know why? Because Facebook knows that they were the leading company in Web 2.0, but Web 2.0 is on its way out and Web3 and the metaverse is going to replace it. If that is not a signal to you as a business owner, you are at risk. Your business needs a Web3 strategy NOW.
A good place to start is on Discord. It’s like a combination between Facebook Groups and Slack. Truthfully – it’s better than both. It started out as a way for gamers to chat outside of the game. Now it is the cornerstone of group communications on Web3.
Most business owners aged 50 and up have not really adopted to Facebook Groups or Slack very well. This is what leads me to the title of this post. The Children Are the Future. My 19 year old daughter is home at the moment from Syracuse University. She has been sitting in our Web3 meetings. What is clear to me when meeting with senior executives in marketing and communications projects for NFT drops, is that most seasoned execs are clueless about this new genre of marketing. My kid in college is fluent in the conversation and probably has stronger skills than VPs of the brands we are talking to.
Marketing in a Web3 world is all about trends and influencers. There are kids managing brands online that have tens or hundreds of thousands of subscribers. More than major brands. Case in point: Compass has 10k subscribers on YouTube. SparklesLund has 26k followers and she is not famous. Kids understand content. They are creators. They know what is dope and what is bullshit (my Gary Vee moment).
I come from a family with an apprentice mentality. You learn from your elders. That is the change today. The elders do not know anything about what is happening online. The elders need to learn from the children. You need young digital natives in your marketing and communications departments.
The good news is that you have time. The process of moving to a decentralized economy will be a decades long road. I would expect real estate technology companies to start building communities for their customers. Real estate brokers and agents will acclimate as a new way to build relationships with key vendors, access support, learn best practices from other resources. I look forward to the potential day when a company like eXp allows customers to connect to their website via their Metamask to work with an agent.
It’s time to grab your board and drop into the WAVes of change.
