Marketing Ideas for Mina Protocol

Community
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Hello everyone,

Maybe having a little brainstorm under this topic could yield some bright ideas that the marketing team could use to promote Mina Protocol even further.

I am aware that, compared to the discussions around the tech itself, marketing deliberations look like fizzy drinks. But no matter how lame it feels, it’s still crucial for MP’s success.

I will start with sharing a few, which have been circling in my mind.

- Organising online chess tournaments and awarding the winners with Mina tokens.

As a chess enthusiast, I well know that online chess is a deficiently monetised area while being extremely popular (which makes it a fantastic marketing platform).

For instance, today an online chess tournament was held on Lichess.com. More than 16,000 players (including Carlsen, Nakamura and other top players in the world) registered to play, and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of spectators went online to follow it. It got so popular, eventually the website went down (and they had to postpone the event). The catch is, the winners were to be rewarded with cryptocurrencies (pretty humble amounts).

I must also say, those who are interested in online chess are almost certainly more open to blockchain technologies compared to other people. Thus, imho, any marketing budget invested in online chess would be well spent money for MP.

- Pitching Mina Protocol to Edward Snowden

Yeah, I agree, it sounds silly :slight_smile: However, he is the most well known and respected “data privacy” advocate in the world. He is also well known for his pro-blockchain stance. His credibility is impeccable.

I believe (or hope), at least letting him know that ZK Proof technology is a marvellous novelty to ensure data privacy (maybe for the first time in the history), and that Mina Protocol is a decent project which aims to provide this service would prove to be a worthwhile effort. This could be achieved through network effect with almost no money spent. Should he like the idea (as he has been advocating for data privacy for years, I cannot see why he wouldn’t), he could help Mina Protocol get adopted faster.

- Surfing the Ethereum ZK Rollup Wave

Mina is the early bird, the project is authentic and the team is good. But the project is not big and strong enough to create its own craze. Thankfully, we have Ethereum, coming fast with its ZK rollups (it’s both a threat and an opportunity). I believe, with a little work put on product positioning, MP could turn Ethereum’s layer 2 solutions into its own marketing laboratory and surf the forthcoming ZK Proof wave. Again, only a limited budget and human capital would suffice.

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These are the ones I could come up, with for the time being. I am sure, other members will think of better ideas that could make the marketing team’s work a little bit easier.

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I quite like these ideas, I think outreach to key individuals on places like Twitter is massively important for growth. However at the same time, you don’t want engagement to seem spammy otherwise people often disregard it. Also, we are moving in the direction of not wanting to pay influencers for marketing. The project itself, and Snapps, should speak and market for itself so I guess it’s a hard balance to strike.

I like the idea of the Ethereum angle - maybe a Twitter tweet series with the Ethereum Foundation and also with the Polygon partnership maybe them too, explaining the potential applications enabled through the respective bridges ?

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I really appreciate your marketing ideas, they are very interesting and very refreshing compared to the good ol’ “just pay some influencers”. I would like to see one of your ideas or something similiar come to fruition. Potentially even supporting and advertising hackathons and similiar things.

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Are crucial. I am glad someone brought them up.

  • Chess tounaments ? Yes. It will work amongst chess players. A small but significant minority can can be influences. Two stars.

  • Edward Snowden- ummm what about JulianAssange ? Whatever, you will be going up against the established forces that currently drive the USA government. Are we ready to play against those guys? It will certainly attract attention, probably not of the complimentarty kind, but well… publicity is publicity as many successful but deviant publicity personalities will tell you. I hasten to add, I am not “anti Trump”, I am highlighting one of his trainers. He knew how to manipulate the media, and the sort of guys you could come upgainst. Check out your ancestory and contacts for Russian Spies first. Or ones that the FBI may say are spies -g- New documentary highlights Roy Cohn, the Godfather of dark politics - YouTube Zero Stars or Five stars … controversial beyond words.

-Surfing Etheruim ZK Rollup Wave.
YES. Maybe Eth are a threat, but we raither get luck or we dont. Double YES. Go with this one. Four star selection.

imho :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’d say it’s worth emphasising through marketing how the values of Mina are aligned with the values of Ethereum - decentralisation wise etc. as that brings in a massive community of people who are then also more open to learning about /understanding Mina’a value proposition.

Also, I have been following the ZeroKnowledgePodcast telegram group and know there is a big presence from other project devs e.g. Mir/Starkware/Aleo which I think is actually massively important so devs within the zk space understand Mina’s tech but haven’t seen as much involvement from Mina devs so was wondering if that was something that could be encouraged for any keen employees :nerd_face:

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I think it is great to brainstorm and get some marketing ideas, I think the community can do a lot of these things and have greater freedom to do them too. I am wondering about the logistics of creating community hackathons?

BTW I have a lot of ideas, but I don’t want to overload the forum too much! :grinning:

From a marketing perspective I think the Mina Foundation are right in the way they are primarily focusing on the tech side and aligning with the their c.o.r.e. values instead of going for a quick shot of adrenaline from YouTubers/ influencers etc.

This gives a lot of credibility for the project long term.

One thing I think that could raise awareness to the project (which is immediately do-able) is greater visibility from Evan (and/or other Mina Foundation / O1 Labs people - Brandon, Emre and Bijan are 3 that are excellent communicators) doing more interviews and when possible more guest speaking at crypto events.

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I agree that a dishonest and superficial marketing strategy would do no good to a project like Mina Protocol. Therefore, I am also against knocking on some influencer’s door to promote MP.

Yet, all successful projects do pay attention to marketing. Even the ones that follow the “zero marketing strategy” act in accordance with a certain plan with the hopes that their method is the best pr strategy to promote & position their brand.

Also, I am sure MP already has a marketing team whose sole purpose is to find ways to attract more people to MP and make the brand more renowned. We could try to provide different perspectives to them, while the core development team keep working on their usual agenda.

I truly believe that there are many ways to promote MP without using cheap tricks and shady tactics.

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As a different idea,

I think an interview for Evan Shapiro with Lex Fridman would be fantastic. Lex’s YouTube channel is the only podcast I regularly look at. Every week, he hosts different people (all distinguished names) from completely different areas to discuss a specific topic. Evan having a talk with Lex on ZK Proof technology would be massive for Mina Protocol’s recognition.

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Great idea Serdar, why don’t you try and make contact with Lex and see if he is open to the idea?

We need to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible for the Mina Foundation, their team can only do so much and as a community we can knock on a thousand doors on their behalf…

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I wish I had such an impact on famous figures. I would most certainly use it for Mina.

On a tragicomic note; I have been regularly harassing Gemini’s (I consider Gemini to be the safest exchange platform) Twitter account with DM’s to convince them to list Mina Protocol (so that the community could have a secure option for long term custody issues, totally for free) but my several-month efforts still haven’t born any fruits :smiley:

I don’t expect to get a different result with Lex or any other person at similar popularity :slight_smile:, but I will give it a try, just for the sake of trying. I would appreciate though, if other members could give a hand on this.

Still, the best approach would be getting in touch with such personas via official channels.

Edit: Just sent him a message on Linkedin.

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I heard about Mina through the chat on Berkeley Blockchain Fundamentals. When I asked about it on BAYC’s discord I heard great things.

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I think a battleship game tournament would make more sense than chess, as you can take advantage of zksnarks.

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Hi everyone, some great activity here and thank you @Serdar for contacting Gemini on our behalf! Love MisterF’s suggestion in a battleship tournament but I do wonder how popular is online battleship is. In terms of @Pete’s suggestion of raising Evan and O1s profile through crypto events and interviews, what crypto events do you think the protocol should be participating in that would have the greatest impact?

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Thanks for the reply Robyn, essentially as many events as possible.

Quick google Cryptocurrency & Bitcoin Conferences - 2022 & 2023 - Securities.io
I think as (hopefully) we are starting to come out of the pandemic travel should be easier and a presence at as many events as possible brings awareness and attention to the project from a wide range of sources. It doesn’t always have to be @evan there is a great team @o1bijan @bkase @o1emre who can act as spokespeople too.

I also think some new photos of the team (especially of Evan) could be a good idea as the same one is used in every article.

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I think a good venue was suggested by @sMgT , which is for Evan to appear on Bankless podcast. It’s a well-known one within Ethereum circle and it’ll be useful to get Mina more exposure to its audience, especially given that the bridge is set to launch.

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Dear Robyn,

Thank you for the post.

There are well known tech-savvy YouTubers addressing to millions from their channels. If we could bring Mina Protocol to their attention, it would be massive for us.

For example, as I mentioned before, @evan being interviewed by Lex Friedman would be pretty fruitful for the protocol. Similarly, Numberphile and 3Blue1Brown on YouTube are two beautiful channels focused entirely on mathematics. I believe, they would be interested in the mathematical beauty that lies behind Mina Protocol. They just need to be communicated in the right way.

Similarly, Veritasium is a popular tech channel which focuses on variable topics related to popular science & math issues. I have seen many videos on his channel discussing fully abstract and theoretical issues. He too could find the zero knowledge proof technology to be interesting enough to make a on around it.

Again, Code Bullet could be a good platform to introduce MP on. It’s a channel focused on different aspects of coding.

I sincerely believe that Mina Protocol deserves to be promoted not only to the blockchain universe participants but everyone. For instance, I loved Wired’s short video on ZK Proof technologies. It says nothing about cryptocurrencies but focuses on the tech itself. Beautiful! Nothing lame about it.

The platforms I mentioned above are all the same kind. Promoting Mina Protocol on them wouldn’t be perceived as a mere marketing tactic but an honest discussion about a technological novelty that has the potential to make our world a better place.

Edit: I forgot to mention. Oxford Union would also be a splendid platform for @evan to introduce Mina Protocol. I could possibly help with that, should the team like the idea.

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And about Gemini…

My poor efforts to convince Gemini to list Mina Protocol still haven’t given any results but I have also been in touch with Kraken (as a pro trader on their platform) for a long while now to persuade them to allow staking Mina. As you may well know, a couple of days ago they did so!

I don’t know how much credit I should take on myself for that :smiley: but -no matter how it happened- it’s great news for us all! I suggest the community members get in touch with platforms like Gemini and FTX to help Mina Protocol. The more the merrier.

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My suggestion would be to create a browser similar to brave browser, with the MINA blockchain and wallet already included. In it you could earn small rewards for viewing ads or sending/receiving rewards from websites, forums and social networks, browsing web pages 3.0 or tor network and many other possibilities. The browser would be important to disclose Mina protocol.

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According to me Instead of giving free coins on facebook or chess, mina protocol should make innovations that will serve the populer issues around the world by finding solutions and offer partnerships. Sample solutions are below.

(1) If we take the flow of water behind us and swim with it, we will go much faster.
Therefore, mina first needs to develop an infrastructure software that can serve issues such as metaverse and NFT. People and investors are interested about such situations.

(2) The other issue is that it should provide an infrastructure service that can serve mobile phones and banks. mina protocol should not remain abstract and should touch real life. Because the coins that can touch the our life are advancing with very fast and solid steps.

(3) in addition, the speed issue must be resolved somehow. This is really annoying for this community and it could be marketed as “mina is now 12x faster”

(4) in addition, I am uncomfortable with uploading my ID card to be able to verify KYC on all exchanges. If the mina authentication mechanism application would exist, which works like a mina protocol auro wallet style google chrome plugin, I just need to load my ID card into mina’s authentication application and instead of reloading my ID card to verify KYC every time. To sum up, I enter a new exchange, I would apply my ID card with one click thanks to integration of the Mina Authentication application. Thanks to this i don’t have to share my ID card every joining new exchanges due to verify KYC.

I have 8 more ideas going on, let me not write them all and extend this here.

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some great ideas, would love to hear more…