PR: The long game of building trust and credibility in the crypto industry

Transcript

we are i'm going to be running through some tips and hopefully this is you're able to walk away with something you know helpful and some key takeaways from this so firstly let me introduce a little bit about myself and yap global so i'm samantha i'm a journalist by training and i started yap global three and a half years ago you know from my passion for storytelling and crypto and blockchain my agency is called yak global we are a pr agency specializing in blockchain and cryptocurrency companies and we were passionate passionate about building the bridge between

quality journalism and emerging technology companies um now i've got a global team you can see some of them here they're wearing the same shirt as me so there's mia joe and martina um but we've got team members around the world we've got you know team member in berlin hong kong australia you know in melbourne um and so we're quite a global team and we're we're also shaped for the companies in the space that are also quite decentralized and and global in a sense um and these are some of the companies that are here actually at ecc that we work with so well there's harvest finance so where's

poops are over there we've got eden block which is leer up the front so it's nice to have and hermes network paul how can i forget you um so we've gotta we work with a few um amazing projects and companies in this space um and we also have established relationships with media and that's really what pr um is all about and i'm going to kind of go into kind of what the differences are because i think some people get get pr mixed up with like marketing and advertising but these are some of the publications that we you know talk to on a daily basis um and build relationships with especially uh to kind of yeah shape shape the the narrative in a

productive way so let's kind of do a bit of a uh recap of the last year um i think we're all um aware that we've just you know come off this bull run and there was a media frenzy that kind of happened because of it so once you know the bitcoin price started you know climbing and what late late last year in november um you know a lot of the the price action does um encourage uh you know more mainstream media to start paying attention to the space and so when you also see kind of like you know brands like square tesla buying bitcoin these are the you know uh stories that

make headlines so you can see there's like bbc wrote about um crypto and that's that's quite rare you know uh especially since we're quite early you know when financial time starts writing about coinbase cnbc wall street journal etc and this is not normal i mean i yap global was started in late 2017 early 2018 and pitching to even pitching to wall street journal or pitching to financial times a story about crypto was is really tough i mean they there was a negative stigma around it of course because of you know off the back of the ico craze so um to see to see this interest is really encouraging however there's a lot of

work to be done because there's um you're starting to see kind of the communication gap that we need to address right so let's now delve in because we're in a theorem conference let's delve into d5 um d5 summer was very active last year and a lot happened and there was an explosion of protocols projects and just you know you could see in the numbers just how much you know money was flowing in however if you you kind of follow the mainstream media narrative it only started getting attention last month like june 2021 when d5 summer was last

year so it shows you just how much time it takes for the media to actually understand what um what what dfi is and what crypto is and and and wrap their heads around it but last month it's been very encouraging to see wall street journal kind of write about uni swap um even financial times you know touching on how silicon valley is you know betting on crypto projects to disrupt finance and then we also saw an amazing feature from bloomberg business week about you know all the all the the food tokens that have uh you know emerged but with that is

the knowledge gap so when when wall street journal last just last month wrote a piece about how d5 is helping fuel the crypto market boom um crypto twitter was uh quick to kind of jump on the inaccuracies or kind of where the the journalists kind of went um you know didn't accurately portray this space but again this is a reminder of how early we are um i think you know you can see in the comment here it was a story about d5 but the the people they quoted was um nexo and celsius which are c5 projects um but but to wall street journal that you know that's still quite new for them to

to touch on um however you know as you know the the crypto twitter community is quite strong and they're they they kind of jumped on that but i think i think the productive response here is to kind of actually understand where the where the media is at um and know kind of where they're at and helping them understand uh you know what's really happening and and the amazing things that these pro protocols and projects are building now so to build more collective trust and credibility for the crypto industry we need to have a strategic and effective pr strategy

as a whole not just with teams but just us as an ecosystem as just you know the the community that are that is advocating for this space and so with that there's a few tips that um i want to kind of share here today um and practical tips to to think about how to build your um media narrative this is for those of you whether you're individuals or whether you are you know part of a team protocol even if you're running a fund there's something to think about so four practical pr tips for building your media presence so let's start with number one so be a resource to media now it's

important to understand that they the journalists are they're busy they're getting hundreds of pitches a day and and they they have their jobs to do they need to file some of them need to file two three stories a day right and um you know some of them is literally it's their job and so they're not they might not have the you know time or even headspace to even keep up with what's happening in crypto and things move really fast right um and so yeah i think i think we we like to encourage our clients and people to be a resource um to media i mean you're starting to see newsrooms like bloomberg um cnbc they're starting to hire crypto

focused teams um but with that being said obviously even within the um you know crypto media there's people with different beats right um you know d5 is one sector but nfts is another so how can we be useful and helpful to um to to the media and yeah something to remember is it it they crypto does move fast and you know imagine they need to file their stories make sure it's make sure it's accurate um and then keep up and then before you know it because the crypto market's so volatile it might not even be a story in the afternoon so we kind of have to support them a little bit on that and

something to remember is pr is a long game and it takes time to build uh relationships and um yeah so we say the teams we like to partner with them because it's not an overnight you know to get on um coin desk or even to get on i mean let alone the mainstream media so you kind of have to be patient with pr and and put in the time to build relationships second tip is education is important um we're i mean i put this article here from ryan brown from cnbc and he wrote ethereum he wrote this piece on

ethereum what is it and how is it different from bitcoin in march 2021 i know we're really deep in this space and so we might be like all right ethereum we don't need to explain this to to people anymore yes we do because bitcoin uh you know we still even have i'm sure you're still having to even explain bitcoin to your friends and family who aren't in this space let alone ethereum so that's something to remember and the most effective way to educate the public is through the media because if you're talking to your family who's not in crypto what do you do you you try to whip up an article you try to be like hey go and read this explainer or you try to share a link

it's all through the media and that's why explainers are really important so if you can contribute to an explainer or help a journalist put one together that's your way of helping educate um the media about crypto in this space so that's something to think about if if we're going to be talking about mainstream adoption and understanding of what we do um oh sorry i realized i didn't i haven't been okay this is the slides i'm like moving on my sides here um this is the edge so this is the article i was talking about i'm sorry um yeah so this is again an article that was

just done recently in in may not even march so in may and and and there and he's writing about what is ethereum and how is it different from bitcoin so something to note now the third tip is um again i was touching before on how on the difference between pr and marketing um and something to note is that earned media is different to sponsored slots uh spots so i'm sure you're aware that there's you know a way for you to sponsor content i mean there's um i mean that's kind of one of the revenue streams for some media publications so go well if you write a piece and you pay us we'll get it published but you know they'll have to put a caveat at the bottom to say that this is

a sponsored post um that also goes with like ads and with um kind of marketing and there's a time and place for that but you know there's this um famous quote from richard branson he said publicity is absolutely critical and a good pr story is infinitely more effective than a front page ad because if you've got a journalist kind of writing about you because they're genuinely interested in what you have to say and what you're doing that is that that is more valuable and that's um yeah just you know builds more trust and credibility for you um and so earning media placements builds credibility um and so just think carefully however i

would say there i mean in in the crypto space there is a time and space for ads but you know you're more effective taking time to build that rapport with the journalists and get them to kind of write a feature about you and the last tip is trust a pr professional um and be open-minded about it and i would say that obviously because we work with teams and i think that it's you know it depends on what stage you're in but if you're busy building kind of you need to hire developers or you you need to kind of actually build your product you might want to um it's not outsourcing but like partner

with a team or even have an in-house comms person to really tell your story because you could be building the best product or you know something that's getting amazing traction within your niche community but if you don't shout about what you're doing no one's going to hear about you so um yeah trust the team trust pr professional and be open-minded about it because um what what the crypto industry is building it's complicated and um you guys have to kind of understand like if you know and think if you have to explain this say to your friend or to to your brother to your sister

like will they understand it and um trust that professionals in communication and and even in journalism they'll know how to kind of tell your story but um and so my last point is perhaps the saying kill your darlings with technical jargon i know we we did we work on brand positioning sessions often with our clients and they might want to include the word like protocol or like no code or something but that might scare people away and so kind of try not to be precious with your wording but think about the message that you want to communicate so meet the crypto translators this is my team again i just pointed that out

and we're growing and so um we're you know we're one pr agency in this space but it's a valuable um job that my team is doing and so um i think that uh yeah it's and and also even just to the you know community managers to the chief marketing officers or coms managers they are playing a valuable role and i think that you know without them you know the the the ecosystem just might not be able to bridge that gap so that's something to bear in mind so some practical tips for those of you who might be considering a you know engaging a pr firm and i know there's a lot of myths we get a lot of

questions even when we're talking to um projects and some of them some of them might be coming to us too early or maybe too late um here's some like useful criteria to think about so if you've got a stro i mean this is a checklist you might not need to meet everything on this checklist but if you've got it all then then you're ready for a pr firm so you know number one is to have a strong product or service so are you providing a solution or a service to the industry that's fresh and essential to the development of the crypto ecosystem second criteria is do you have an established community sometimes we talk to projects that they have a great idea

they're about to launch but they actually haven't even launched their you know discord or their twitter and they're just they're like they're trying to work on pr to gain that traction but actually building a community organically first is it should be your first step because the media will kind of look at the project and kind of be like well what's um you know who's behind this so if you've got an established community then that's a good sign um third point is sustainable growth plans so are you serving a need that is not just short term that you know you're going to be around for another you know you're going to be around for the long term that that is attractive as a story for for

journalists as well so sustainable growth trans is important it's very hard to think about sustainability when things move so fast in crypto but that's going to set you apart and that's going to keep you kind of going uh whether it's the bear or the bull market um and then strategic backing is important so if you've kind of got like advisors or investors or just a team that is kind of behind you i think i think those are great ingredients for pr success and and that also builds the trust and credibility that journalists look out for and then second laws exciting stories to tell and insights to share so if you don't have anything to say or if

you're not kind of going to be vocal about you know um and adding value to discourse in in in the the field that you're in it's going to be very hard to kind of pr you because you know you kind of have to say something to make news um so it's just a reminder because um yeah if you're vocal about things that that that's a great ingredient for for pr and then the last point is yeah a road map of peorable materials i think it's the the last thing on uh a few projects mine that they're so busy building that they're like oh wait hang on a minute we need to we should announce this or we should kind of put this out so having a road map is um

you know useful and and we do recommend the three months three month timeline because there's no point doing a huge push one month and then just not not shouting about what what what you're doing later on and the media are there's so many projects coming out right now and um we always recommend that clients you know are consistently being mentioned and talked about every month so that you know it helps with that education that kind of like you're still in front of them they're aware of what you're building and all that so those are some um yeah criteria that you need to engage pr from now there is a problem uh there is um problem in this space is there is a lack

of communicators marketers content creators social media managers i mean we are addressing part of that gap but we're getting kind of clients come to us asking if we do marketing support or social media or like graphic design and we we don't we we are we specialize in in a very strategic and kind of niche space as well in the the the um kind of communication landscape so to say um and so we've been thinking a lot about addressing this problem because it's part of our you know mission to to communicate and bridge the the gap in the space whoops

so without effective communicators um who can provide guidance on how to shape discourse in an effective and productive way i mean the crypto and d5 ecosystem really risks becoming an echo chamber i mean crypto twitter is loud it's um it's active it's also a very great place for journalists to source for stories in the space but at the end of the day it's just an echo chamber because we're just shouting amongst ourselves even crypto media like coindesk the block you know decrypt etc these announcements of like you know a new main a main net launch like a layer two solution emerging we're only shouting amongst ourselves uh

we're not really talking to the mainstream world and there's there's that gap that we need to address and so that's something to think about and so as a team as we're yap global let's say we're yap global limited because we're a traditional pr agency we can only grow as big as you know how big our team is and there's actually a lot more demand for our services that we can we can meet and so we're really excited to be launching yaf dao and the vision behind yap dao is we want to um translate the crypto and defy world

um you know for f for the mainstream world um so it is a community that will provide communication and marketing support to the d5 world it's going to live beyond us we want people to join us and um we want yeah to also encourage non-technical people to get work in a technical space when i started you know pr in this space i didn't have a finance background and i didn't have a tech background i studied arts um at uni and so i had to learn about finance and crypto from the beginning and it's a really tough job i mean uh it's it's it's

it's not easy and so and i can imagine it's quite daunting for the people in the space that um are you know thinking about joining this space but just quite yeah i guess intimidated by it and so we want to be a community to encourage um you know communicators to to support the the the project in the space so again our mission is aligned with yap global's mission um but it it will evolve from this but again it's to bridge the communication gap between emerging technology and the mainstream world and we're really excited to be announcing and launching dow house's marketplace dao house actually incubated yapdao i participate

my the first doubt i participated in was orochi dao which is run on dao house a molok dao dao oh yeah makoto my cousin coordinated it and and tay in the background's from dao house um actually it's thanks to makoto that has encouraged us to look into dao's and so dao house is launching this marketplace for services dow so we've heard a lot about d5 dows and all the yield farming dials like harvest finance is doing amazing job but um there's not a lot of i guess services dials out there and so we're pleased to be the first pr dow to be using this marketplace um just to give you insight on how we all started we're based

on dao house and we had a little some summoning in june 2021 mia was there and so yeah it was an experience i'm learning along the way and this is an experiment for us but we're really hoping that it will grow and evolve beyond us um so yeah we had a little summoning session with ben and and some of the dow house teams so that was really fun and helpful and how to get involved so entries permission but growth is encouraged um so if you have pr coms marketing social media experience or you have dow experience because we need that because

i don't have dao experience um you can join yeah we would love for you to join yap dao and to join you need to pledge 500 that's just a membership pledge but you know there is an option where you can kind of you know quit or rage quit is the term in dao house um and and and you you know that 500 die you can take that away um but it's just a pledge to show your commitment um and uh yeah and you know have a willingness to to learn uh about either of this um yeah you're welcome to join and also if if you um if you don't have the time or capacity to contribute but you still want to kind of be a member and and support us in in in your ways by maybe referring

companies etc um you can still pledge and uh yeah we'd love to have you join um and that's it thank you so much to it thank you so much samantha does anyone have any questions oh no makoto is like my crypto sensei so i'm not worried about this hi uh i love that you put the same pledge amount as a 500 day as a orochi so that's good uh in case of orochi we just use for booze and drinks

and have fun uh for yeah what's a kind of pri what do you expect as a primal kind of spending of the pledge people right yeah well um oh i wanted to say um the the design was done by um rebecca defoe who is actually our social media manager but we got her to work for the dow um so i mean and also we um raid guild had helped us build the website so the pledge money is just to you know contribute to yeah building up the website and and and maybe um coordination costs but i think um how it works is i mean the pledge is just to show commitment um actually yap dao is pleased to

i mean i didn't touch on this point but we actually already have our first client so mia martina and i so except like we're kind of engaged dow house as the first client for yap dao and i'm very happy to say that is revenue generating from the beginning because if you kind of go on dow house you can see our retainer you can see the live proposal so dow house pays the dow the retainer ten percent of that retainer goes back to the dow and then the ninety percent gets split between the service providers and so basically it is a marketplace and we want to encourage like i mean and actually we joined the yeah

telegram already today um june ian he's the founder of acjr network he was he just pinged in the chat he was like hey guys i need someone to help me with um you know social media graphics for my podcast is anyone is there anyone here that can help me and uh yeah we're we're pitching rebecca who's also a member of the dow to kind of do work for him and that will go through the dow hopefully so hope that answers your question any other questions yeah hi uh just the obvious question um what are your thoughts on on a token for yap dao i'm just gonna

cut right to it that is a good question everyone's asking me that too obviously we are a services down and i've when i was having chats with the dow house team and people who are experienced they're like do you really need a token i mean we are starting with this experiment first but yeah over time we're revenue generating and you know the community is you know we're growing up a treasury i guess and also a ability for the you know a way for people to get paid in dividends um i need to talk to a member of the team who's helping with our tokenomics but um token potentially but i think right now we're still kind of taking it

slow and seeing how it evolves but we will do it in the in the right time so how do we become clients of the abdomen that is a good question and it's quite um i have to be honest here i was quite scary because i'm kind of decentralizing my ltd company because my clients might go oh well can we then now engage the dow and my team can go leave and exit to the dao as well yeah you i mean if you want to put a proposal by the dao i mean i would say that again i know there's the the name and we really like the name so that's why we're keeping it yeah but it will be separate to

the app ltd you'll get a you know you get a different team potentially um maybe you might even get a better level of service but that that's really dependent on the dow to coordinate that coordinate that if that makes sense um but in terms of the clients i mean we have been like you know turn we haven't been turning but we've been putting some clients who've come to us too early and you know we actually like that they just need a one-off announcement or a one-off job and we actually have nowhere to send them so actually yapdao is a space for us to also send the companies that just need that like one pr or that one you know announcement and that's a good interim solution until

you're ready to engage a full-time pr firm cool awesome thank you guys i know it's the end of the day so have a good afternoon bye thank you so much you