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Look, there’s no one single drop of secret sauce that will instantly make you a household name in crypto. Instead there are a handful of keys to find success onchain.

None of this is groundbreaking; however, you will need to break your preconceived notions of NFTs, crypto, and memecoins. And at Zora, we want to set you and your brand up to win onchain. Hopefully this is helpful.

Here we go:

1. Get setup.
2. Be consistent.
3. Don’t be precious.
4. Mint first, then share.
5. You’re not selling, you’re sharing.
6. They’re not collecting, they’re engaging.
7. They’re not just spending, they’re supporting.
8. Get paid. It’s not the point, but it is the point. Ya know?
9. Do what you do, not what crypto wants. Rick Rubin voice.
   

1) Get setup.

Basics first. Set up your Zora profile. Takes a few minutes. You can sign up with an email.

You don’t need a crypto wallet like Metamask,Rainbow, or any of that. But, it is nice to have :~)

Why do this? Well, you wouldn’t start posting from an incomplete IG profile. Treat this the same way. Setup your Zora profile with a username (ENS in our world), profile, and any website links you might have. Personalize your page with a custom background, font, and button colors.

Here’s what mine looks like right now for reference:

2) Be consistent.

You don’t have to become a “crypto person” to take advantage of the opportunities that crypto offers. Crypto honors those who show up on a regular basis. This is true for retroactive rewards, airdrops, and collector bases. You can post on Zora the same way you post on IG, TikTok, or X. Build your bag. Don’t be afraid to be prolific.

Minting everyday is a strong theme, or meta as they say, in crypto. Beeple demonstrated this and it’s carried on as inspiration for creators all over the internet who are taking to crypto as a way to consistently express. The format has been picked up by subsequent creators like 0xDesigner’s Design Everydays.

If you’re a brand or a creator, don’t sign up to Zora and post one thing thinking you’re going to go viral. You might, and that’d be great. But, like other networks, it takes time. Commit to doing a couple mints each week or a set of three to five mints to test Zora as a channel. See how people respond, and avoid being that diamond guy meme.

3) Don’t be precious.

There is that old saying ‘don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good’. So many creators and brands are looking for the perfect mint. In reality though, there is no perfect mint. Looking for the perfect thing to put onchain could keep you from putting anything onchain.

In the 2021 era, you almost had to be precious with what you were selling because it was a single item for $10,000. Today, creators are selling higher volumes of more accessibly priced items which allows them to have a bit more freedom to express.

And at the end of the day, these chains are mediums for self expression. You should feel free to express as often and as freely as you can.

Here’s all the different things you create on Zora today:

• Pictures
• Songs
• Canvas
• Notes
• Slides
• Videos
• 3D Renders
• Poems
• Websites
• Recipes
• Archives
• Feelings
• Memes
• Predictions
• Discursive thoughts
• Whatever you want

4) Mint first, then share.

There’s a common misconception that if you mint your content on Zora, you takeaway your ability to post on YouTube, TikTok, IG, or other social networks. The reality is that all of these tools are complementary to one another. YouTube and TikTok are great for building audiences and distribution. Zora is great for monetization.

Onchain and offchain—the two go hand in hand to help the creator or brand win. We tell creators to mint first for record keeping purposes. The mint makes your ownership of that content provable. So you can do that, then share it everywhere. More on that from Jacob here.

5) You’re not selling, you’re sharing

People are often worried about having to campaign their mints. PTSD from 2021 created a climate in which people feel the burden of needing to campaign their mints and stay on the treadmill of crypto attention.

Today, thanks to Zora Protocol Rewards, creators no longer have to campaign high priced, limited edition mints, or 1:1 auctions, but instead can monetize the everyday—evergreen posts of their process in addition to their product. Tigris is an incredible example of this. Take a look at her profile that includes some incredible WIP videos of her hardware creations.

Share your creativity on Zora the same way you would on TikTok, IG, or Tumblr. Share the unfinished, half-baked, everyday concepts alongside the masterpieces or viral sensations. You don’t have to shill or sell, you just have to share.

6) They’re not collecting, they’re engaging

Engagement is how we connect with media on the internet. Connection is simply when something hits. Engagement (like reposting mints) are how we express that connection.

Resonance is when you connect the words, images, or sounds you’re perceiving with your own reality. It is when you make it yours. You own the moment and the experience.

When you mint you are connecting with the creator, their expression, and the other people that have also connected with this piece of media. When people mint your work, they are entering a participatory relationship with you—the creator—in which they can join in future moments like drops, events, and other community activations.

It might get recorded as a transaction, but minting is a much deeper connection.

7) They’re not just spending, they’re supporting

Jesse Walden wrote about the patronage+ concept way back in 2021, and it feels like we are really living in that reality today. Collectors, curators, consumers… whatever your preferred term is, are spending their hard earned ETH to support creators and communities they love.

Models like Zora’s Protocol Rewards make supporting creators with a small amount of ETH as easy as liking a post on Instagram.

This both is and isn’t tipping. It is tipping in so far as it’s a micropayment to a creator, but it’s not tipping in so much as you as the supporter get a piece of media back and a newfound durable connection with the creator—a chance to participate in their next moment. For this reason, some might even say that mint is more than a like, Like+ or something to that effect.

8) Get Paid. It’s not the point, but it is the point… Ya know?

Crypto is uniquely good at revealing the value of internet artifacts. Anyone that was around in 2021 saw this first hand as internet favorite memes rose to billion dollar valuations.

Additionally, it is good at helping creators of internet artifacts capture value from the propagation of media across the web—the Doge NFT auction for $4M demonstrates this for Atsuko, the owner and photographer of iconic Shiba Inu, Kabosu.

Like I mentioned earlier, minting is not replacing posting on other social networking sites. It’s something you do in addition to posting. Minting monetizes the onchain engagement of your content. When people mint, you get paid. For my reasons on why you should mint, check out this article on our blog.

Zora Protocol Rewards makes it easier than ever to get paid for posting your content onchain. First, it’s free to post on Zora. Second, you can sign up with just an email. Third, you can post anything you want—image, video, gif, thoughts, whatever it may be. Everytime someone likes your post on Zora, aka mints it, you get paid. It’s that easy.

Everyday creators are taking to protocol rewards as a way to get paid. Developer teams are building on it as a way to grow their business. It's an expansive model. Fred Wilson writes about what this experience is like in his latest essay–Minting is the Native Business Model for Web3.

9) Do what you do, not what crypto wants.

A lot of teams get caught up trying to cater the aesthetic of their onchain media to the taste of crypto rather than the tastes of their existing consumers. The risk of catering too much to crypto audiences is that you create two separate and distinct universes for your content or your brand. If your brand makes iconic commercials, mint the commercials.

If your brand makes iconic posters, mint your posters. Not everything needs to look like an in-game asset either—3D rotating objects are not a requirement, though nice to have in some contexts. If we keep making crypto specific content, crypto will have a homogenous taste. This is bad for our space and for any pocket of internet creativity.

The alternative to this approach is to stop catering to crypto’s 3D spinning flame coins, and stick to minting your existing brand, media, and content onchain in the same way you would incumbent social networks. If you are a musician, make the music you love, don’t make the music you think will get mints.

If you are a visual artist, make the visuals that move you, not what you think will get mints. Zora is a place where tastes that don’t usually fit into the “crypto” box find a place to shine together.

The beauty of this program is that if you follow one through three, then overtime you will increase your chances of finding audiences and communities that resonate with your work. Don’t change who you are to be onchain. Bring your entire self to crypto.

This is how you should approach it.

BONUS: Choose wisely :~)

There are so many incredible brands and companies that look to make their first steps into crypto, but do so with the wrong protocol or brand partners. It could be a mismatch of brand, a mismatch of audience, or using tools that don’t have the built in distribution to help grow their audience.

For this reason, it’s important to make sure you get the facts—not just the pitch—but the facts. Most data right now would say Zora is the home for creators and collectors. 222k creators call Zora home today alongside 1.3M+ collectors. And, they’re pretty active with over 100k monthly transacting users.

We’d love to share your amazing work with the world of Zora.

Hit us up – [email protected]