In the crypto market, a tweet can cause a currency price to soar, a live broadcast can cause an NFT to sell out instantly, and a casual recommendation from a celebrity can even bring in millions of transactions.
From Trump's NFT to Musk's Dogecoin , KOL (key opinion leader) marketing in the Web3 era has become an important force driving market growth. But not all KOL marketing can bring success. Some projects soared to the sky by choosing the right experts, while others fell into crisis due to the wrong selection of KOLs.
So, in the Web3 era, how can we use KOL marketing to boost project growth? How can we avoid pitfalls? Let’s find the answers from real cases .
Successful Case: Traffic + Trust = Market Miracle
Trump NFT: How does personal IP empower Web3?
In December 2022, Trump launched his personal NFT series "Trump Digital Trading Cards" , which sold out within hours . Even in the sluggish market, Trump's personal influence has kept this NFT trading at a high volume for a long time.
This case makes people start to rethink: In the field of Web3, can the appeal of personal brand surpass the technology itself?
Musk and Dogecoin: A tweet moves the market
One of the most legendary KOL marketing cases in the Web3 field is Elon Musk and Dogecoin (DOGE) . One of his tweets can make the price of $DOGE soar several times.
Compared with traditional advertising, precise matching of KOLs can instantly stimulate market sentiment and is far more efficient than large-scale advertising.
Failure case: There is traffic, but why did it still crash?
Of course, not all crypto projects endorsed by celebrities will be successful. Blindly pursuing the influencer effect while ignoring the audience matching of KOLs may bring devastating consequences.
Milei and $LIBRA: High popularity does not mean high returns
Argentine President Javier Milei once became a "hot topic" in the crypto circle. A certain token $ LIBRA suddenly became popular, and the market mistakenly believed that it was Milei's official crypto project, attracting a lot of speculative funds. However, it turned out that Milei had nothing to do with the project .
The price of the currency soared and plummeted rapidly, and investors suffered heavy losses. This case reminds us that although the hot spots are attractive, if the project itself does not have solid fundamentals, it will eventually become a bubble.
Logan Paul’s NFT crash: Many fans ≠ investors
YouTube celebrity Logan Paul once launched the NFT project "CryptoZoo" , but it was eventually abandoned by the market due to low transparency and immature technology.
Although Logan Paul has a huge social media fan base, his fans are mainly interested in entertainment content rather than crypto investment. This shows that KOL marketing cannot only look at "traffic" but also "matching".
Floyd Mayweather and the ICO Scam: Does Celebrity Build Trust?
Boxing champion Floyd Mayweather has also endorsed ICO projects many times, but was punished by the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) for promoting projects involving fraud. Celebrity halo does not mean trust endorsement. On the contrary, wrong endorsements may put the brand into a greater crisis.
KOL Marketing in the Web3 Era: Traffic is No Longer the Only Criterion
In the past, crypto projects often considered the number of fans and social media influence as the main factors when choosing KOLs , but these data can only reflect the surface traffic scale, but it is difficult to accurately depict the "circle influence" .
The real marketing value of a KOL’s influence lies not only in “how many people follow it”, but also in whether it can accurately influence the target users and truly promote changes in transactions and market sentiment . This requires comprehensive consideration of the following key factors:
Content track matching degree - Is the KOL's content highly consistent with the project's market positioning and target audience?
Professional judgment - Does the expert have deep knowledge of the industry and can provide more convincing endorsement for the project?
Influence assessment - What is the influence of this KOL in the target group? Can his opinions really guide market trends?
Suitability of content format - Are the promotion methods he is good at (in-depth long articles, short videos, live broadcasts, etc.) suitable for the project's communication needs?
Historical promotion performance - In past cooperation cases, has he been able to bring real conversions? How did the projects he promoted perform in the future?
On-chain transaction relevance — Did the projects promoted by the KOL in the past have a real impact on on-chain transactions? Do the users he reaches have real investment behavior?
Only by comprehensively measuring these in-depth indicators can we truly screen out KOLs who not only have traffic but can also bring actual growth to Web3 projects .
Accurately matching KOLs is more effective than “traffic bombardment”, and influence is more important than “simple exposure”.
New trend: Using AI technology to match KOLs to make marketing more efficient and sustainable
Nowadays, the marketing strategies of the Web3 industry are changing, and more and more projects are beginning to focus on "marketing accuracy" rather than just traffic coverage. For example, a company called CryptoBoost is trying to use an AI scoring system to help crypto projects screen the most suitable KOLs, rather than relying solely on big V endorsements.
This scoring system comprehensively examines KOLs’ data and behaviors in social media, as well as various dimensions of data on and off the chain, and analyzes from a data perspective which KOL is more suitable for a specific project , thereby making the marketing budget more worthwhile.
More importantly, the emergence of this AI scoring system can not only help Web3 project owners to control market budgets more reasonably , but also optimize airdrop strategies to ensure that rewards are distributed to real potential users rather than being taken away by wool parties. At the same time, in terms of market value management, it can also make the cost of advertising more refined and avoid ineffective marketing expenses.
For KOLs, this scoring mechanism also brings a new incentive mechanism. Those who are truly focused on the Web3 field and have influence will receive higher scores due to their professionalism and real influence, thereby attracting more high-quality cooperation opportunities. This means that the future Web3 KOL ecosystem will be more transparent and healthier.
In the Web3 era, the nature of KOL marketing is changing. Traffic is no longer the only criterion. Accurate, real, and effective influence is what the market really needs.
The emergence of AI scoring systems is helping crypto project owners optimize their budgets, improve the accuracy of their investments, and increase the efficiency of market value management. It also provides more positive incentives for high-quality talents , allowing the Web3 ecosystem to enter a more rational and sustainable growth stage.
In the future, perhaps the true influence of Web3 will depend not only on the number of fans on social platforms, but also on data-driven precise matching.
