Hey @Paddy good to see you here! I hope you’re doing well. I appreciate your thoughts and hope to provide as much color as I can on your points. One quick ask: going forward, would it be possible to bring these sorts of topics here instead of other channels? Just tag me, I follow these threads.
First, let’s talk about what ICON is currently doing and then we can go into plans etc.
As you may be aware, ICON contracted with Transform group several months ago to help with our PR efforts in the space. Currently, ICON pays roughly 8k a month for their services in addition to a delegation grant for their node. Transform group mainly focuses on drafting press releases, thought leadership pieces, outreach to media and coordinating with podcasters, youtubers. Etc. We have weekly calls with their team where we discuss new items, and strategy for the week/month ahead.
Since having them come on board I think we’ve seen some decent improvement in the frequency of ICON mentions in the press (although note we are paying for press releases in most cases). Has it been a home run? No. Has it been helpful to this point? I think so. Could it be better? Absolutely, without question.
That’s where we sit today with formal/contractual PR efforts.
Moving ahead, there are a number of things tee’d up to test (pending approval) such as paid ads on crypto focused podcasts/channels/websites, sponsored content/project updates, and interviews. These are mainly for exposure, and to add new users (wallet downloads etc). Not specifically for developers.
Potential topics include: ICON 2.0, BTP, Staking, CPS, New ecosystem developments, etc.
Additionally, I know of product specific campaigns that will be launching soon. I don’t have specific dates yet but I imagine you’ll be hearing soon from projects like ICONFi, Balanced, OMM, and others who will likely promote heavily to start. Again, probably using similar mediums as above and again mainly for users.
Lastly, we are also exploring Tiktok, clubhouse and other apps to gather interest and engagement.
On the developer side, as previously mentioned, we are actively looking to hire someone as a developer advocate/lead to drive further engagement in the dev ecosystem. This a key focus area that we want to grow. We are in later discussions on this front and hope to have someone in this capacity shortly. Assuming we get someone soon we’ll be in a really good position to push out campaigns specifically targeted to developers months ahead of launch (demos/education, evangelizing, hackathons etc).
And later in the year (pending COVID concerns) we also hope to have a developer focused conference in Korea to bridge both corporate and crypto communities. Stay tuned there.
There are a lot of things in the works and it’s not going to be the status quo. Thanks again for the thoughts/comments & let me know if you have further questions.
Thanks for other responses here as well, all. If you want to get involved or have ideas, let me know. Reach out directly on tg: doddric