Brand Innovation: How to get started with NFTs?
What I will talk about :
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What are NFTs?
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique file that is stored on a digital cash book, also called a blockchain.
Each NFT stands for a unique digital article or item that is not replaceable (fungible), unlike, for example, money or Bitcoins that you can exchange freely and indefinitely. Despite being two different things, NFTs are often still confused with Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.
Is NFT cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrencies are virtual coins with which you can buy or pay for all kinds of products or services. Investing is also a popular cryptocurrency application. However, nowadays it is increasingly used in (online) stores. There are already countless physical stores in the United States and the rest of the States that accept bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. The possibilities are therefore practically endless: you can order a beer with it, book a hotel stay, but you could also buy an NFT with it!
NFT Buy
Cryptocurrencies and NFTs are therefore not the same, but you do need one to be able to buy the other. Anyone who is already familiar with crypto has a slight advantage. But why is it so interesting to buy an NFT with your hard-earned (or purchased) crypto coins?
Non-fungible tokens are used to create verifiable digital scarcity. You can think of ‘innocent’ things like collectibles. For example, there is a website where you can trade and collect limited edition virtual cats (CryptoKitties). Innocent is in quotes, as even these cute pets are often thousands of dollars already paid.
Make money with NFT
Logically, NFTs also exist in a more serious form. Perhaps the NFT’s most powerful feature is how it can totally change the art world. Artists can put their work as NFT on the blockchain. This gives the work a unique ‘stamp’ and can immediately be bought by anyone. Thanks to this traceable stamp, the buyer knows for sure that they have an original copy and that only a small number of their just purchased artwork is in circulation. So you can see an NFT as a kind of signed work that doesn’t require you to go through Between Art and Kitsch. Because it is on the blockchain, it is possible to find out exactly where the work comes from.
Although NFTs are practically still in their infancy, it is important to realize how much potential there is in these unique tokens. Recently, more and more digital works have been sold for millions of dollars. No wonder people talk about a real hype!
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How to start with NFT?
If you are already somewhat at home in the world of cryptocurrency, the step to NFT is quickly made. Yet it is not very complicated for absolute beginners to start with NFT. You can start buying your first NFT after a few simple steps!
ETH and crypto wallet
In order to buy an NFT, you first need a place to securely store the keys of your cryptocurrency and NFTs. So your first step is to choose a suitable cryptocurrency wallet to start with. You can use a digital crypto wallet, but there are many people who prefer a physical crypto wallet that also keeps your precious assets ‘offline’.
You also need a starting amount of cryptocurrency. You cannot directly use your euros to buy an NFT. You will first have to exchange your euros for cryptocurrency and keep them in a wallet. At the moment, the cryptocurrency ETH (Ethereum) is the most common unit for buying NFTs. Important: So make sure that the crypto wallet you choose not only supports the storage of ETH but is also compatible with NFTs.
NFT Marketplace
Now that you have a wallet full of cryptocurrency, you can hit the market! NFTs are not offered in one central place. There are countless places where you can buy an NFT. Each Marketplace is different, and also offers different types of NFTs. For example, on one NFT Marketplace, you will only be able to buy art from a renowned artist, while other NFT Marketplaces are more of a kind of place where novice NFT makers can also offer their wares.
Some of the hottest NFT Marketplaces right now:
To start on an NFT marketplace you have to pay a fee in the beginning and have your own ‘crypto wallet’. You can arrange this via, for example, Bitvavo, Binance, or Coinbase.
Quick start with NFTs: art maker app
A simple way to start making NFTs yourself is through, for example, the NFT art maker. This, in principle, free app, lets you transform your own content into ‘crypto art’. Note that the NFT market is still very open and free; so whether it really is ‘art’ depends on other factors, but know that you can quickly learn to make your own NFTs by means of these handy apps, among other things.
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How to market & promote NFTs?
I am sure you already know what NFT is now. And now you’re looking to promote and market your NFTs.
Below are some of the best ways to promote your NFTs. These will give you a better understanding of the many different ways to promote and market your NFTs.
Appealing Teaser Video
The number one thing you want to do when promoting and marketing your entities is make sure your NFT’s are appealing. Whether you have an idea for your NFT or it’s already created, you need to figure out who your target audience is and why they would want your NFT.
Basically, you need to communicate what is special about your NFTs because NFTs like any other products are emotional purchases. So make sure you go ahead and communicate what’s special about your NFTs to your audience by creating a teaser video.
You can create this video yourself if you have a camera or you can download free software such as OBS, which is a free screen recorder, and DaVinci Resolve which is free-to-use editing software.
But, if you don’t have much video creation experience, you do not have to make it yourself, you can check a website like Fiverr and hire somebody to make this video for you at an affordable price.
In this teaser video, make sure you communicate what’s special about your NFTs. Include all the relevant information that your audience will need to know, such as, when your entities will be for sale, where they will be for sale at and how they can buy them. Your video should be relatively short and engaging.
Social Media
This one is probably self-explanatory, but you’re going to want to be on as many social media platforms as possible, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, even create a Discord server.
Now, you don’t have to be on every single social media platform out there. But whichever one you choose, make sure your target audience will be there. They will be a lot of NFT collectors on these social media platforms. Social media will be one of the driving factors to your entity’s discoverability.
NFT calendars.io
NFT calendar is basically one large calendar that showcases the next hottest entity drops. This website gets a quarter of a million views per month. If you will be releasing your NFTs, you definitely want your collection to be on the calendar because tons of entity collectors are looking at the calendar for the next POTUS drop.
To get your NFT collection listed on the NFC calendar, all you have to do is fill a form on the website. And once their team has reviewed it, and it has been approved, your NFT drop will be listed on their calendars.
NFC giveaways
Let’s be real, who doesn’t like free stuff. I’ve seen tons of projects in the past build community of like 50,000 members in a day just from an entity giveaway. So you definitely should consider doing an NFT giveaway. Once you have some NFTs to giveaway, all you have to do is hop onto one of your social media platforms and announce the giveaway.
Make sure you list the NFT marketplace that you’ll be listed on so that people know exactly where to go to purchase your NFTs.
Join NFT groups
There are tons of groups out there on social media platforms such as clubhouse, Discord, even Twitter spaces, Reddit, that you want to be a part of.
Do not join for selfish reasons and start blatantly promoting your project, you must be a part of the community first. Maybe ask them for feedback about your NFT ideas or projects and make sure you respond to their feedback to let them know that they are heard. Engage with the community and build trust. This way, they will be more open to hear about your NFT project and even pick one up themselves or help spread the word for you.
Collaborate with major influencers
Influencers are a great resource for you because they already have communities built and all you have to do is come up with some interesting collaboration to do with them. Keep in mind, these collaborations should be a Win-Win situation. You can give their community some free entities. And in return, you’re going to gain lots of exposure.
Also, keep in mind, influencers can be anyone with a very large following. This can be YouTubers, Twitter, Instagram, or even Tiktok influencers.
Make sure you collaborate with these influencers because they will help drive a lot of attention to your NFT project.
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How companies can use NFT?
One of the primary motivations behind why NFTs are critical to companies is that they can be utilized to display documents like art, video, and audio. They are extremely adaptable in such a way that they can be used to address different types of innovative work like virtual universes, virtual real estate, fashion, and a lot more.
A significant component of any great advertising or marketing approach is to offer significant experiences to your followers and consumers that use your company’s product and services. This assists you with creating great communities and building connections that transform into support and loyalty and increment client lifetime esteem.
NFTs can offer open doors for your company. While they may not prompt quick ROI (return on investment) they can have a significant impact in supporting the wide range of various endeavors that are pointed toward creating conversions and sales when you used in your company.
Using NFTs in your company, you can:
Increase company mindfulness and loyalty: A whole new degree of personalization is conceivable with NFTs in view of their uniqueness that can create increase brand awareness just as loyalty and support.
Empower follower interaction and building community: Your company can create buzz by making the way for client-produced or user-generated content, ideas from your community on the type of tokens they might want to see and own, or propose them as remunerations in crowdfunding campaigns and contests.
Support social causes and build your company image: Modern customers place incredible accentuation on whether brands represent their values. You can exhibit your company’s obligation to social causes by utilizing NFT incomes to support a good cause. Also, you can welcome artists to make tokens for your brand and support them with both the exposure and the income produced by their creations.
Generating interest in your company and its products or services: obviously, one of the objectives of NFTs is to expand conversions and produce income. Interest in the brand is normally created as it enters the NFT space and carries these new experiences to the community.
Discussing community might sound surprising, however, it’s critical to emphasize. NFTs have created a whole community around them that is unequivocally centered around mutual regard, validness, and support for the artist.
Brands that only consider tokens to be a potential chance to enhance their promoting methodology, but without acknowledgment for the artist or the morals in the community, will risk being disregarded or scrutinized. Thus, entering this space necessitates that you do as such cautiously and keep in mind that you do so by partaking as equal members of the community rather than instrumentally.
Another word of warning is also in order. While there are endeavors to make NFTs less energy-escalated, this is generally not the situation as of now. By utilizing tokens, you really want to think about their effect on the environment and ways of alleviating some of their effects.
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Biggest NFT projects at the moment?
Before we start with the most promising NFT crypto projects, it is important to clearly understand what a Non-Fungible Token is. A Non-Fungible token, abbreviated NFT, is a token that represents something unique. Fungible means replaceable or interchangeable. So something that is Non- Fungible is not replaceable.
Top NFT Projects
Now that it is clear what NFTs are, we can start with the list of the best NFT projects without further ado. In this case, projects are understood to mean collaborative bodies that are engaged in Non-Fungible Tokens or trade in them.
Enjin Coin
The first NFT project we will discuss is Enjin (ENJ). Enjin Coin is a blockchain gaming platform focused on creating digital collectibles that are truly user-owned. The crypto project has been on the radar of many since 2019 because they have entered into a partnership with Samsung. Enjin does this through ERC-1155 tokens, an improved version of ERC20 and ERC721 tokens.
Enjin is thus a gaming platform in which game developers buy ENJ through an exchange, crowdfunding, or partnership and then convert in-game items into ERC-1511 tokens. In-game items, such as vehicles, skins, weapons, or pieces of land are converted into ERC-1155 tokens where the value is expressed in ENJ. This process is called ‘minting’.
Flow Blockchain (FLOW)
NFTs have been around longer than you might think. Non-Fungible Tokens have been very popular in recent months, but this hype was already there in 2017–2018. Back then, the blockchain game CryptoKitties was extremely popular. So popular, in fact, that the Ethereum blockchain on which CryptoKitties was located could no longer handle the number of transactions, resulting in huge transaction costs.
The developers of CryptoKitties were dissatisfied with the performance of the Ethereum blockchain and then started developing their own blockchain: Flow Blockchain (FLOW). Flow is a new blockchain built for the next generation of apps, games, and the digital assets that power them.
Thus, Flow is a blockchain-focused on what Ethereum was not for CryptoKitties in 2017–2018. The blockchain is designed to be fast, scalable, decentralized, and easy to build on by developers.
Flow, therefore, wants to become the blockchain for developers to build apps, games, and digital assets. The Flow Playground makes it as easy as possible for developers to do this.
Decentralized Country (MANA)
The third promising NFT crypto project is Decentraland (LAND & MANA). Decentraland is exactly what you would expect if you read the name correctly: it is a decentralized virtual reality world powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Within the Decentraland platform, users can create, experience, and monetize content and applications. Broadly speaking, it is similar to Sims, Simcity, and Second Life, but with a clear difference: the world is decentralized and built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Worldwide Asset Exchange (WAX)
We are now moving from digital real estate in the form of NFTs to a marketplace for NFTs. The Worldwide Asset eXchange, known as WAX, calls itself the safest and most convenient way to create, buy, sell and trade virtual assets — for anyone, anywhere in the world. WAX has built a platform aimed at creating efficient transactions using blockchain technology. WAX focuses on making transactions on their network as smooth, efficient, and secure as possible.
The Sandbox (SAND)
An NFT crypto project competing with Decentraland is The Sandbox (SAND). The Sandbox, like Decentraland, is a virtual world where players can build, own and monetize things on the Ethereum blockchain using SAND, the platform’s cryptocurrency. Sandbox differs from Decentraland with a world very similar to Minecraft and Roblox. Because the game runs on the Ethereum blockchain and all in-game items can be tokenized in the form of NFTs, the game gives users the opportunity to have real ownership of their creations. In addition, players will be rewarded for their participation in The Sandbox world’s ERC-20 exchangeable cryptocurrency called SAND. The game is currently in development and is expected sometime this year.
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Can I get rich creating or buying NFTs?
Yes, definitely. You have probably heard of NFTs because a number of people have suddenly become rich in a short period of time. But how do they earn this money and can you do this too? Absolutely.
Different ways you can make money with NFTs to get rich are:
Create: Digital artists can sell their work as NFT Art. By preserving the copyrights, they can also earn a royalty every time it is resold.
Trading: People can buy an NFT art and later sell it for a profit. You always have to own ETH for this, Ideal does not work with this.
Speculate: The value of an NFT is also subordinate to the rate of the currency in which you sell it.
Gaming: You can play NFT games and sell your accumulated creatures or pieces of virtual land in the form of an NFT.
Coin trading: NFT coins can be bought and sold on the cryptocurrency exchange.
Strike: You can also keep some NFT coins in your wallet and receive interest for this.
NFTs are the newest craze in the crypto industry and investors from all over the world are flocking to them.
NFTs are special and have value in and of themselves and they have already infiltrated a wide range of industries, from the arts to sports to virtual real estate to gaming.
Investors assert that NFTs have a high value due to their scarcity. According to a survey by non-fungible, the overall value of NFT transactions reached $250 million last year, four times the value in 2019. NFT related digital wallets had 222,179 transactions recorded in 2018, which is doubled from the year before astoundingly.
The first question most people have when it comes to buying virtual goods is how to keep their worth if a counterfeit is so easy to make. Fake goods are common in many industries, from footwear to fine art, but in the virtual world, they can be even more problematic.
At first look, a blockchain may appear exceedingly complex, the best way to think of it as a record of ownership for a virtual object is to first understand that blockchain is decentralized. NFTs are made secure by the use of blockchain technology, which is at the core of their development in and of itself.
It is without a doubt that NFTs can make you rich because the future looks promising.
NFTs are in the process of maturing, and they’re already proving useful in a wide range of fields. When you consider the extensive infrastructure already in place, it’s clear that this isn’t just empty rhetoric. Their rapid development thus far indicates the beginning of a smooth transition into the metaverse. More collectibles and marketing opportunities will be available as mixed reality emerges, which will lead to increase growth.
Future NFT use cases are expected to expand and developers may be able to integrate them into routine tasks like ticket sales, attendance, verification, and fraud detection in the near future.
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What are Ethereum & crypto?
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum is a digital platform that adopts the blockchain technology created by bitcoin and expands its use to accommodate a wide variety of other applications. This should not be confused with ether — the crypto market that supports the network — which is often referred to as ethereum.
The Ethereum platform was launched in 2015 by the programmer Vitalik Buterin, with the idea of creating a vehicle for decentralized and collaborative requests. Ether (ETH) is a token that can be used in transactions performed through software. Like bitcoin, ether exists as part of an independent, equal financial system, beyond government oversight and intervention. In addition, the value of ether, just like bitcoin, has risen enormously within a very short time.
In January 2016, ether was trading at approximately $1. In September 2017, it was around $290 — although this price has fluctuated with frequent intraday swings. While ether is just one of the hundreds of crypto markets, it is also one of the few with a significant market cap, along with its two biggest competitors, bitcoin and bitcoin cash.
While Bitcoin has found a way to transfer value digitally, directly from person to person, Ethereum is taking a different tack. The Ethereum network is intended to be the backbone of a new kind of internet. It will have to form the base layer on which decentralized applications (DAPPs) and smart contracts can be launched. Compared to current internet applications that are centralized, DAPPs would be much more secure, privacy-friendly, and uncensorable.
To make a DAPP or smart contract you naturally need some programming knowledge. Ethereum has developed its own programming language: Solidity. Solidity should make it easier to program DAPPs.
How does ethereum work?
The ethereum blockchain is very similar to the bitcoin blockchain, but the programming language allows developers to develop software that manages blockchain transactions and automates specific outcomes. This software is known as a smart contract.
While a traditional contract spells out the terms of an agreement, the smart contract ensures that those terms are met by writing them down in code. This is software that automatically executes the agreement as soon as the conditions are met, eliminating delays and costs when entering into a transaction manually.
For example, an ethereum user can create a smart contract to send a certain amount of ether to a friend on a set date. They write the code into the blockchain and once the contract is completed — the set date — the ether is automatically released and sent to the other party.
What are Cryptos?
Cryptos are digital assets managed with cryptographic algorithms. Crypto, therefore, does not have a physical form like a dollar coin but is actually an encrypted code such as a password. There are different types of cryptos. Bitcoin is probably the most well-known crypto, but hundreds of others have emerged. For example ether, litecoin and ripple. There are also stablecoins. These are cryptos whose value is linked to another value of, for example, a normal currency or gold. Tether and the crypto libra launched by Facebook are examples of this. The purpose of stablecoins is to make cryptos suitable as everyday means of payment.
This is how Cryptos work
Many cryptos work with blockchain technology. With this technology, users can keep track of digital transactions together, without the involvement of a notary or bank, for example. Such a blockchain consists of hundreds of computers around the world that monitor every change in the database. This makes it difficult to hack this technology. That is why users trust crypto, without the involvement of a central bank.
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Chroniqueuse littéraire??| Directrice de la rédaction d'Afrolivresque ???|Chef de projet digital?
2 年Merci beaucoup pour cette mine d'informations claires.
Empowering production leads to overcome process-related capacity constraints.
2 年??
Data driven growth for your brand! ??
2 年This is fresh and bold mate!
Award winning NYC video production agency, over 1,600 videos produced for every business objective - VIDEO VIDEO VIDEO
2 年What a cool post Gilbert!
I devised PMG Partners to secure 3X EBITDA per client, aiming for $1B globally. Using the ISLN Method?, I scale businesses from $1M to $100M with automation, turning them into self-running, wealth-building machines.
2 年Great article Gilbert!