A special thank you to @mynewlife for making the title imageAt the end of last year we
asked the community for input on the 2025 marketing strategy. We thank everyone who took the time to participate and fill out the questionnaire.
The key input takeaways are:
- Hive is unknown and remains unknown despite current efforts
- Personal, community efforts involving Hive members to attract others, particularly ordinary people like themselves
- Participation of the wider Hive community is a must
- Onboarded users should be guided not only how to post but also how to stake and earn through investment
- Shift focus to content creation and promote the community
This approach leverages the DMAIC quality control methodology to support continuous improvement and resource optimization.
DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control.
General Direction
We are aiming to prioritize digital activities and online promotions as much as possible this year.
Geographical areas which require unique approaches (predominantly LATAM and India) have their own marketing strategies.
Physical activities will be coupled with side-events where possible.
Increasing cross-use of Hive dapps and projects to amplify promotions and showcase technology built on Hive.
Defining the Audience
Analyzing our Experience
We have covered much analysis and reflection in previous posts and will continue doing so on an ongoing basis.
Successful activities:
- Include the cooperation and contribution of the wider Hive community as well as support from Hive dapps that are relevant to the activity
- Support the sharing of resources, be they physical assets or digital services
- Highlight the unique strengths of Hive (its decentralization, ease of building on, feeless nature, monetization capability, and immutability) in order to promote it as a quality blockchain solution
- Allow for organic signups and an exploration of various Hive dapps while providing a mechanism or process to support the user on their journey through Hive
SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
- The Hive community full of skilled and dedicated individuals dispersed globally who are not strangers to adversity and are ready to tackle tough challenges
- A proven track record of true decentralization which is open to everyone and makes for a strong social network
- A fast and feeless, cost-effective, and user-friendly, layered cutting-edge blockchain that sees continuous development
- Ability to process payments with a trusted stablecoin due to its feeless structure
Weaknesses:
- Hive's inflationary model places emphasis on the constant need to conduct onboarding [Remediation: see Championing Community below]
- Our marketing initiatives remain limited and are not generating the desired impact due to their ad-hoc nature
- Lack of venture capital means that we are often overshadowed by competing blockchains with a far inferior tech stack but more funding
- While we self-regulate through community input and control we also self-deprecate and stifle our own potential
Opportunities:
- Hive's feeless blockchain with solutions such as the Hive Application Framework (HAF) is ideal for attracting game developers
- Ability to offer an alternative to mainstream social media, supporting the freedom of speech and access to information for all
- Take advantage of blockchain expansion in locations such as India which are becoming technology strongholds
Threats:
- Competing blockchains have rapid expansions which are supported with huge budgets beyond our reach
- Lack of representation at major conferences due to need to carefully select events due to budget limits and community member availability
- Political initiatives that aim to control decentralization, self-determination and self-control of entities through banking and regulatory means
- Hive is a target for bad actors both internal and external
Measuring with SMART Goals
SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely goals. All SMART goals are quantitative.
General social media:
- Grow
hiveblocks X account to 50k followers by 2026 - Grow
hiveblocks Instagram account to 10k followers by 2026 - Improve communication from
hiveio blog account 1-2 posts per month (starting February) - Ensure that every Hive dapp, tool or project is supported on either X or Instagram with a post per quarter
Community engagement:
- Ensure that at least 10 accessible digital community participation or physical gathering opportunities are available per quarter
- Support activities in one new country per quarter
Improving on Key Activities
Conferences
Over the years we have established relationship with a number of conference organizers whom we know are capable of delivering good quality events and understand that working with Hive means creating opportunities suitable for a decentralized community. They understand what Hive has to offer, what our priorities are when we attend or sponsor, and how we process payments. We will be prioritizing those conferences for larger sponsorships while considering others, particularly those in areas where we had little exposure.
More:
- Main stage presentations
- Booths in central locations or sponsored areas
- Consistent branding
- Exclusive side-events
- Use of existing Hive assets
Less:
- Conference workshops (which tend to fill with our own attendees)
- Oddly timed presentations
- Addons to sponsorship packages
- Conference locations with no local speakers
We also learned a lot of hard lessons through trial and error over the years and shared many successes. While no event is ever perfect, we do better with each one.
Physical Events
Hive physical events including sporting activities, creative community activities, social-impact related events and physical get togethers. Physical events are far more expensive now than when we started promoting Hive in this manner. The cost of materials, assets, parts, and logistics has gone up exponentially due to global economic and geopolitical reasons far beyond our control. Food and transportation costs are on the rise and its plainly evident that the entire supply chain for every single item or service is affected. Not only ourselves but also our partners had costs rise mid-engagement, agreement or no agreement, sometimes exponentially.
At the same time, many of our Hive community members are having a harder time contributing to physical events. They are working multiple jobs, taking care of aging parents, and doing more with less. The impact is felt across our ecosystem.
All physical events this year will prioritize simplifying to reduce more than we already are used to reducing. We will not sacrifice quality for quantity. Hive is always presented with professionally-designed and printed material. We also do not compromise with safety.
More:
- Sharing Hive assets between events
- Using events to showcase tech built on Hive
- Focus on smaller Hive merch items
- Use of static Hive backdrops
- Exclusive side-events
Less:
- Hive merch giveaways of shirts, bottles or other larger items
- Large, costly events with many variables
- Sponsoring others' events (this is in part due to quality concerns as others cut costs)
Championing Community
While mass-onboarding was originally out of scope for Value Plan activities and only targeted onboarding events were conducted, based on community feedback and the results of our SWAT analysis and other reflective processes, we will pivot to focus on onboarding. To do this effectively, not only does onboarding need to take center stage but also a quality user experience. New Hive community members must have an interesting, clear and engaging journey when they join Hive, irrespective of what method of joining or dapp they focus on.
Empowering the Hive community digitally and physically is a priority this year. This includes our content creators, our dapps, our builders and generally everyone who is part of Hive. Our aim is to make activities accessible, particularly in digital form, wherever possible.
A strong emphasis on onboarding support/mentorship for new users was identified as a priority for this year. It is a clear-cut need as while the Hive ecosystem grows so does its complexity. Mentorship is an evident need. This focus further supports community building and dapp inclusion.
More:
- Promotion of content creation and celebrating it
- Meetups in areas where there were no meetups before
- Focusing on innovations of various Hive dapps
- Supporting the marketing needs of Hive dapps while highlighting Hive
Less:
- Marketing that avoids mention of content creation and monetization
- Prioritizing developer or investor onboarding
- Marketing short-term financial benefits (vs a long-term community experience)
Paused or Changed
Several ongoing projects will be either paused or changed this year while we consider new initiatives and improve on the current ones.
Physical Bitcoin Pizza Days: Due to various logistical, cost and general conduct reasons, Bitcoin Pizza Day will be a digital get together this year. We hope for a more positive and inclusive celebratory experience. [Paused]
Handball sponsorship: We greatly appreciate the cooperation and promotional help of the club but we recognize that our digital identity is not where it needs to be to capitalize on arena branding. We are forced to miss a season. [Paused]
Social Impact projects: We are finishing off the existing projects in Q1 and possibly Q2. No new projects will be undertaken thereafter unless explicitly warranted due to new information. We will focus on documentation and publication of the current ones. [Changed]
Rallies: We are limiting the rallies to ensure that we select locations with the most suitable impact. We also need them to have ample time between events to allow for repairs. A total of three rallies are scheduled: Monaco (completed), Italy (may be substituted), and CER. The rallies will have side-events where possible. [Changed]
SWC: SWC started out as a pure Hive marketing initiative but it became an entity. Since last year it has been actively seeking sports-related sponsors to create further opportunities for Hive and the participating athletes and will continue doing so, pivoting towards a B2B trajectory. [Changed]
Controlling Quality
Hive has the unique position of harvesting a diverse and engaged community that is used to continual optimization and perseverance to readily identify missed opportunities.
Metrics Portal
The Metrics Portal aka the Value Plan website is still in the works and is going through not only development but also an ongoing discussion regarding metrics and information analysis. Feedback, contributions and issues should be raised on Gitlab.
The website is created not only for Value Plan but also to be a functional and replicatable frontend for any DHF-based initiatives. Once launched, dapps are encouraged to clone it and customize it to their needs.
The website in progress can be seen at:
https://value-plan-project.vercel.appThe website repository can be accessed from:
https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/metrics-portal The site is currently planned to also include onboarding data. That data and its associated queries are currently being scrutinized by a small group of Hive community members with expertise in respect to metrics.
The site does include a focus on Plug-In proposals but these present a challenging aspect of organization and we are still testing them out.
Related Elements
Logos: A collection of Hive-themed logos can be found here free to use for any dapp or project that may need one:
https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/marketing/-/tree/master/logos?ref_type=heads (Adobe Illustrator format)
Account creator: The conference onboarding system is available here for integration and customization:
https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/hive-account-creator Understanding Builds Quality
Value Plan conducts all of its financial transactions explicitly on chain and strives to outline their uses within the memos. In doing that it enables anyone to look back over the transactions without the need to uncover anything.
There are a few facts to consider while doing so. Value Plan does not "award" funds to anyone. What Value Plan does is enable Hive to make purchases of merchandise, pay for sponsorships or secure supplies for events by passing funds to individuals to pay the vendors. We do not pay ambassadors or organizers like other chains do. No one "got paid to do" anything and never will under Value Plan. It is insulting to refer as such to Hive community members who volunteer their time and act as a go in-between Hive and vendors.
The wallets that process payments are always encouraged to be cold wallets, particularly those belonging to doxxed individuals. This is for the safety of the individuals and the funds. They are not meant to be posting accounts. The use of cold wallets is a general best practice for anyone in relation to any crypto. We hope this note helps develop more understanding.
With this we conclude this general strategy document. LATAM and India strategies are ready but are in different formats, with LATAM being a spreadsheet. We will push these out independently.
Thank you,
~ The Value Plan Team
