Social media has been good to me. Instagram is where I first built my business, my brand, and my audience. But the reach that took four years to build has almost vanished in the space of a few months and several algorithm changes. I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve put more energy into building my email list—an audience I own—than growing my social media presence in the last year. So I still have a business. Other creators and business owners could be one algorithm shift from losing their entire audience.

Hearing about decentralised social (DeSo) for the first time kickstarted my journey down the web3 rabbit hole. At the time, I didn’t realise the technology already existed—I assumed it was a pie-in-the-sky idea that might happen in a few years’ time.

Then I found out about Lens Protocol. At the start of 2022, they shared an open letter about the state of social media. It begins:

Our digital identities have become inseparable from how we define ourselves.

Social media has allowed us to find our communities and discover true self-expression. It holds the promise of connection, freedom, livelihood, and voice. We spend time building a unique selfhood across platforms, but we know they are antiquated, centralized systems.

Web3 brings forth a renewed hope for what social media can be. It offers the ability for us to control how our content is used. We can have the power to own and monetize our content and community with no middlemen or centralized data harvesting.

We, the content creators of the world, deserve to hold the power and control over what we publish...

and what is identity if not ours to own?

Lens had me excited at the prospect of a world where we own our audience. Where we can vote with our feet when we no longer enjoy the content in our feed, and take our audience with us when we move. Where we retain ownership of the content we’ve poured blood, sweat and tears into creating. And where we profit off of our content, rather than fueling up Zuck’s private jet.

I desperately want to move from Instagram to a new platform. I desperately hope one (or more) of the social media apps building on Lens Protocol will succeed. But web3 social has a few problems it needs to address if it has any chance of capturing the masses.

Note: *For the purpose of this article, I’ll use the terms web3 social and DeSo interchangeably, although I’m sure there is some nuance I’m not aware of. Feel free to reach out on Twitter and let me know what I don’t know. *

Why do we use social media in the first place?

Whiting and Williams (2013) found seven key reasons why someone might use social media:

• For social interaction,

• To seek information,

• To pass time,

• For entertainment purposes,

• For relaxation,

• For communicatory utility, and

• For convenience utility.

Although nearly a decade passed since their paper was published, these core themes haven’t changed. However, the social media landscape has. Users now seek different utility from different platforms.

They might use one platform to see when so-and-so from high school gets married (Instagram). Or a promotion (LinkedIn). Or joins a pyramid scheme (Facebook). They might use another platform to design a dream house they’ll never afford (Pinterest). To get a dopamine fix (TikTok). Or to keep up with the crypto world (Twitter).

For a new decentralised social platform to onboard and engage its users, it needs to either replace one of the existing platforms in its users’ eyes, or give them something they can’t get elsewhere.

This is harder than it looks. Google+ tried—and failed—to compete with Facebook. Any web3 social platform that wants to take on TikTok, Instagram or Youtube faces some big obstacles.

It’s not impossible. But first, they need to overcome some major problems with web3 social media.

1. It’s not entertaining

I want to love the apps that have been built on Lens Protocol. I really do. But right now, the content sucks. I know these apps are still in their infancy, but my feed looks worse than if I’d searched #crypto on Twitter. It’s just a bunch of faceless accounts posting BTC graphs and pretending they know how to do technical analysis.

Of course, some of these people might know what they’re talking about, but I can’t rely on the their follower count as a credibility marker. A thousand followers could mean you know what you’re talking about. It could also mean you’ve figured out how to game the platform. The latter is particularly prevalent on Phaver, which promises token rewards in return for creating and curating the best content.

The early majority to adopt DeSo will be those who are already active in the web3 space. We understand how it all works, so there’s less friction than for someone who doesn’t know what a wallet is. It makes sense, then, that the early content on these platforms will be web3-related. But until the content on these new platforms is better than what’s on Twitter, crypto Twitter will keep tweeting.

Most of the big names in crypto Twitter make their money outside of social media or content creation. They’re building or investing. So it’s not the best use of their time to initiate a mass exodus from one platform to another. It’s also not in their best interests to ditch Twitter in favour of a new platform. Their most loyal fans might follow, but they’d still lose a significant chunk of their audience.

Mainstream adoption poses an even more challenging scenario. First of all, the platform would need to talk about something other than crypto. The general population cares about crypto as much as you care about your co-worker Belinda’s keto diet. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with crypto (or the keto diet), but it does make you want to leave the lunchroom as fast as you can.

But why would creators and influencers on Web 2.0 social platforms surrender their audiences and start publishing somewhere brand new? An external incentive—say, cash monies or Eth—might do the job. Spotify tried this. They bet $200 million on moving Joe Rogan’s show exclusively to their platform, which gave them a foothold in the podcasting market.

Educating creators and influencers might be another option. Many are disenchanted with the state of social media, but they don’t realise there’s an alternative.

2. Your family and friends aren’t on there

Your favourite creators aren’t using any web3 social platforms yet, and neither are your friends and family. Many of us are still on Facebook despite the fact that it sucks. But we love to know what our best friend’s ex-boyfriend is up to. We love to see photos of our high-school bully’s ugly baby. We love getting birthday wishes from Aunt Susan, even if she still hasn’t learned what “lol” means.

Your best friend’s ex-boyfriend, your high-school bully, and your Aunt Susan won’t start using a new social platform until they know other people who use it. Once it reaches that critical mass—the point where enough of their friends are using it and they don’t want to miss out—then it’s easy. But it’s risky being the first in your social group to try something new. It could flop. And you’ll be left red-faced, like someone who invited all their friends to Clubhouse.

Web3 social is too early for your Aunt Susan. Lens Protocol (and the dApps built on it) still has limited access at the time of writing. To claim a Lens handle, you need to have signed the open letter before May 2022, or you need to be in the right community. For this strategy to work, users with early access need to contribute quality content so that when the early majority join, it’s sticky. Otherwise, the early majority won’t stay. And without the early majority, you simply have another Google+.

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3. Kylie Jenner doesn’t know why she needs to use it

Decentralised social is a groundbreaking concept. I know why we need it. You know why we need it (I hope). But everybody else? They don’t know why we need it. Yet.

The idea that someone can own their online identity and take it with them across the internet might be a good motivator. As is the promise that their data won’t be exploited. But these arguments won’t get any mainstream publicity until they’re communicated in a way that resonates with your everyday social media user.

The problem is that web3 builders are highly intelligent people. They have such deep technical knowledge of how it all works that they struggle to explain anything in plain English. And many of the marketers in web3 are so excited about the possibilities, they forget that most muggles don’t know what decentralisation is, much less why it matters to them.

Of course, there is an inherent complexity that comes with being early to any technology. And a crucial part of any web3 marketer’s role is to be the translator for your prospects. To answer, in simple terms, “what’s in it for me?”.

The “OMG IT’S WEB3!!!!” hype might capture attention right now, but it won’t be enough to drive majority adoption in the future.

4. It looks like the dev designed it (probably because they did)

Web3 social has a UX problem. Even just connecting your wallet and minting your Lens handle feels painful. I’m no UX expert, but I know that friction makes it less likely that someone will take action.

Instagram created a deeply entrenched neural pathway in my brain where I often pull out my phone and start scrolling before I’m conscious of what I’m doing. I walk into an elevator and automatically pull out my phone. I sit down in the dentist’s waiting room and start scrolling. Some mornings, I open Instagram before I’ve said good morning to my dog.

I’m not proud of these habits, but they’re a testament to the stickiness of Web 2.0 social platforms. Part of TikTok’s success is because they made it so easy to stay on the platform longer—they removed the friction in finding new content that’s interesting by creating an endless feed of full-screen videos based on what you’ve watched.

Having to connect a wallet every time you log in? Having to sign a transaction to post? These add friction to the process.

Phaver is one exception. They’ve created an interface that feels similar to what we’re already used to, though a short scroll through my feed tells me they missed a key learning from Web 2.0 social media: if you don’t constrain image height, users will post abnormally tall images to dominate the feed.

All of these platforms still look too corporate for my liking. They remind me of the internal message board a company I worked at once rolled out, and that’s no bueno for a community that prides itself on being ahead of the curve.

Web3 social is in its pre-Myspace era

I grew up in the MSN Messenger, MySpace and Bebo generation. Many social networks came and went before we landed on Facebook, and I’m sure we’ll see many DeSo platforms come and go before we land on those that stick. In my mind, it’s a matter of when web3 social media takes off, not if.

As a creator, I can’t wait to post what I want to post rather than what I think the algorithm will like. As a marketer, I can’t wait to see the creative ways that businesses use these new platforms. And as a human, I’m excited to see my friends’ posts in my feed again.

The only things standing in the way are content, adoption, branding and UX. In other words, all someone needs to do to succeed is create a decentralised social platform that’s easy to use, explain in plain English why someone should use it, and sufficiently motivate creators—and their followers—to start using it. How hard could that be? /s.

Thanks for reading. I also write a weekly newsletter about web3 from a marketing perspective, which you can find here. Connect with me on Twitter @launchmagic.

Sources:

1. Whiting, A., & Williams, D. (2013). Why people use social media: A uses and gratifications approach. Qualitative Market Research, 16(4), 362-369. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-06-2013-0041