Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not represent the views and opinions of the crypto.news editorial.
The last decade saw the rise of video as a dominant medium on the Internet, as social networks and publishers prioritized reach and mass audiences. Today, 93% of marketers include video in your content strategy. The booming video has transformed advertising. It has also reoriented our web experience toward passive consumption: a world where we are just looking.
Video is a deep and powerful medium for telling stories. It is undeniable that film and visual content will continue to play a vital role in reaching and engaging digital audiences. But increasingly, participatory media formats will capture shared mindsets in social spaces. The proliferation of memecoins reveals new codes for digital content creation, codes that will have a profound impact on traditional marketers.
Over the past year, memecoins have skyrocketed in popularity. Unlike conventional digital currencies, memecoins tend to function primarily as social experiments with limited utility. They are based on Internet culture. They unite people around a common idea (no matter how silly, specific, or silly). And its sustained, niche traction offers new insights to marketers.
Recently, Variant Fund co-founder Li Jin twitter.com/ljin18/status/1766161012384817268″ target=”_blank” rel=””>described The memecoin explosion as an example of the cold media resurgence. To thrive, they require communities to actively interpret and create content, something they are doing en masse. twitter.com/dogecoin” target=”_blank” rel=””>Dogecoin alone has an x number of about 4 million followers. It sounds like a joke. However, memecoin projects like Dogecoin use decentralized marketing infrastructure to drive virality and mass engagement, giving fans an active role in brand building, creating community economies, and incentivizing user-generated content through of tokens and airdrops. This is how memecoins are transforming digital marketing.
Organic marketing is a powerful lever for reach and conversion. According to eMarketer, formerly Insider Intelligence, report, 79% of consumers say that user-generated content has a large impact on purchasing decisions. But while billions of people use social media every month, fewer and fewer do. tech/personal-tech/social-media-nobody-posting-f6c2fd3e” target=”_blank” rel=””>destination. It may take more than just engaging content to create virality for brands. Memecoins use tokens to incentivize communities to post.
Projects like Tip Coin allow users to earn points by posting on x. When you reply, quote or tweet mentioning $TIP or #TIP, you receive points corresponding to a percentage of token allocation. Effectively, fans are paid to organize and defend their community. This approach allows projects to quickly become trends on the platform as people spread the word about the new product. Creating organic content plays an invaluable role in building awareness and trust. Points and token incentive systems can give marketers a new lever for user-generated content and community engagement.
Memecoins are a participatory media format. As users co-create the story, they also create impact. Mentions of a project on social media are not just an indicator of awareness; They become a predictor of value. As a result, fans are motivated to play a role in shaping a memecoin's brand and marketing strategy.
In 2019, the Dogwifhat meme became popular among esports personalities on twitter (x). In 2023, the meme inspired $WIF, a new token that is “literally a dog in a hat.” The community of $WIF holders drives the project by creating content in real time. They also promote publicity for the project. In recent weeks, the community raised more than $690,000 to brand the Las Vegas Sphere with its memecoin, a media buy that also launched its own news cycle.
Today, for many brands, content and media strategy are centralized. Marketers can unlock new efficiencies by allowing fans to drive these decisions. Creating community content in real time allows for rapid iteration of messages and generation of insights. Community-executed media buys can help ensure impact – reaching your audiences in the places they care about.
The rise of gaming has changed our norms around content consumption. Now that Generation Z spends more time attractive With video games than with television, audiences expect different experiences from digital storytelling. The games' narrative worlds are developed through real-time multimedia. They fall outside simple scripts and finite frames.
Memecoins function as open story worlds that transform through user participation; Its value and meaning can change dramatically over time. Memecoin relies on the games' visual cues, giving its community the opportunity to shape the project's success through a long-term roadmap and real-time market. Because the project is open and always updated, there is a reason to return to it. For marketers, this type of game-based story design can help retain audiences by treating them like players, not just passive spectators.
While memecoins have gained popularity, their appeal is niche and absurd. It's tempting to dismiss them as an artifact of this stupid, specific moment in internet culture. But its emergence challenges us to think about digital experiences differently: to imagine storytelling as an inherently participatory medium. Beyond traditional media, the formats that will increasingly matter to marketers and fans are those that encode and encourage interaction.
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