Report on Use of October Funding
October funding was used for
- individual payout for each member;
- incentives for top performers.
In October, we were requested to migrate to Astro DAO, and so the usage of the funds can be seen in our new DAO: “degens.sputnik-dao.near”. Further details of the transactions can be found under degenarmy.near.
Degens 2.0: What Has Changed?
Please see the October Report for the reason and idea behind the restructuring of the Degen Army.
cc. @Grace
Summary
| Degens 1.0 | Degens 2.0 | Notes | |
| Council | Rimberjack chronear Lolson p0k | Lolson, baxoff, sanketn81 | 1) p0k and the NEAR Degen Syndicate have spun-out into a separate entity 2) Chronear has stepped down from the Degen Army 3) Baxoff and Sanket have taken on leadership based on their previous contributions, following the general consensus of the Degens 4) Rimberjack is offloading the day-to-day management to the new council, instead providing general guidance: weekly agenda based on NEAR marketing sync + facilitating the administrative side + communication with the NEAR Foundation. |
| Advisor | Ozymandius | Rimberjack | |
| Total # of Members | 45 | 22 for November payout. (Maximum 25) | Out of the previous 45, 25 degens were selected based on previous performance history, October metrics, and fit for the new direction (focus on content creators and Twitter personalities). At the end of the month, the council decided to further remove 3 people based on their November performance.
Hiring is open for December, the form is available for all to apply. As usual, the final payout list will be determined after a trial month. The maximum number of degens that qualify for payout will be capped at 25. |
| Rewards | 300 near for non-council 400 near for council | 300 near for non-council 350 for council |
After the restructuring of Degens 1.0, we fully entered the Degens 2.0 stage, in which the best representatives of the Degen Army remained. We did not abandon the survival mode, so every month inactive participants are removed from the Degen Army.
Despite the decrease in the number of participants, our indicators have increased compared to October, this is due to the fact that we used close coordination of our actions within Degens 2.0, as well as interaction with other areas such as HYPE Team, Reddit OPS Team and others.
We divided our elite group into subgroups and identified the leaders of the directions, thus:
Baxoff - Management of Targeting and Raids.
Sanket - Management of Twitter direction.
Lolson - Management of BTT, Reddit and Content Creation.
At the beginning of the month, each leader defined KPIs, goals and the main stages of their achievement. We also aimed to increase the quality of posts and create more professional content.
We are still on the way to improving these areas, but we see a huge potential for growth and improvements! The division of the Degen Army into subgroups and the appointment of leaders allowed for stricter regulation and control of indicators.
We are Hiring:
According to the results of the voting among the consuls, three participants who failed to meet the new requirements or were inactive for a month were removed from Degens 2.0.
Thus, we are announcing the recruitment to the Degen Army!
Requirement:
- Must be an Active Twitter user with good knowledge about tweets & stuff.
- Thorough knowledge about the Near Protocol & happenings in the ecosystem;
- The skill of creating high-quality content (articles, videos, posts, infographics, and so on);
- At least 20+ hours a week (usually much more);
- Preferably! Reddit account (1000+ post karma, 100+ comment karma, account age is at least 6 months)
Fill out the application form:
If we are interested in you, we will contact you!
November Objectives
Just like the previous months, the performance of the Degens can be measured both quantitatively and qualitatively.
- General Social Media
- Objectives for November: (1) Increase average impressions for Twitter from last month, (2) nurture more NEAR KOL accounts, (3) boost NEAR’s visibility in line with major announcements (grants, NEARcon)
- Main actions: (1) Daily twitter activity, (2) Quality content creation, (3) Audience building, (3) Push the hashtags #Nightshade and #NEARvember.
- Methodology for tracking performance: Twitter analytics
- Bitcoin Talk
BTT team focused on creating threads in “Altcoin Discussions”. This made it possible to increase the presence of Near Protocol on the BitcoinTalk forum. Our team also wrote comments in relevant threads, where we described the advantages of the Near Protocol ecosystem.
- Objectives: Improving the quality. Сreating more unique content and Threads.
- Main actions
- Creating new threads: Creating threads that would create a discussion about the Near Protocol ecosystem with the involvement of high-ranking forum participants.
- Quality improvement: We rejected a large number of comments and concentrated on relevant threads that fit seamlessly into the format of the discussion.
- Methodology for tracking performance: manually track each unique post and views, comments etc
The main directions remained the same, we created active discussions in posts on Reddit, mentioning projects from the Near Protocol ecosystem. Most of our posts ended up in the HOT section of such subreddits as “/r/CryptoMarkets” and “/r/defi”.
We also tested a new “Poll for Reddit” approach. The purpose of this approach is to motivate users to go to the post and view the information. We managed to collect 901 votes in two posts. Also we cooperated with the Reddit OPS Team and HYPE Team actively supporting each other’s posts!
- Objectives: Improving the quality of content / improving engagement from posts
- Main actions: Writing a manual about using Reddit. Foster support for activity in the main degens group. / Increasing the number of unique DYOR content, analysis, reviews, and so on.
- Cooperation with the NEAR Reddit OPS Team: Coordination of actions with the Ops Team
- Plans based on the Agenda: Creating plans for the week based on the Agenda and highlighting the main events that can be covered in Reddit.
Methodology for tracking performance: manually track each unique post and number of views, likes, and comments.
- Influencer Targeting
- Objectives: optimize organizational structure. Improve approach and effectiveness in targeting youtubers in the comments.
- Main actions: identify crypto youtubers/influencers and target them on youtube, raid their telegram groups requesting near coverage
- Methodology for tracking performance: manually track the number of comments and responses from Youtubers
- The target audience: working with an audience of bloggers by means of raids in telegram groups
[Quantitative] Analytics
Out of 22 accounts, over the last 28 days, we saw 40-50% growth compared to last month.
-
Average # of tweets = 166; Average Profile Visits = 10200 (+50%); Mentions = 241; Average # of New Followers = 247; Average # of impressions: 95600 (+44%); Median # of impressions = 78000 (+55%)
-
Distribution: 1 account accrued less than 10K; 2 accounts fell between 10~30K; 6 between 30~60K; 5 between 60~100K; 6 between 100~200K; 2 over 200K
*Please keep in mind that the comparative metrics are for reference only, as we are not dealing with the exact same data pool (fewer participants and delayed work period due to uncertainties for funding) in comparison to the previous month.
-
Degens generated engagement from popular CT (crypto Twitter) accounts: e.g. CoinBureau replied to a tweet that could possibly lead to a NEAR vs Solana video: https://twitter.com/Notblurryface17/status/1456658713750605827
-
Hashtag Campaigns: The #NEARvember hashtag the Degens originated in October gained much traction, and was picked up by NEAR Core marketing. Also we kept on pushing #NightShade & #NEARSharding to boost sharding news.
E.g. Data from the last week (11/20-11/28) of November for these hashtags:
- Total tweets: 487+
- Total contributors: 190+
- Potential Impact: 410,000+
- Potential reach: 348,000+
- These Metrics are based on analysis by Tweetbinder. See the full report here #NightShade , #NEARsharding.
- Comments posted = 42;
- Total views on degen’s threads = 8691 (+17%);
- Total number of comments on degens’ threads = 1267 (+21%);
- main subreddit: r/CryptoMarkets
- Total posts = 45 (+26%);
- Likes = 701 (+21%);
- Comments = 1077 (+56%);
- Total number of comments posted on Youtube: 144 (-35%)
- Total number of tweets made to Youtubers: 16 (-34%)
- Results: 10 (+60%) (videos on NEAR as a result of targeting + requesting)
- YT Answers: 14 (-35%)
- Twitter Answers: 3 (-34%)
- Raids: 17 (+566%)
- Successful Raids: 11 (+550%)
Raids:
This month we have shown excellent results in the direction of “raids” for live streaming on YouTube or Telegram blogger groups.
YouTube Stream Raids:
Our main task was to convince the blogger to make content about Near Protocol through an interesting TA or other methods.
We got excellent results from many bloggers with an average online of 600–700 people and our best result this month is 2 Near Protocol mentions per audience of more than 21 thousand people in just 2 videos!
For example: Andy Bitcoinsensus
This blogger start streaming and we started writing to him in the chat so that he would pay attention to Near.
Result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NhOivNZCHY 50:10
Result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XhJwO_Vslk 45:10
Result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gurssxFeGNE 2:51:00
Telegram Group Raids:
We maintain a lively discussion of the Near ecosystem in popular channels. Starting from the cost of the Near token, ending with its technological features, and often bloggers themselves answer us and support Near — and then make content about Near.
The audience of many thousands sees our live chat discussions, which certainly has a positive effect on the popularization of the Near ecosystem
Result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owla-qFJ6mg
Result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jsMig6D_bY
YouTube Comments:
Our main activity is commenting on YouTube videos. We leave specific pros and cons of the Near Protocol Ecosystem and often receive responses followed by content.
This is not spam, but reasoned thoughts in favor of the Near blockchain.
Result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lic2m741H9o
Targeting Twitter:
Members of the subgroup write interesting tweets mentioning the blogger. An example of the response received.
All five members of the Targeting subgroup were actively involved in the activities.
Total Content:
50:10
7:20
2:51:27
41:47
45:45
43:30
[Qualitative] Content and Other Contributions
- November content highlight
- Strengthened coordination with NEAR core marketing: (1) continued participation in the Marketing Distribution TG group, (2) direct communication with NEAR core marketing (@rimberjack participates in the NEAR marketing sync and Trello board, coordinating community hype with official launches + news). Adding to this, the reorganization of the Degens program also established stronger connections with Joep from NF and Hype Partners. There is now a Growth Channel Leaders TG Group + announcement channel to strengthen distribution efforts among Hype Partners, degens, Reddit Ops, Swine Guild, 4NTS, and Flying Rhino Guild.
- Support for NEAR ecosystem partners: the Degens provide an on-the-ground service to activate the NEAR community. We are working with the Aurora Team (especially the new Aurora community manager), Ref Finance, and Metapool closely. And will be offering support for OIN Finance’s marketing directions.
Proposal for November Funding
We request rewards for 22 members in total
- Non-council member (19): 300 NEAR
- Council member (3): 350 NEAR
In sum, the total funding we request for November is 6,750 NEAR
Thanks!