Written by: Liu Honglin
If in traditional entrepreneurship, the focus is on "product is king" or "channel is king", then in the current Web3 world with its volatile rhythm and information overload, more and more project teams will tell you a reality: whoever wins over KOLs wins the world.
The success of Web3 projects has never been solely about technology or a white paper. No matter how "decentralized" you are, the project's hype, volume, and community activity ultimately still rely on some "centralized" people to give it a push. And these people are often the "industry opinion leaders" known as KOLs.
Don't misunderstand, this "world" isn't necessarily about capturing all market share, but about the kind of presence where "everyone is talking about you" at a given moment. In the crypto space, especially in an environment where on-chain transactions happen rapidly and user attention is extremely short-lived, whether you're being discussed, whether someone helps shill you, goes live, writes tweets, pulls users into groups, can directly determine if you can complete your first financing, if you can recover after breaking even, or even decide if your project has a chance of surviving in a bear market.
We've previously encountered many project teams whose white papers were written brilliantly, but after a week of launch, their Telegram groups were dead silent, no retweets on Twitter, and DEX trading volume was minimal. You ask if they did KOL marketing? They say they don't want to do that "crypto pump" approach and want to focus on technology with a long-term vision. The problem is, if you can't even create a "short-term presence", how can you talk about the long term?
Today, the vast majority of Web3 conferences are no longer mainly about projects "connecting with investors" or "showcasing technical solutions", but more like a large KOL party + rotating dinner. Who can invite KOLs to the scene, make them happy, get them into Twitter and group chats - that's the real skill. Some projects even fly around specifically for conferences, not for media exposure or facing developers, but to "meet" key KOLs, arrange dinners, offer small allocations, tell stories, and take photos.
These KOLs are no longer "lone wolves". Some may seem to be daily updating technical interpretations on X or actively chatting in Telegram groups, but in reality, they have teams operating content, organizing materials, and arranging posting times. They have teams running projects and negotiating collaborations, teams writing tweets, teams monitoring private placement agreement terms, with clear division of labor and efficient money-making.
KOLs themselves have formed a tiered system. Top-tier KOLs don't take on niche projects, only posting content with co-investor endorsements and strong industry consensus; mid-tier KOLs maintain their presence by riding trends, translating English materials, and compiling track reviews; bottom-tier KOLs compete on costs, group purchases, and airdrop lottery links, focusing on "user volume". Project teams are also clear about this logic, allocating quotas by persona: top-tier gets the lion's share, mid-tier gets quantity, bottom-tier serves as peripheral devices for viral community spread.
Project teams have long been accustomed to this approach. Some projects with limited budgets simply form a KOL advisory team, letting them be named, receive tokens, and post regularly; some projects divide private placement quotas by tier, with top-tier getting one round, mid-tier another, and retail getting an airdrop round, perfectly replicating the IDO hype path. The smarter ones first warm up in the Chinese circle, then use this hype to attack the English circle's communication channels, packaging "local success" as a "global hit".
From a communication strategy perspective, this Web3 approach is completely different from the traditional entrepreneurial "corporate PR" system.
Traditional project PR is about long-term accumulation of awareness and trust, with press releases, interviews, roadshows, and industry connections - the logic is "product first, persona second". Web3 communication is more like a carefully choreographed drama, with faster rhythm and greater risks, aiming not for "let others know who you are", but "let others think you're about to explode".
Most Web3 projects are selling narratives. If a project can't surge to the top of trending topics or grow its Telegram group by 3,000 within three days, it's already considered a cold start failure. Web3 users aren't "investing after understanding", but "rushing to avoid missing out", and what project teams do is continuously amplify this "missing out means loss" expectation.
You may not like this approach, but you can't avoid it.
But hype is a double-edged sword. While KOL attention can help a project gain momentum, when it backlashes, it can be both fierce and precise. Lawyer Liu Honglin previously observed a typical case: a new Web3 project with mediocre technical framework, whose only highlight was hiring several highly active big accounts in the Twitter Chinese circle, even claiming to be the "first Chinese xx project".
Before launch, content marketing was everywhere, with claims of "technical dream team" and "strongest lineup", AMA filling the entire February, even Twitter spaces booked in prime slots. But a week after launch, the product showed no movement, GitHub was almost empty, and code quality was questioned. Some shilling KOLs quickly saw the bad signs, deleted tweets, cut ties, and the community shifted from "project scamming people" to "advisors running away", with reputation collapsing and the project instantly dying.
More realistically, KOLs themselves are becoming increasingly difficult to manage. On one hand, they need exposure to maintain traffic and income; on the other, they're increasingly worried about being blamed for mistakes. So now many big accounts add a disclaimer before tweeting: "This does not constitute investment advice, I have not participated in financing or held tokens of this project."
For domestic Web3 project teams wanting to leverage KOLs to gain momentum and open the market through narrative, here are a few points to consider.
First, use KOLs effectively - you don't have to hire the most expensive, but you must have KOLs to help. Even pure "tech nerds" need someone to translate their white paper and explain their work in a more spreadable way. Many projects think they're not marketing, but they've actually just failed to grasp online communication discourse.
Second, plan communication rhythm and supporting resources in advance. Current KOL content rhythm is highly industrialized, with a tweet, an AMA, a meme image all having a script behind them. If your project hasn't launched and you're waiting for spontaneous promotion, the hype will likely be limited to a 200-person Telegram group and a few "not bad" comments. Conversely, if you find the right people and do a round of pre-warming and pacing, even a small project can create an "out of the circle" feeling.
Third, control rhythm and expectations, don't "start with full blast, end with an empty city". Too many projects want to create a blockbuster scene with top-tier lineup, but three weeks later, content stops, product delays, community starts attacking, then media backlash. For most projects, a more pragmatic approach is "do少量高质量的传播" (do small amounts of high-quality communication), controlling expectations within what you can deliver, and never try to fulfill reality with fantasies.
Fourth, try to "operate by circle". Domestic project teams sometimes use a one-size-fits-all operation method, posting the same content on Telegram and X, with the same rhythm for Chinese and English communities, which actually reduces effectiveness. Different circle users have different languages and focus points - Chinese circles care about team background and resources, English circles care about investors and tokenomics. If you don't differentiate, you'll fail to penetrate both sides.
Lastly, and most importantly, while Web3 is an attention-driven game, projects that truly traverse bull and bear markets have never survived on marketing alone. Without a real, usable product, clear business model, stable team, and execution capability, even if traffic takes you to the sky, the higher you fly, the more painful the fall.
