What Digital Marketing Skills Do You Need for Web 3.0 and The Metaverse?

Metaverse and Web 3.0 will heavily influence the direction that marketing will take in the future. Adapting and evolving are vital to remaining impactful and relevant. With the right digital marketing skills, this paradigm shift can be transformed into a great opportunity.

 

Sooner or later, Digital Marketing online training will start including Metaverse and Web 3.0 as part of the curriculum to help marketers adapt to this new shift in the internet. Here, we will give a quick overview of the metaverse and Web 3.0 and the required digital marketing skills in this new digital age.

• What is the Metaverse?
  • Key Features of the Metaverse
• What is Web 3.0?
  • Key Features of Web 3.0
• Reasons Why Marketers are Flocking to Web 3.0 and the Metaverse
• Digital Marketing Skills Required in the Era of Web 3.0 and The Metaverse
• Key Takeaways

Metaverse has been a part of science fiction literature quite frequently and has always been understood as a digital realm where people can have an immersive web experience. While this “new version of the internet” sounds brilliant and futuristic, let’s truly understand its significance and innovations in today’s reality.

What is Metaverse?

The simulated environment that we know as Metaverse applies virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), blockchain, interactive video, as well as concepts from social media. In this created world, people can socialize, conduct business, and experience immersive entertainment.

Below are the seven layers of the Metaverse according to VR Vision:

 

Users can now experience gamification, content, and apps in an almost three-dimensional and tangible sense.

Metaverse has emerged as one of the biggest new platforms for marketing during the pandemic. The metaverse, which is even bigger than Facebook, is a fast-growing trend that will influence every aspect of culture, entertainment, and marketing.

The advantage of the Metaverse is that it will considerably eliminate the need for human commutation leading to less traffic thus resulting in less pollution, accidents, and global warming. In the political and big business environment, it will be easier to hold conferences in the virtual world, thus saving time and heavy expenses on security and travel.

A study by CleanTechnica reported that metaverse will also help reduce other polluting job-related activities like military training activities, flying warplanes, etc. lowering emissions.

Metaverse can save money for event organizers who have to hold events like concerts and other shows. A good example of this is when 12.3 million people logged in to Fortnite to watch Travis Scott perform virtually.

Key Features of the Metaverse

Some of the key features of the Metaverse are:

• Gaming: Gamers are already enthusiastic about embracing VR where they can go on virtual adventures.
• Virtual Property: It is now possible to own virtual property, open a store there, host online events, or even rent it out to others. These pieces of virtual land are nowadays sold for millions of dollars. The value primarily depends on the traffic and popularity, much like paying for a full-page ad in a highly popular TV program or magazine.
• Non-fungible Token (NFT): NFTs are as popular as they are controversial. This new form of digital asset can be a piece of art, a photograph, a gaming asset, a logo, or a token on the blockchain. NFTs are very valuable and are purchased with cryptocurrency. Because each NFT has a unique identification code, it cannot be duplicated.

What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 is also gaining increasing popularity with the advent of the Metaverse. However, it is not a new concept as it was introduced by Gavin Wood, the co-founder of Ethereum, in 2014. This semantic web has the potential to transform how we experience the internet by interacting directly with users, devices, and systems in a smart environment.

To actively participate in society, people feel compelled to join these platforms that have a centralized ecosystem. The product features, recommendation systems, and community guidelines of these platforms greatly shape what kind of content people consume regularly.

The leaders in these centralized ecosystems serve as gatekeepers and they have the power to gather and involve user data in large measures, over which users have restricted control. Such an environment is evidently powerless against data abuse, leaks, and plans of action that rely on the admittance of data for the purpose of micro-targeted advertising.

Under the above model, the platforms also feel pressured to design their services towards maximizing user engagement and tracking, which does not always preserve democratic values or the public good.

Web 3.0 is a vision for the next phase of the internet’s development with a decentralized ecosystem that is based on blockchain technology. It can introduce structural changes that will render the deep-seated issues of the current ecosystem obsolete.

The three key foundations of Web 3.0 are:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Helps in decoding and filtering online data and offers the most relevant choices to users
2. Internet of Things (IoT) – Helps the interoperability layer of Web 3.0 to connect the internet to smart devices
3. Blockchain technology – Helps with decentralized data storage and instills faith in the virtual world

With Web 3.0, the users will be the sole owner of their data and receive the due compensation in lieu of their internet data, which, if you think about it, is kind of similar to how NFTs work. Sharing of personal information will be optional for the users. Users will also be relieved from unwanted and unskippable advertisements and pop-ups and would be able to control its numbers in lieu of compensation if they want to see them at all in the first place.

Key Features of Web 3.0

Below are some of the key features of Web 3.0:

• It can usher in an open-source, consumer-centric future web
• It focuses on privacy and security
• It will allow the exchange of data and value on peer-to-peer infrastructure between users and machines
• It will bring in global-scale decentralized autonomous companies, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), decentralized data marketplaces, and self-sovereign identities
• It is going to change the way humans and machines interact via trustless data transfers, easy ownership transfers, and cryptocurrency-based payments

Reasons Why Marketers are Flocking to Web 3.0 and the Metaverse

Marketers aim to keep everyone up-to-date and engaged with their products and technologies. Metaverse allows them to do exactly that by strategically targeting these audiences (millennials and Gen X). And it works! Besides, faster connections are finally able to support the growing environments.

Users are aware of their own worth. Marketers can no longer simply purchase user data from tech giants because, in this new era of the internet, the community holds the power.

Switching to Web 3.0 will separate the marketing wheat from the chaff. Only those with the most creative ideas and the ability to create the most hype through community engagement will taste success.

The more virtual Web 3.0 environment also offers a richer user experience with more interactive advertising opportunities. This will be ultimately rewarding for those hard-working marketers who have long waited to deliver more target ads to their consumers with fewer restrictions. Marketers will also be able to introduce a more efficient strategy to advertise products.

Digital Marketing Skills Required in the Era of Web 3.0 and The Metaverse

Following are some of the ways and skills that businesses that adopt Metaverse may benefit from:

1. NFTs – Creation of NFTs (even something simple like a logo) may help with brand awareness and product promotions.
2. Facebook – While it is still in the early stages of its Meta transition, Facebook is sure to start offering commerce and advertising soon. With the help of Facebook Ads in the metaverse, building a virtual store or hosting events and immersive conferences will not be unheard of.
3. Virtual Property – Owning virtual real estate property can be an investment. One can sell, host online events, open a store, or even rent it out to others.
4. Games – Games are predictably going to be a major part of the metaverse with the possibility of setting up and creating games with NFTs.

Following are the top Web 3.0 marketing strategies to follow:

1. Creation of Decentralized Applications Instead of Apps

Decentralized applications or Dapps are digital applications that run on a blockchain network instead of relying on a single computer. It safeguards user privacy, the flexibility of development, and the lack of censorship. Therefore, businesses should consider Dapps over apps.

2. Virtual selling

Virtual selling is the collection of processes and technologies that sales reps can implement to remotely engage with customers with both synchronous and asynchronous communications. It gives sales reps the ability to overcome numerous challenges like easily bringing stakeholders together from different locations through virtual conferencing tools. A virtual approach can also help them handle the tight schedules of the decision-makers.

3. Making use of Smart contract

A smart contract on the blockchain aims to simplify business and trade between both identified and anonymous parties, and sometimes do without a middleman. It reduces the formality and costs that are associated with more traditional methods, without the need to compromise on credibility and authenticity.

4. Using creator coins as rewards for customers and creators

One of the ideas behind creator coins is to help bring creators like artists, influencers, writers, performers, or anyone offering digital products and services closer to each other. It will benefit both the creator and their followers. This marketing strategy will attract more creators and customers.

5. Publishing limited edition content

Creating a limited edition NFT version of an eBook or other new content is a great idea. These collections can be traded or bought with money or brand coins and may also include extra goodies like interviews, a podcast episode, video, etc. People who manage to collect an entire series may receive extra goodies like invitations, new content, product features, etc.

6. Using NFTs as VIP access tokens

Instead of event tickets, it can be a great marketing strategy to issue NFTs with VIP access to the events, in-person consultations, online content, early product releases, etc.

7. Replacing web forms with NFT ownership

NFTs on the blockchain network can help link ownership to a single account. They cannot be distributed among multiple owners. The ownership advantage of NFTs is the low possibility of dealing with fake NFTs. The content is instantly accessible by NFT owners. With more valuable NFTs, there will be more content and vice versa.

8. Paying people to consume content

Users can be rewarded with Bitcoin, brand coin, NFT, any altcoin or stablecoin, or any other kind of token for downloading content and even for finishing it.

9. Hosting events in a metaverse

The metaverse’s shared, 3D virtual spaces linked to a virtual universe and accessibility through different online tools make it ideal for revolutionizing events, exhibitions, and conferences. Hosting such events in a metaverse can give a significant boost to business.

10. Selling NFTs for a cause

Once selling NFTs for a good cause becomes more mainstream, the novelty dividend will expire. However, a lot of Web 3.0 plays are still in the novelty zone. There are lots of opportunities to harvest those dividends.

Key Takeaways

The Metaverse and Web 3.0 are still in their very early days. There will be several opportunities in the future for businesses to reach a wider audience in this digital age. Having specialized skills will give the power to anybody with the means to make their gadget a hub in the framework. At the same time, this design will also reduce the risk of large data leaks as the data will no longer be centrally located.