Hello Polkadot community and interested frens! Our Q3 Polkadot Achievements & Milestones Recap was a deep dive, and this time, we’re keeping it concise by increasing our frequency. Here’s a look at our October efforts and a peek at what’s coming up for November and beyond.
October Summary & Highlights
October was about continuing to build momentum. Here’s some of what we accomplished to drive awareness and growth for Polkadot:
- Website Expansion: We launched new landing pages on Polkadot.com for VCs, and Case Studies, and published our first guest blog post from an ecosystem project. Each landing page was crafted to inform, engage, and attract key audiences.
- PR Outreach: We introduced known faces and new names as Polkadot representatives to journalists and podcasters, continuing to build critical relationships with media across the ecosystem. We’re providing media training to thought leaders working in the ecosystem and focusing on pitching commentary, booking podcast appearances, and scheduling interviews that provide insights and perspectives on the current market surge and the individual project launches in Q3 and Q4.
- Campaigns and Programs in Motion: We continue to tell stories from our community and ecosystem through programs and campaigns such as Decentralized Mic, People of Polkadot, and ThinkPink. In late October, we launched a campaign geared towards VCs and potential investors, as well as plans for a new campaign we’ll be rolling out later this month.
- Social Media Reach: Our cross-channel social media strategy paid off by cross-sharing and broadcasting our campaign content to X, earning +100k views.
- Community-driven Marketing Bounty: We are collaborating on the new marketing bounty, in which we hold one curator and two advisor seats to support its direction and decision-making.
- Additionally, we’re continuing to circulate the Go-To-Market Strategy slides to gain valuable community feedback and ensure alignment.
Polkadot.com updates
After the August soft launch, we received a plethora of tickets and requests from the community, including typo corrections, bug fixes, new page requests, and design suggestions. In August and September, we prioritized those tickets as well as any urgent performance issues. In October, we implemented detailed optimizations, enhancing the homepage’s design and improving the overall user experience.
Performance improvements
We shortened the website’s loading time from 5.5s to 2.3s (anything below 3s is considered good). We also achieved higher scores across our technical SEO with improved meta titles and descriptions.
Home page performance before updates / Homepage performance after updates
New pages & updates
Detail-oriented eyes will notice we updated the website’s UI with fresh gradients, a new animation of the DOT logo, and asset updates that align with the new Brand Hub. Among the new pages are the Brand Hub, which provides detailed explanations on using Polkadot brand assets, color palettes, etc. We also made some fun animations of the DOT logo available.
Another significant addition is the Case Studies section, which showcases success stories from leading community projects and teams. The first case studies feature Polimec, Hydration, and Chainflip. New case studies will be added monthly, providing ongoing insights into ecosystem innovation.
We’ve also expanded the Polkadot dApps directory to include two new games, Pinkdrop and FlappyWUD, along with Polkaswap (AMM Dex), Prime Protocol (cross-chain deposits and borrows), and Bagpipes (a no-code dApp builder).
As part of the Stakeholder Sentiment campaign (more on that later), we’ve launched a dedicated landing page for investors and venture capital. This page offers tailored resources, including reports from Messari, Coindesk, and Dune, and highlights key key features, standout projects, and new offerings within Polkadot’s ecosystem. The call to action drives users to sign up for “Polkadot Nexus,” an exclusive community geared towards investors, offering access to quarterly reports, a newsletter, and the opportunity to contribute to Polkadot’s growth. To support this campaign, we are developing a supporting ad campaign and additional materials. More to come on this soon!
Looking Ahead for the Rest of Q4
In the coming months, we’ll roll out new pages covering top Web3 narratives, along with a glossary page and additional batches of case studies.
Public Relations
We’ve been actively sharing stories from across the Polkadot ecosystem to reporters, securing coverage through targeted pitches with the support of Ditto PR, and sending out releases to 220+ outlets worldwide through Chainwire.
October Highlights:
- Polkadot Brazil Partnership: News of Polkadot Brazil’s partnership with Petrobas was covered by Cointelegraph
- Hyperbridge Main-net Launch: covered in CoinDesk
- Energy Web saw coverage in Smart Energy, an industry-specific outlet.
- Web0’s Sub0 announcement: distributed widely across numerous industry outlets via Chainwire
In addition to these stories, our proactive PR efforts also secured:
- Commentary Placement: A feature for Stellaswap in CCN.
- Podcast Spotlight: an interview for Head Polkadot Ambassador Max Rebol on “Thinking Crypto” (130k+ followers on X).
- Exclusive Interview: An upcoming year-end wrap-up and look-ahead to 2025 interview scheduled to record in December between CoinDesk and Gavin Wood.
Thought Leadership and Media Training
We’re continuing to conduct media training and positioning more thought leaders from our network in the media landscape. Among them are Max Rebol (Harbor Capital Industries), Zoé Meckbach (Phala), Irina Karagyaur (BQ9), Pauline Cohen Vorms and Lucy Coulden (PBA), and Natalie Tillack (Parity). This includes securing speaking engagements, such as at Devcon, and editing and pitching op-ed submissions to tier 1 crypto outlets like CoinDesk.
We offer media training for community members looking to get the most out of every opportunity standing in front of a mic. If this is something that interests you, please reach out to us through our PR request form.
Current Campaigns & Programs
Our campaigns and programs aim to educate, excite, and engage key audiences—mainstream users, crypto enthusiasts, investors, and builders alike. Here’s a look at how each is performing:
ThinkPink – Mainstream use cases in 60 seconds
In line with our roadmap, we’re releasing a new ThinkPink episode every two weeks, building toward a goal of 1,000 highlighted use cases. October brought three new episodes: NFL Rivals, Fiat to Crypto with Alchemy & StellaSwap, and Get DOT on Hydration. This brings the total number of ThinkPink episodes to five, including the teaser and introduction to Polkadot.
Performance Highlights:
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NFL Rivals achieved our highest engagement to date across platforms:
- X (Twitter): 66,400 impressions, 7,105 views, 799 likes, 98 RT, and 36 replies.
- Instagram: 123,017 plays, 1,421 likes, and a 6% engagement rate.
- YouTube: 689 views and 20 likes.
As we collect more data, we’ll be able to better analyze trends and test content, which either focuses on onboarding beginners or showcases games, DeFi, DePin, NFTs, and other use cases. For Q4, expect episodes on OpenGov, Acurast and Airlyft.
Decentralized Mic – Spotlighting Our Community
Decentralized Mic continued to bring visibility to the Polkadot ecosystem in October with spotlights on DevRel & Onboarding featuring PaperMoon, onpop.io, and Accelerate Polkadot, and Governance with OpenGov.Watch and JUST Open Source.
Thanks to cross-streaming on Youtube, Linkedin and X, the Governance edition saw the highest attendance yet, with 18,500 total views—triple the engagement of previous spotlights.
Next up: A GameFi spotlight in Q4, followed by features on dApps development and Onboarding Web3 Talent in Q1 2025.
People of Polkadot – Faces of the Community
People of Polkadot, launched with 25 interviews conducted at Decoded 2024 in Brussels, showcases the diversity and drive of Polkadot community members.
Here are October’s published interviews:
- Maarten | The OGs | “Bullish on Polkadot 2.0 – Innovation That Lasts Generations”
- Nico | The Connectors | “Future-Proof by Design: Polkadot’s Vision”
- Jillian | The Educators | “Polkadot’s Power Is in Its People”
- Angela | The Connectors | “Polkadot: Usable for Mass Market Web3 Gaming”
- Six | The Builders | “The Real Power Is in the Hands of the Community”
To expand the reach of the ten interviews published so far, we’re running ads on X (and soon on YouTube) to increase engagement and follower growth.
Stakeholder Sentiment – Improving the sentiment for Polkadot
Our latest campaign aims to enhance Polkadot’s perceived value and relevance among business-minded, entrepreneurial investors, generating enthusiasm and fostering a bullish sentiment for its technology and vibrant community.
October Highlights:
- Launched a dedicated landing page for VCs
- Released a Polkadot one-pager aimed at VCs, available through the Ecosystem Resource Center
- CoinTelegraph report released
- Initiated a marketing campaign centered on the CoinTelegraph Report to drive further engagement – currently in process
Plans for November:
We have targeted ads across X and LinkedIn ready, to drive traffic to the new VC landing page aiming to deepen engagement with potential investors and highlight Polkadot’s value as an innovative, investment-ready ecosystem.
Social highlights
Our colleague Peter is part of the Social Media Editorial Board and tracked the highest engagement posts of the last month for us.
| 🥇 Best of the week | 🥈 | 🥉 | Summary | |
| 1st October week |
Mythos Airdrop
45,000 views |
Which network has a Nakamoto Coefficient above 100? | DOT Inflation vote on OpenGov |
Past week on socials included interesting announcements: Mythos airdrop, Ref for decreasing inflation passed, and decentralized nodes (W3F).
Hot topics in the community were inflation, HA drama, and decentralization. |
| 2nd October week |
Insights from the 2024-Q3 Polkadot Treasury Report
80,000 views |
Stellaswap’s incentive campaign goes supernova | ChatGPT conversation about Polkadot |
Past week on socials included further discussion around HA program and governance spearheaded by Alice und Bob, DOT Q3 treasury report, marketing bounty 2.0 and more.
Hot topics in the community were the HA program, DOT on-chain metrics/coretime and ETH vs. L2s |
| 3rd October week |
Broadcast of Polkadot’s Brave Browser Campaign
112,000 views |
Thread about Shawn Tabrizi’s presentation in Argentina | Broadcast of AAG #117 JAMTON | Past week on socials included reactions to Shawn’s talk over the weekend, coretime, comparisons to other ecos, and more. |
| 4th October week |
So the big Ethereum vision is to someday become Polkadot?
54,000 views |
Monthly recap of October and what’s upcoming for this month | Broadcast of The Decentralized Mic – Governance Spotlight | Past week and weekend on socials included developments around the upgrade to implement new DOT inflation, fresh content with Gav, events in HK, murmurings of Polkadot Cloud and Hub, and more. |
Events
With the bulk of Polkadot’s 2024 event season behind us, we’re shifting our focus toward strategic event planning for 2025:
Token2049
Before looking ahead, here’s a quick summary of our presence at Token2049 in Singapore. You can find more in our full report.
Our booth drew ~3,000 visitors, proving our concept was a success. We showcased the Polkadot ecosystem with five thematic stations: Play, Interact, Enterprise, Build, and DAO, each highlighting Polkadot’s ecosystem’s strengths. Represented by 17 ecosystem projects, we highlighted Polkadot’s capabilities across DeFi, RWA, Gaming, DePIN, AI, Governance, and Polkadot’s Modular Technology.
Key Takeaways: The booth’s strategic positioning along main traffic flows and inviting visuals attracted a never-ending stream of visitors. In combination with the experienced and well-connected ecosystem agents present, our lead tracking yielded 250-450 leads, with enthusiastic visitor engagement lasting until the event’s close. Insights gained from this event suggest opportunities for growth, including securing main-stage speaking slots, potential booth size expansion, and enhancing software services for BD support and on-site coordination.
Media & Social Reach
- coordinated coverage by major outlets, including a live interview streamed by Forbes
- created engaging content on the Polkadot’s 𝕏 account, which led to an impressive 476,206 organic impressions and 14,344 engagements
- boosted our efforts with a paid media campaign, resulting in 11.9 million impressions, 5.23% engagement, and 343% increase, compared to past events
- gathered a combined reach of 13.5 million mentions on 𝕏 and press
Event plans for 2025
We’re actively leading discussions with our global ecosystem and the Events Bounty about attending conferences, which are either led by the community, projects, or Distractive. We’re currently in advanced discussions regarding participation at Consensus in Hong Kong (Feb 18-20), led by PolkaPort East, and ETH Denver (Feb 23 – March 2).
Product launches
Following the successful launch of Agile Coretime in September (covered in our Q3/2024 report), we’ve continued collaborative efforts to push forward a dynamic lineup of upcoming product launches, features, and more. Working closely with Parity and Web3 Foundation, our role in product launches focuses on marketing campaign strategy and narrative development consultation to ensure new releases resonate effectively with the Polkadot community and beyond.
In the post-launch phase for Agile Coretime, we successfully rolled out a series of educational and visual content. On X (Twitter), Polkadot’s content related to Agile Coretime achieved a total of 247,846 impressions, 1338 likes, 233 RTs, and 80 replies, enhancing community interaction and visibility.
Polkadot x Inter Miami CF
As part of the partnership with the Inter Miami CF since August, we have collaborated with Orsen to conduct activations and prize giveaways in the fan zone at matches. By helping to created memorable experiences for fans, the goal is to help raise awareness of Polkadot and its partnership with IMCF.
In addition, we have been sharing rich content across Polkadot’s social media channels to highlight these moments and keep the community involved. These efforts have not only increased Polkadot’s visibility but also generated greater interest among IMCF fans.
Performance highlights – October:
- X (Twitter): 219,300 impressions, 1977 likes, 267 RT, 130 replies
- Instagram: 198 likes, 13 comments, 33 shares.
This sponsorship will continue into next year, with support for more Orsen-led activities planned to keep engaging fans and introducing Polkadot to a larger audience.
Marketing Bounty
On October 27th, the reformed Marketing Bounty v2 was confirmed with strong support—83.9% in favor and 16% opposed. With this backing, Distractive is supporting the Marketing Bounty as advisors, as well as Curator, through our colleague Eric, to guide community-driven marketing initiatives and align with the strategic direction in the ecosystem.
Currently, the Marketing Bounty is setting up the necessary processes, forms, pages and structures to ensure transparency and accessibility for all interested parties.
Their plan is to launch a dedicated landing page and submission form on November 18th, enabling external agencies, community-based initiatives, and ecosystem projects to submit proposals and requests. With the aim to begin funding projects in December.
Until next time
Thanks for your interest in this monthly report. Do you have questions, feedback, or suggestions? You can reach us on Telegram.
As we move forward, we’re excited to see how these initiatives will empower the community and accelerate Polkadot’s growth. Stay tuned for more updates, and thank you for being part of this journey with us.
