Since our last update, Distractive has been hard at work supporting the growth of Polkadot, including launching new initiatives, tackling fresh challenges, and celebrating key milestones—hello, new website! We’re excited to share the progress we’ve made in driving Polkadot forward.
Join us for an inside scoop on what we’ve accomplished and a glimpse of what’s coming next.
A quick note: this is quite a lengthy update, since Q3 saw the public debut of many projects that Distractive has had in the works for the previous quarter. Moving forward, you can expect monthly updates, starting with October’s recap, to make these more digestible.
Q3 was a landmark quarter for Polkadot and the Distractive team, filled with exciting milestones and accomplishments. Here’s a glimpse at a few of the key achievements, which we’ll dive into more below:
The work Distractive completed in the first half of the year, including research, a messaging revamp, and a design update, culminated in the release of a brand-new website for Polkadot.
The v1 of this website was completed in record time: just 4.5 months from kick-off to completion. The project was intentionally structured in two phases to allow a delivery milestone in the fastest time frame possible, with a v2 version of the website to follow before the end of the year. The Polkadot website is now fully standardized on a CMS (content management system) which allows Distractive to easily spin up landing pages to support various campaigns, launches, and programs that occur throughout the year.
While it might look like a modest project at first glance, Polkadot’s new website is the culmination of intense collaboration across the ecosystem. We engaged numerous stakeholders, gathered valuable input, and transformed those insights into a cohesive vision for the Polkadot brand.
One of the most noticeable (and, we daresay, controversial) changes to the website was the transition from polkadot.network to polkadot.com. While domain options have expanded over the years, a .com domain still wields incredible power. The shift to polkadot.com brings three key benefits:
Building domain authority can take a significant amount of time, and while it usually takes 3-6 months for a website to re-establish normal performance levels after a domain change, the Polkadot.com domain is already showing strong results. The new .com domain has quickly reached nearly the same domain rating as the previous .network site, which took over seven years to build (75 vs 79 domain rating, as measured by Ahrefs). The difference is minimal and we’re nearly back to previous levels with an upward trend in progress. Domain rating is a measurement of how “trustworthy” your domain is, and usually reflects a combination of authority (backlinks), content, clicks from SERP, and other indicators of reputability. We expect to quickly improve upon this and overtake the previous domain’s DR by the end of year.
We have also spent much time improving the site's performance, focusing first on technical SEO and page load times. We’ve made significant progress on each, with more to come by the end of October.
Health Score: The website’s current health scores are as follows:
What does this mean? We’ve cleaned up hundreds of links and redirects, and ensured that key technical SEO items like meta descriptions and tags are correctly placed. While there is still much we can do to improve, a website is always a work in progress. We will be balancing ongoing technical SEO improvements with the introduction of new features and content as we continue our march to v2 of the website.
Streamlined Home Page (SOON™) Coming this month, we’re rolling out design improvements that simplify the gradients and animations on the website, with the primary goal of improving the home page’s load time. While there will be a number of design tweaks across the rest of the site, the biggest changes will focus on optimizing the home page.
Now that we’ve completed many of the backlog items post-launch (though we’ll continue working through them), we’re now ready to deliver some of the new content we originally planned but had to descope to deliver the v1 of the website in August. In the final quarter of 2024, we’ll be rolling out a slew of new pages, upgrades, and SEO-optimized content. This includes a comprehensive glossary, vertical-specific use case pages, case studies, and more. Here’s what you can expect:
As the website continues to evolve, we encourage community involvement through the website feedback form. Share your feedback, report bugs, highlight performance issues, or suggest enhancements. We actively monitor all requests and use a ticketing system to prioritize submissions based on urgency, impact, and bandwidth. We review every ticket and often reach out to community members for further discussion when needed.
This past quarter marked the launch of multiple campaigns and programs from Distractive, each with a unique marketing goal. Our overarching objective is to strengthen Polkadot's presence in the Web3 ecosystem and begin to reverse some of the bearish sentiment expressed by those outside (and at times within) our ecosystem. We’ll continue to roll out new initiatives that help promote projects and foster a vibrant, engaged community. On a tactical level, these initiatives are designed to boost social media growth, elevate engagement rates, and showcase innovative projects and community members within the Polkadot ecosystem.
Here are the campaigns and programs we introduced in Q3:
This campaign and content series is designed to underscore Polkadot's unrelenting dedication to decentralization while highlighting the rich landscape of opportunities Polkadot’s burgeoning ecosystem offers to individual self-starters, creators, and projects. By showcasing real-world applications and success stories, we aim to illustrate how decentralization is not just a principle, but one of Polkadot’s core strengths. Co-marketing examples (a selection of initiatives worked on):
Blogs:
Livestream Video Series: Decentralized Mic
Decentralized Mic is a livestream series that invites contributors to Polkadot—starting with Decentralized Futures recipients—to discuss their work and goals. This community-driven series has included contributors from disciplines spanning marketing, BD, technology, governance, and events to monthly discussions. These sessions provide a platform for projects to share their progress, roadmap, and contributions to the community while exploring new opportunities and developments. By highlighting the people behind the projects and showcasing the power of decentralized collaboration through initiatives like grants and OpenGov, Decentralized Mic elevates personal, relatable voices to the forefront of the Polkadot ecosystem. Episodes released:
Community has always been central to the ecosystem, but many of the voices we hear regularly are technical ones: our brilliant builders and devs who architected and now use the network. But our community is so much more diverse! The People of Polkadot series aims to showcase a broader range of contributors and offer more accessible perspectives on Polkadot and its impact on our world. The series will feature a total of 25 interviews, highlighting voices from all corners of the community. Videos are being released weekly through the end of Q1, and so far, they’ve performed remarkably well, achieving an average of 35,000 views per video.
Here are the performance metrics from the first five videos:
Some additional stats, to put these metrics in perspective (averaged across the released episodes):
Just over one year after the introduction of OpenGov on Polkadot, the governance platform fielded its 1,000th referendum. To mark this milestone, Distractive surveyed community members on-the-ground at Polkadot Decoded and released a celebratory video and forum post. This initiative helped raise awareness of the growing momentum behind OpenGov while celebrating this unique milestone. Stats:
As we explore ways to get Polkadot in front of new audiences, we evaluated how best to bring these new apps and use cases to new audiences. How can we make Polkadot more tangible and easier to understand? In this spirit, and in conjunction with the rollout of our new Instagram channel, we developed Think Pink—a mobile-native video series delivered in a TikTok-style but with higher production value.
Think Pink is designed to highlight practical things you can do with Polkadot, aiming to present 1000 Polkadot use cases to mainstream audiences with the ultimate goal of onboarding new users. Each ~60 second episode presents a specific use case, raising awareness for exciting projects on Polkadot while educating the new-to-crypto crowd on the possibilities of Web3.
New episodes are released every two weeks, covering topics such as games, NFTs, DePIN, music, and, of course, how to vote on OpenGov. The campaign will continue until we reach 1,000 use cases, and we welcome community suggestions for fun or upcoming use cases to feature.Episodes released:
Launched in Q2, this evergreen campaign is meant to leverage narratives in the crypto space to highlight what Polkadot and its ecosystem offer. Each installment runs for over a month and engages both crypto natives and broader audiences through a mix of educational videos, deep-dive threads, and infographics centered around key themes. The series includes collaborations with content creators from the ecosystem, such as The Kusamarian, Alpha Airdrop, and Polka Insider, to produce digestible content that makes complex topics accessible and engaging for the audience.
Themes featured:
High-level stats after three campaigns:
We’ve heard from builder teams in our ecosystem that securing funding from VCs and business-minded, entrepreneurial investors is often an uphill battle. To help new teams tap into seed-stage financing for their innovative ideas and in order to bring new people to the ecosystem, there’s an urgent need to reshape how the perception these folks have of Polkadot and its ecosystem. Our approach is threefold:
We’ve already begun laying the groundwork by initiating research reports such as the Messari Report | Polkadot 2.0 Rebirth: An Overview and sponsoring Blockworks’ “On the Margin” podcast for 13 episodes. A second report from CoinTelegraph is expected in Q4.
Once these assets are live— along with a tailored landing page to support this campaign—we’ll launch a hyper-targeted ad campaign. This will allow us to test visitor interest by tracking clicks and CTR on different reports. By leveraging high-visibility channels like podcasts, along with targeted ad campaigns, our goal is to raise awareness, drive traffic to the landing page, and maximize engagement with our content.
In the next report, we will share the initial results and look forward to community insights on how to target this audience.
Building on the success of our 2024 Consensus booth in Austin—where engagement was at peak levels—we refined and elevated our concept in our Public Event Proposal for Token 2049 in Singapore. As a Platinum Sponsor, we secured a premier 35 m2customizable exhibition space, complemented by prominent branding on conference materials and throughout the venue. Our vibrant and eye-catching booth drew around 3,000 visitors during the 2-day conference.
Our objective was clear: maximize brand exposure, drive high user engagement, onboard new users, and expand the community. To achieve this, we co-hosted the booth with ecosystem projects, showcasing the diversity of the Polkadot network. The booth had five interactive demo stations featuring a dynamic group of projects including Velocity Labs, CESS, Stellaswap, Phala Netwrok, Unique Network, Crust Network, Talisman, Apillon, Moonbeam, OpenGuild, Polkadot en Español, Bifrost Subwallet and Soverign Network Initiative.
With the support of ecosystem partners and through the interactive booth setup, we effectively engaged with a broad audience of crypto enthusiasts, VCs, entrepreneurs, and builders. To further enhance the experience, we distributed Proof of Presence (PoP) tokens for wallet activations, ensuring a memorable and interactive touchpoint for all attendees.
Some key highlights at a glance:
The event report is currently under review by the Events Bounty and can be seen here.
By now, you’ve likely realized that we’re not playing Flappywud all day—we’re hard at work creating and delivering campaigns and stories to drive Polkadot’s growth. Alongside this, we’re dedicated to empowering the community with the tools to manage their own marketing efforts independently, while offering support whenever we can. Here are some of the ways we’ve been supporting our community.
As Polkadot cycles in increasingly more contributors who represent the brand/product/network/ecosystem, it’s essential that we present a unified look and feel. Earlier this year, we released the first iteration of the Ecosystem Resource Center, a go-to space for community members to access tools and materials to support their initiatives.
With these resources, we're empowering you to confidently represent Polkadot at conferences, stay up to date with messaging, prepare presentations using our pitch deck, and utilize our ecosystem reports as examples for drafting your OpenGov proposal.
Working within the Polkadot ecosystem has its challenges and surprises; every day, we find solutions to something unexpected. From sudden sponsorship opportunities landing on our desks to events that need to be promoted on short notice, we’re constantly adapting and reprioritizing to support the community. It's not always easy, but we’re committed to walking the extra mile to support our eco’s success.
The support requests we receive through our co-marketing forms (general, PR and events-related requests) span a wide rating of needs, including social media amplification, newsletter content, blog posts, event support, case studies, PR initiatives, and more. Peter from Distractive and Evan Thomas run the Polkadot social media channels, with support from the Social Media Editorial Board, to quickly broadcast important updates and news to Crypto Twitter. In the past six months, we received 1,205 requests, broken down as follows:
(Distractive’s Communications & PR Manager is dedicated to providing comprehensive PR support for the Polkadot ecosystem, with additional support from Ditto. Our services include developing PR timelines, drafting and editing press releases, and pitching news to relevant media for earned coverage. In addition to traditional press releases, we also manage thought leadership efforts by positioning key spokespeople as voices of authority in the industry.)
This quarter, Distractive kicked off several PR-related initiatives, including the formalization of a PR and announcements pipeline. We worked with multiple ecosystem projects such as Sovereign Nature, Unique Network, Wallet Connect, Mythical Games, Hyberbridge, Inter Miami Fútbol Club, Conor Daly, Dune Analytics, The Tie, Energy Web, and others to define their messaging and announce/distribute news. In September, Distractive led the draft and distribution of the press release announcing the Agile Coretime launch.
Further, we launched a new thought leadership initiative aimed at giving visibility to Head Ambassadors and other key spokespeople within the ecosystem by pitching them for podcast appearances, placing industry commentary, and coordinating interviews.
Token 2049 in Singapore also provided ample opportunities for PR content, including live-streamed interviews recorded in the booth, press announcements released during the show, and even a shout-out from a Forbes contributor mentioning Polkadot leading the industry in cross-chain communications.
Through these efforts, we remain committed to elevating the Polkadot ecosystem’s visibility and impact, one initiative at a time.
Q3 PR Highlights:
P.S.: We focus on building relationships with journalists; to get the best results, we need at best, two weeks' notice in advance for your announcement.
Leadership in a decentralized ecosystem is complex—much like a school of fish, where each member’s movement influences the direction of the whole. Every voice has the potential to steer the collective, and that’s what makes OpenGov so powerful.
At Distractive, we actively contribute to OpenGov, whether by participating in weekly OpenGov.watch office hours, contributing to AAG discussions, engaging in various Telegram groups, or taking part in OpenGov processes represented by our community evangelist (Eric Distractive on OpenGov).
We provide high-level strategic feedback on proposals and offer tactical input on budget, execution, and timing. We aim to ensure proposals align with the broader marketing direction and contribute meaningfully to the Polkadot ecosystem’s growth and success.
Besides this engagement, we were invited to join the new and improved Marketing Bounty. We agreed to participate because we see an opportunity to serve the community and make the ecosystem even better by applying our industry and marketing expertise to create ecosystem-wide alignment on marketing plans.
Distractive takes a conservative approach to spending, and we plan to bring this caution and level-headedness to the Bounty. We will be represented by Eric who will hold the table, represented by a curator seat ,and our founders will serve as advisors when deciding on expenditures working with established and new agencies.
We keep track of the current debates and respect the opinions we receive from the community. We look forward to working together with constructive voices and proofing our work by applying the best practices of following the bounty compliance standards.
The launch of Agile Coretime on September 19th was a collaborative effort, with key contributions from Parity and ecosystem teams, aimed at maximizing impact within the Polkadot Community and beyond. This was also the first product launch where we were able to organize the majority of marketing activities around a planned launch, with activities organized and planned in advance. In a decentralized world, this is easier said than done.
The rollout received positive feedback, with multiple inputs pointing to this being one of the best communicated technical launches for the Polkadot ecosystem.
The launch incorporated the following marketing activities:
These activities were posted across X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
We found that the events on September 19th led to the most mentions of Polkadot 2.0 and related technologies so far this year (see chart below).
Source: Meltwater (search terms: Polkadot 2.0 and its three features: Agile Coretime, asynchronous backing, and elastic scaling)
Post-launch, we will continue to deliver valuable educational and visual content across various platforms to keep audiences engaged as we march toward the Elastic Scaling launch, which will mark the completion of the features that the community has dubbed Polkadot 2.0.
In recent months, one of our key co-marketing successes has been Polkadot’s partnership with Inter Miami, which was championed and approved by the community. Distractive has spent a considerable amount of time engaging with the Orsen and Inter Miami teams, resulting in a variety of content initiatives:
This collaboration has generated impressive results, with engagement rates for Inter Miami-related posts frequently exceeding 8%—a strong figure given the size of the Polkadot audience. Additionally, we kicked off a new Polkadot Instagram account, where much of the Inter Miami audience spends time, which has since grown rapidly to 1.3K followers, a surge we attribute in great part to the visibility and excitement generated by the Inter Miami partnership.
While hiring hasn’t been as core a focus as it has been in previous quarters, Distractive continues to offer a high density of marketing experts to form a powerful unit of Polkadot advocates. Since our last update, we’ve added a few more faces to support the cause:
We’re excited to continue building and look forward to more milestones in Q4! As we look to the future, here’s a few deliverables we have on our to do list.
Got questions? Hit us up on Telegram with any request.
