# Is "being active on Farcaster" a viable user acquisition strategy? Source: https://telegra.ph/Is-being-active-on-Farcaster-a-viable-user-acquisition-strategy-01-28 Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Is-being-active-on-Farcaster-a-viable-user-acquisition-strategy?index=0x65b656fa2da88ae6a07d7efb65f5f3b09a21d48ca78b05907d91ed97bc5c18fdd7396050 Submitted by tim on 2024-01-28 UTC, 6 upvotes, 7 comments ## Summary Kiwi News developer timdaub argues that being active on Farcaster is not an effective user acquisition strategy, and that the team should carefully manage its time on Warpcast and X. Over the last 90 days in Google Analytics, Warpcast and X each brought only 2-4% of new users, about the same number from X as from Warpcast despite much less activity on X. The article suggests a possible echo chamber effect, with the degen tips airdrop as the exception that reached new users, though many who minted the NFT did not use the product. The article also says the Warpcast and X bots did not produce the expected engagement or retention gains. ## Article Is "being active on Farcaster" a viable user acquisition strategy? timdaub An easily affirmed idea is that being active on Farcaster is a reasonable acquisition strategy for crypto-consumer application developers wanting to reach out to new users. This idea is easily re-affirmed by everyone on Farcaster because when you post there, the casts usually get a lot of engagement, and so it is reasoned that this engagement must somehow help in brand building and acquiring new users for the startup. Well, it's wrong. While all of this makes sense argumentatively, it cannot be observed in the Kiwi News data. A few data points from our Google Analytics of the last 90 days: Mac and I have been much less active on X than on Farcaster, yet the number of users acquired from X is the same as those having been acquired from Warpcast. The acquisition of users from X and Warpcast is minuscule as a percentage of the total number of acquired new users. Only 2-4% of new users respectively found their way onto our website through Warpcast and X (in the last 90 days, mind you). For comparison, I wrote one or two posts on the Optimism Governance forum in December, which also resulted in 1% of referrals for that period. But I spent much less time on that! Even clicks from Google top the new traffic acquisition over WC and X in that period. Interpretation It is unclear how much Google Analytics data can be trusted here. After all, it could be that outside clicks originating from the Warpcast app don't include the right referrer metadata and are, hence, not counted correctly by Google Analytics. However, one could argue that the intention of Farcaster users to visit a related crypto consumer application is much higher quality than, for example, users coming from X or Google. Warpcast users already know what minting an NFT means, and they get the web3 vision. So they're potentially higher value. Quantivatiely, these data directly oppose our qualitative findings where most newly minted Kiwi users report noticing our brand on Farcaster or through some memecoin drop. However, my explanation here is that Warpcast has an echo chamber effect where mostly the same old followers end up liking each others' posts, so no new users are exposed to content that could advertise the product. The exception is that actively reaching out to new user cohorts can really make a difference. Participating in the degen tips airdrop informs this argument as it exposed Kiwi News to a Warpcast-internal cohort that Mac, I, and the Kiwi News community on Warpcast hadn't managed to reach out to before. We got a lot of (temporary) and intentional interest. Many minted our NFT but weren't interested in using the product. Only a few converted. Caveats We have, of course, had some initial growth by acquiring Farcaster users. But this analysis mostly concerns itself with the numbers from the last 90 days to understand whether being active on Farcaster is a viable activity throughout the workday to justify "growing the user base." Turns out it isn't an effective one. While direct traffic can be grown by improving the product and its engagement, it seems like "being active on Farcaster" has topped out in its effectiveness. But there are some exceptions: Being on Farcaster is useful for grasping the latest trends in the industry and quickly adjusting the product to fit that market's needs. The X and Warpcast bots we bootstrapped (@kiwinewshq and @kiwi) didn't bring the expected engagement and retention boosts we intended them to have. This can also be qualitatively observed as those posts hardly gain any likes or retweets, and this leads me to think that their posts are simply not seen in many timelines. Being on Farcaster can be useful for connecting with other crypto consumer builders. For example, having been featured as a criterion for the degen tips airdrop brought us many new users, of which few converted, but many also minted our NFT. But, their intention was pretty low. Conclusion We should carefully manage our time on Warpcast and X during work. These apps are engineered to make it seem very beneficial to be "online" by frequently rewarding the active poster with dopamine hits. The justification for spending time on there as "part of work" is an internally enforced affirmation that can, however, not clearly be backed up with the available data. The technical investments (bots) that we've made in these platforms (both X and WC) have not panned out positively in such a way that they influenced our core metrics positively, like increasing Daily Active Users. In fact, for the bots, there is also a question of whether our site's visitors would actually increase if we disabled the bots, as they're arbitraging original content submitted to Kiwi into the bigger platforms like Warpcast and X. What do you think? Discuss in the KN comments! ## Comments **macbudkowski.eth**: I generally agree (with caveats and limitations of this hypothesis as well!). I'd add two things. The first is that Warpcast is a very good crypto app. This means that it might be much harder to take people off Warpcast than to take them off X, Reddit, or Discord. It's like asking a person to try out some new food when they're already satisfied with their meal vs. asking someone who doesn't like what they eat (as many people don't really like web2 socials AD 2024). The second is that "being active on..." is generally not a good strategy. Whenever we use X, Reddit, or Farcaster for user acquisition, our actions should be focused and have clear goals. In Farcaster's case, pulling it off is harder, as we also use it for socializing and having fun. So it's very easy to tell ourselves, "Oh, I'm there for work," whereas in reality, it's just posting random stuff instead of deliberately planned posts that, in the short- or long-run, will turn into converting users to Kiwi. **@sahilk**: Interesting how the data debunks the usefulness of Farcaster for user acquisition. I would have bet otherwise. Still stand behind FC users being higher quality crypto users though. On the bots, I'd disagree that getting rid of them would increase app usage in a meaningful way. The bots are good for coming across new/hot submissions - I still open the PWA for dedicated exploration and reading. in fact, the bot can lead to ad hoc reading. I doubt the bots are hurting DAU. But would be good to see what the data says. **tim**: Great data point @sahilk. So you see the bot posting in your Warpcast feed and it makes you browse Kiwi more? If so, how can we make the bot even more useful for you? **macbudkowski.eth**: It was also counter-intuitive for me, and I agree with the limitations mentioned by Tim - that the data from Google Analytics is imperfect. Probably, the real numbers are higher. Good to see a vote for bots because I also like them. I think bots are tools for low-key retention. The way I look at it: high-key retention = PWA app, mid-key retention = newsletter, low-key retention = bots. So, if someone likes Kiwi a bit but is not convinced enough to download PWA or subscribe to a newsletter, they can follow our bots and, from time to time, serendipitously come across our links in their feed. **qiaoliang.eth**: Just curious, among all the kiwi link submitter, what percentage are from farcaster? **tim**: Just a guess, but I'd say that the overwhelming majority of people who submitted a link to Kiwi News do also have a Farcaster account. So yeah, that is a pretty good caveat to the blog post I wrote because it rejects the finding in the Google Analytics data. A few more observations about the bots: - It can also be that Kiwi users deliberately do NOT "like" @kiwi or @kiwinewshq's tweets/casts because they click through to the Kiwi News to upvote the link - In general, when browsing links using the bots, the intention is to click through to Kiwi News (at least) because that's where the original link is, which an active user would seek out. **@sahilk**: @timdaub.eth The bot for me is largely unintentional discovery. If the link looks interesting enough, I click and get reading. Since I'm already on the Kiwi page, I might read a couple more too, depending on the time available. What also helps is the bot telling me who made the submission. Seeing names I already associate with quality links increases the likelihood of me clicking. Btw just noticed, I don't follow the bot. It's you and Mac casting Kiwi links / recasting the bot that does the same job for me. The utility and behaviour still hold true though. Maybe highlighting the bot's role in discovery when I minted could've pushed me to follow.