M> Getting 1500 Telegram subscribers for Official RChain Coop Telegram

[Mervyn853]

M> Indicates that this is a project within the "Marketing" category

Measure of Completion: 1500 Telegram Members in the RChain Official Telegram Chat Group: @rchain_coop Telegram Chat Invite Link: https://t.me/rchain_coop

Suggested Budget: $7,500

=======================================================

Referencing this issue from #115 and the suggestions made by @dckc @pmoorman @patrick727 here.

I enjoy the discussions about our technology being discussed by the people working on the platform like Medha and Nash Foster. And I truly believe this is one of the best channels for communication and discussion as most of the Crypto community are on telegram.

One example of this can be seen here https://t.me/rchain_coop/8869 where Zao Yang the creator of farmville came into the telegram, asked questions and subsequently started espousing the values of RChain and our technology

I think this idea of setting SMART Measurable Goals makes the most sense as it would be a much fairer reward system to set budgets as obviously a target of 2000 telegram members in the Official RChain Coop Telegram is much easier to justify as opposed to setting up multiple telegram groups for different countries without getting the members to match.

I'd suggest adding a member number goal for all telegram related issues like #225 which currently only has 13 members. This will prevent unnecessary spending of budgets for issues that do not produce results. Though, I would be alert for potential exploits where bots/members are added to boost the numbers and produce the results. I have added the combot to both of these telegram chats to monitor the health of these chats : http://combot.org/chat/-1001123521235

Also, I would like to request that the social channels like telegram and reddit to be added to the main https://www.rchain.coop/ site as official communication channels to assist us in working towards this goal. As often times people interested in the community are not able to find us through the main website. @patrick727 @ValeBF

[dckc]

Thanks for stating a more precise goal.

At an hourly rate that I have seen suggested for RAM work, that suggested budget is an estimate of 250hrs; i.e. 6 full time 40hr work weeks or 31 full 8 hour work days. Issues that take longer than a month fit awkwardly into our budget / reward system, not to mention all the usual challenges with large tasks. Would you please either reduce the budget (and the scope, if that seems appropriate) or elaborate on what people would be doing for 250hrs?

In my Jan 29 comment I asked for occasional reports from moderators. If people are doing that,
I would appreciate a pointer; I haven't seen any. My impression is that channel moderators spend a few minutes to a few hours per day reading and writing, and much of that time, moderating is a background task carried out in parallel with other activities. If there are three moderators spending 2 hours a day, it would take 41 days to reach 250 hours. Again, more than a month.

[Mervyn853]

It took us around 2 months to reach the 500 member mark at Christmas 2017. And another 1 month to add another 500 by Feb. Judging by that rate, I have reduced the budget to accommodate a goal that is more attainable within a month's time frame and have adjusted the budget and scope.

[Mervyn853]

To add to your point on reports from moderators, I think we could come up with a weekly update in the comments on this issue. My efforts are currently focused on running outreach for the Coop and getting interviews with the well known crypto influencers like i did to secure the interview for Blockchain Brad #251 and have a few other influencers lined up.

I realised that the video drove alot of attention and traffic to the telegram and will try to add the links to our telegram on the youtube videos going forward. The main aim for this funneling will be to answer questions before onboarding them to discord as a member of the coop.

[Ojimadu]

@dckc Am not clear as to what rate the calculation above was made. From my deduction it comes down to $24/hr[6000/250] (is this correct?).
Moderating channels like this goes beyond 2 hrs per day as there is always something to be done round the clock. Lately the number of spammers on both the reddit and telegram channels are increasing which would require moderators to be more vigilant. I don't want to say moderators are the most helpful persons on these channels as other members too help out in one way or the other but most times moderators do the answering except for very technical questions where Nash Foster has been has been answering most of them. Like you said "moderators reads, write ..." yes, and try as much as possible to keep up with happenings around RChain so as not lose relevance and to remain helpful.
I believe things can still improve like the report you mentioned above and maybe, some other things. This can become better as feedback from the community comes through.

[David405]

@Mervyn853 i would like to be clarified on this issue, is it open to all collaborators or just moderators of various channels? I believe if everyone is given a chance at this, then it wont be so much a difficult task to achieve. One of the most effective techniques for increasing number of users of any platform is the referral system, if there are more hands working on new members I think that will go a long way to drive traffic to our communication channels.

[dckc]

@Ojimadu writes:

Lately the number of spammers on both the reddit and telegram channels are increasing which would require moderators to be more vigilant.

Thanks; that's the sort of information I would like to see channel moderators report from time to time.

I would appreciate pointers to some examples, if not a rough count that shows the increase.

Moderating channels like this goes beyond 2 hrs per day as there is always something to be done round the clock.

OK, how many solid billable hours per day would you estimate? Surely you don't mean to claim that moderators spend 24hrs/day.

From my deduction it comes down to $24/hr[6000/250] (is this correct?).

$40/hr is the rate @lapin7 suggested (e.g. in a message of 2018-01-28 18:42 GMT+08:00); 250hrs was based on the original suggested budget of $10k.

[dckc]

By way of example, to justify a 4 figure budget on #185, I prepared a detailed work history.

[kitblake]

@Mervyn853 @Ojimadu If we collect the social numbers weekly (or monthly) on Wednesdays, @dcpnlau can include the numbers and any short updates in her briefing of Activist activity during the weekly Debrief. Moderators will have to collect the data and get it to her in advance. It would be good to archive the reports in a log as @dckc has suggested.

[dcpnlau]

@Mervyn853 @Ojimadu - if you have the latest numbers, can you let me know so I can mention it tomorrow during the Debrief?
It would also be good to track where traffic is coming from so we can focus our attention to the most effective traffic drivers to reach our goal.

[Ojimadu]

@dcpnlau Are you on discord?

[Mervyn853]

@dcpnlau Current telegram numbers stand at 1192 members.

@patrick727 Are you running google analytics? Can we get UTM links for reddit, bitcointalk, and twitter so we can track the traffic into the telegram. Would also be great if you could tweet out the link to the official telegram group to funnel some traffic in.

[niwaa]

Sorry this has already been discussed elsewhere. Just my opinion:

I think adding xxxK people to a telegram channel is one thing (and not necessary hard). There are tons of other projects and ICOs going on having 40-80k people in their telegram channel in a couple weeks.

The questions remains what is the goal and the population you want in this channel. Most telegrams channels I've been on, even on "serious" projects, are mainly consisting people speculating, posting memes ("when lambo", "when moon") and generally showing toxic behaviors.
A part from raising the prices on exchanges markets, a lot of these people don't contribute in any positive way to development of the platform I think.

I would think it is infinitely better for the growth of Rchain to have 1000 developers or genuinely interested people with some skills than 100k random people.

Telegram is very low friction to enter, anyone can sign-in, and Bitcointalk may not the best place to attract quality contributors.

I would think what is interesting would be to attract a lot of developers and entrepreneurs interested to build tools, apps, Dapps, projects on a 3rd generation blockchain like Rchain. Anyone that could grow the ecosystem. Those are on blockchain related development forums / boards or vertical domains (fintech, medical, supply chains, ...)

So it is just suggesting to also include quality as a goal, and trying to put some safeguards / filters
rather than just reaching numbers.

Example:

• Define the profiles of the people you want to attract.
• Organization of things like mini-contests / hackathon on the SDK could help to attract very specific profiles.
• Targeted and practical content like tutorials can attract people organically (search engines).

It is already a good thing IMHO that Rchain is not doing a public ICO, and currently trying to distribute RHOC only to contributors.

[cenyuhai]

@niwaa That's what I want to do， I want to introduce rchain to chinese developer.

[ysgjay]

If there is a need for more Admins on telegram, I'm available.

[Mervyn853]

Looks like we're going to close out the month a few members short of the target for the month. Agree that the RChain telegram channel should be focusing on quality discussions which is why the moderators have actively funneled price and speculative discussions over to other unofficial groups. Other toxic behaviors have also been removed and actively moderated.

For a project without an ICO, I think the numbers are growing fairly well organically and by word of mouth. From my experience, I believe most of the crypto community is on telegram and I believe a large part of the increase in Coop members have been funneled from telegram over to the membership / discord channels.

As part of the recap, some of the more common issues I've faced moderating the channel is as follows:

1. ​Issues faced in the KYC process for membership especially with regards to document uploading - I believe files need to be renamed in order for the documents to be sent.
2. Questions about the private sale prices that took place in 2017 and potential of a subsequent ICO
3. One member of the telegram group had these comments " Too many moving parts and it's impossible to keep track of everything. Coop, members, bounties, developer resources, Holdings & Ventures.These are all nice concepts but you guys need clear channels of communication and resource dispersal that can allow any one to navigate through these with out being frustrated. I have been trying to access several pieces of content for months. And still cannot be filled to satisfaction I find the discord channel thing very rudimentary. it's hard to reach out to who matter and nearly impossible to access the resources you require I have a smilar problem. While inclusion & transparency is excellent.General Communication in Rchain is very poor. It's like shooting broken arrows in the dark. "

I believe the last point is a key point to note and would be keen to work with the new hire for Director of Communications to ensure that we have a unified voice across the multiple communication channels.

@patrick727 @Ojimadu I have also allocated a budget to @jplepel as he has been actively assisting in the moderation of the telegram channel and often replying to questions.

[dckc]

Excellent report, @Mervyn853 ... in fact, this feedback is too important to direct toward an as-yet-unposted (let alone filled) Director of Communications position.

What we have right now is some groups forming on:

• purpose and values (@jimscarver Working group to define our values and principles #471)
• branding (@pmoorman M> Create Brand Platform Document #371)
• member-site (@patrick727 )
• greeter (@makys ).

Please follow up with them via relevant issues (or new ones).

[AyAyRon-P]

This is excellent insight @Mervyn853. Thank you for compiling and sharing this with us.

1. Having gone through several KYC applications myself, including this one for RChain - would it make sense to use implement an API to potentially automate this process more efficiently? If this has already been discussed and opposed, please disregard.
2. I wasn't here for the private sale so I can't speak to this.
3. I believe the documentation, information, and communication issue can be an easy win if we were to restructure, rename, and add new categories and channels to our current discord server. We could utilize our discord server as a data library by creating new read only categories with links for things like:

• Joint Ventures
• Whitepaper
• FAQ
• RChain Architecture
• Briefings
• Token Sales
• Transcripts
  One of the things I've noticed is that there are members posting the same content in multiple channels which is the exact problem you referenced. This is a pain point for people who are unfamiliar with the navigation and even people who have been members for some time still find themselves asking 'where should I post this?' By building an additional layer of filtering to our discord channels to better serve the community both internally and externally facing we could help streamline the topics for discussion.

In your last paragraph, you mentioned a new hire Director of Communications, is this position still available and what are the criteria for this role? I would love the opportunity to be considered for this role and apply my marketing experience to the RCHAIN.

[dckc]

AyAyRon-P writes:

you mentioned a new hire Director of Communications, is this position still available and what are the criteria for this role?

See yesterday's community update; Greg talked about the position.

[AyAyRon-P]

@dckc

I watched the video and didn't hear anything about that particular position. I did hear Kenny mention there would be a need for several roles within the organizaiton.

[dckc]

I guess my memory isn't that reliable.

Here's hoping for better text summaries so that neither of us has to watch the whole video to be sure what was or was not said about such a position...

[AyAyRon-P]

@dckc

No worries! Glad I watched it, and now I have that much more insight. Hope to hear more about the position in the upcoming days/weeks.

Did you have any thoughts on my feedback to Mervyn?

[dckc]

Sure... remember when I said I just wanted to make sure marketing stuff was in good hands and then I'd tune out in favor of other stuff? Your feedback confirms that this is in good hands.

Oh... a project management thought: this issue is about boosting telegram subscribers. Your feedback probably belongs in something like #371. That is: put the discussion in the issue where it's actionable.

[AyAyRon-P]

What do you think of adding my feedback to your Discord Community issue #404? We could set up action items to begin building out the community server.

[dckc]

That doesn't feel right. We should talk / chat. I'll be more available tomorrow.

[Mervyn853]

https://youtu.be/ZpJOxa15Pgc?t=3264 I belive @drbloom brought up that point in the Governance conference about hiring a Communications Director

[Ojimadu]

There is a need for clear communication channels as sometimes some information and tricky questions just pop out from somewhere which would be which would be difficult to answer since we can't speak on behalf of the coop and have to answer question from the best of our knowledge.
Few days ago someone asked this question:

"hi @OjimaduChidindu, I am very interested in your project RChain, and doing research before buying a few tokens. Personally, I think this project should have a promising future based on the whitepaper and
the team’s background. Besides, I notice RChain chose IBC (https://ibcgroup.io/projects/) for ico service, so I am curious whether IBC provided efficient technical, marketing and legal support to your project? As a potential supporter, can I trust IBC’s ability, who promised a successful ico project?"

Prior to that moment I had not seen that anywhere so I gave him a quick reply and referred him to the COO which would not have been so if there was a person in-charge of such information. I suggest that there should be a group formed around communications to gather and sort out information and the prospective Communication Director be front-facing personnel of the group.

[AyAyRon-P]

@Ojimadu was this asked through Discord or telegram?

I agree that there needs to be a central point of information, pending a review/approval process to ensure it is appropriate for an external audience. This would alleviate a majority of the redundant questions by simply having that information available.

[Ojimadu]

Sorry for the late reply. This was asked through telegram.

[pmoorman]

@Mervyn853 @Ojimadu I'm going through the list of marketing issues. Seems like this is actually done (we're at 1650 now).

Suggestion: either rescope to something bigger, or close the issue because it's completed.

[kitblake]

Closing in lieu of a new issue.
We now have 1736 members.

[ian-bloom]

@Ojimadu

I notice RChain chose IBC (https://ibcgroup.io/projects/) for ico service, ...

The RChain Trademark and Logo are posted on https://ibcgroup.io/projects/ under the heading "Most projects cannot be shared due to NDA Agreements."

On March 4 I emailed "IBC Group", identifying my role in the Cooperative and asking them what project they claim to have completed for RChain. They forwarded my email to "Jared C." [email protected] for followup and then stuck me on a mailing-list. They have not replied to my question.

I'm not aware of any relationship, past or present, between RChain and IBC.