How can Arbitrum improve its presence on Web3 Social?

[Tekr0x.eth]

Arbitrum is falling behind on Web3 social. How can we change that and build a stronger presence?

Current situation:

• Arbitrum has inactive accounts on Farcaster (last post 3 months ago) and Lens (last post over a year ago).
• There’s a Farcaster Arbitrum channel with 9.5K followers, but only a few posts per month - mostly by me.
• Base leads on Farcaster with 448K followers, and Jesse (founder) posts daily.
• Lens Protocol, live on Polygon for two years, is launching its own Lens Network (part of ZKSync’s Elastic Chain).

Open questions:

• Who should define strategy, set up a plan, and run activities? DAO? Foundation?
• Who should we be targeting: builders, users, governance participants?
• What metrics should define success?
• Should we expand to other Web3/alternative social platforms like Nostr, Mastodon, BlueSky, or DeSo?
• Any other ideas on how to improve Arbitrum’s presence on these new social platforms?
• Should this be included in the upcoming SOS (strategic objectives)? (exp.: Goal 2: Arbitrum has strong social presence and integrations)

Reference Points

• Dune Analytics (Farcaster): User Adoption KPIs
• Dune Analytics (Lens): Lens Protocol Ecosystem
  

The goal of this discussion is to find ways to improve our engagement on Web3 social.

What are your thoughts? How can we do better?

Tagging a few relevant people (@Larva @zer8 @hunter)

[EzR3aL]

Hi,

In my opinion it’s not very useful right now to use either of those web3 social protocols. There is simply nothing interesting happening. It’s a matter of fact that most people currently using it, are only there to farm for airdrops.
The amount of user is too low aswell and I’m not sure we will find the right target audience there.
They need to grow massively to convince me for example to switch from TG, Discord or X to Farcaster or Lens.
I have been using it quite heavy for a while but non gave me added value. I’m still using web2 social media to get what I need and I am looking for.

The problem is that you need massive amounts of money to grow uderbase right now or be lucky and develop the next TikTok that is getting millions of user creating content.

So for me personally there is no benefit for the DAO. It’s probably just going to cost us money again for someone handling those accounts with little to zero benefit.

[GensDAO]

@Tekr0x.eth

Current situation:

• Arbitrum has inactive accounts on Farcaster (last post 3 months ago) and Lens (last post over a year ago).
• There’s a Farcaster Arbitrum channel with 9.5K followers, but only a few posts per month - mostly by me.
• Base leads on Farcaster with 448K followers, and Jesse (founder) posts daily.
• Lens Protocol, live on Polygon for two years, is launching its own Lens Network (part of ZKSync’s Elastic Chain).

The problem is not just inactivity, but the lack of a differentiated strategy. Competitors such as Base and Polygon are gaining ground not by quantity, but by focus on builders and technical use cases. (like: Warpcast, https://base.mirror.xyz/)

@Tekr0x.eth

• Who should define strategy, set up a plan, and run activities? DAO? Foundation?
• Who should we be targeting: builders, users, governance participants?
• What metrics should define success?

Going point by point:
At this moment, The Foundation should lead the strategy (by technical capacity and resources), but with close DAO oversight to ensure community alignment. Example:

Create a “Growth Web3 Social Team” with 1-2 Foundation members + DAO contributors active on these platforms.

On "Who should we be targeting: builders, users, governance participants?”

I think there are these Priorities:

• Builders (90% of effort): Attract social app developers (e.g., tools for DAOs, monetization via $ARB).
• Governance participants (10%): Use channels like Farcaster for technical discussions on DAO proposals.
• General users: Ignore for now (user amount is too low, as @EzR3aL said).

On Key Metrics:

Qualitative: number of social projects being built on Arbitrum (e.g., integrations with Reddit, social gaming apps).

Quantitative:

Engagement on technical posts (developer comments, not just likes).

Not followers or empty posts (e.g. Base has 448K, but… how many bots?).

@EzR3aL

In my opinion it’s not very useful right now to use either of those web3 social protocols. There is simply nothing interesting happening. It’s a matter of fact that most people currently using it, are only there to farm for airdrops.

I share your analysis of the current situation. It is true that Farcaster, Lens and other social Web3 platforms do not yet offer a clear value proposition for general users, and “airdrop farming” dominates much of the activity. Nor is there sufficient user density to justify a massive effort.

The value here is not in the end user, but in capturing early builders (or so I believe). Projects like Base or Polygon are using these platforms to interact with developers experimenting with Web3 primitives (e.g. social NFT, decentralized monetization). If Arbitrum ignores these spaces, it will lose visibility against ecosystems that are building relationships there.

@EzR3aL

I’m still using web2 social media to get what I need and I am looking for.

The problem is that you need massive amounts of money to grow uderbase right now or be lucky and develop the next TikTok that is getting millions of user creating content.

Totally agree: Web2 is still unbeatable in reach and usability. Therefore, the ideal would be not to migrate to Web3 social to replace Twitter or Discord, but to use it as a complement for specific cases:

• Attracting developers to build native social apps in Arbitrum (e.g., tools for DAOs, integrations with Reddit).

• Monitor technical trends (e.g. social token standards, on-chain reputation frameworks) and position Arbitrum as a leading infratructure.

[Tekr0x.eth]

@GensDAO

The value here is not in the end user, but in capturing early builders (or so I believe).

This is a great point. We should consider Farcaster/Lens as a channel to reach builders. We have seen this with AI agents this cycle. So much innovation happened on Farcaster, and it happened super fast.

For founders, it made sense to launch there (and on Base), because early adopters to test dapp were there. This makes it a great channel for builders. A way to get first feedback fast.

@GensDAO

The value here is not in the end user, but in capturing early builders (or so I believe).

For example here is a Warpcast Founders channel. In my opinion, its a perfect channel to present our grants program to builders, like Arbitrum D.A.O. (Domain Allocator Offerings) @JoJo

@GensDAO

The Foundation should lead the strategy (by technical capacity and resources), but with close DAO oversight to ensure community alignment

I think this is a good balance. I messaged Hunter from Offchain Labs who is currently managing communications. I would like to hear his feedback on this.

There have been a lot of talks about delegates’ engagement and how we havea responsibility to present DAO to the outside. Many times this came up from negative posts about DAO on Twitter.

Maybe we should encourage delegates to be more proactive on social about good things happening in the DAO. Like running a great grants program for builders, etc.

Maybe this could also be a part of DIP qualification in the next versions. To reward good ambassadors of the DAO. @SEEDGov

[GensDAO]

@Tekr0x.eth

Maybe we should encourage delegates to be more proactive on social about good things happening in the DAO. Like running a great grants program for builders, etc.

Maybe this could also be a part of DIP qualification in the next versions. To reward good ambassadors of the DAO. @SEEDGov

Now this is a great point, not only the compensation for ambassadors, but what you say about encouraging more delegates to be more proactive in social networks.
I always say it but my expertise is in communication and sometimes just the simple is extremely effective, having so many proposals for digital marketing and influencers and networking strategy is effective but agreeing to simply have more proactivity in networks is a cheap, rational and effective option. Not even for a utilitarian issue but for commitment and proactivity.
I insist, you have a great point, I think that between this post, my comment and yours we are closer to find a very useful and interesting twist to the “image” and identity of the DAO on the web2.

[Chris_Areta]

@Tekr0x.eth

Arbitrum is falling behind on Web3 social.

Not sure how strongly I share this view. Besides the relative absence on these other platforms you’ve mentioned (which I don’t believe are very critical for growing mindshare) - Arbitrum has better or comparable levels on engagement on twitter than other ecosystems, possibly only behind Solana. Still I do agree there is massive room for growth and strengthening what we already have.

@Tekr0x.eth

Who should define strategy, set up a plan, and run activities? DAO? Foundation?

Don’t think the DAO should be defining a ‘social’ strategy so to speak. The DAO should focus on larger scale awareness efforts like events (there’s already ongoing work here with the DAO Events Budget) and funding other community building initiatives, which can (and will) trickle down to stronger social presence. One of the reasons for Solana’s recent growth and increasing visibility (even on socials) is due to their on-the ground strategy focused on establishing a presence in local communities / regions across the world (you can learn more about Superteam program here, which is active in 5 continents and at least 14 countries + 1000s of subregions). I believe if ArbitrumDAO could explore establishing / supporting this kind of flagship community program, we will not only massively grow our presence on socials, we will have access to a constant and diverse pool of talent / builders.

[Tekr0x.eth]

@GensDAO

simply have more proactivity in networks is a cheap, rational and effective option.

100% agree with that. We all should be more proactive, but we need to find a system to encourage that, besides just saying we should do it.

@Chris_Areta

Arbitrum has better or comparable levels on engagement on twitter than other ecosystems, possibly only behind Solana.

We have a good presence on Twitter, but our Web3 social strategy is non-existent. A good example is how Base used Farcaster for its super-fast growth.

My opinion is that high-quality builders are on Farcaster. There are cycles, but at its peak, Farcaster was booming with innovative apps (like AI agents, social-fi, community tokens,..) If we start working on our strategy there, we have more chance of attracting builders to Arbitrum.

@Chris_Areta

Don’t think the DAO should be defining a ‘social’ strategy so to speak.

The foundation is doing great things with its X accounts and events. This was the reason I started this post, because I belive we are missing the opportunity in the web3 social.

A recent report by AF showed there were 14 people full time in Marketing and Community in 2024.

Also, there are currently 6 job openings by the AF for these roles:

AF clearly wants to invest energy in marketing, but I belive strategy should be discussed also by the DAO. We have a lot of things to say and share about this topic.

[jchanolm]

Improving Arbitrum’s Presence on Web3 Social: An Onchain Impact Perspective

As someone with an interest in DAOs who participated in the Arbitrum governance data hackathon last year, I’ve been tracking this issue while working on a product that aggregates ecosystem updates across major L2s.

Here’s my perspective on how Arbitrum can improve its Web3 social presence:

Current Challenges & Opportunities

Arbitrum is indeed falling behind on Web3 social platforms. Looking at frame contracts deployed and user engagement on Warpcast, Arbitrum has the lowest adoption among supported chains.

This represents a missed opportunity to connect with builders and users.

Focused Strategy: Metrics That Matter

Rather than chasing follower counts, Arbitrum should focus on metrics tied to onchain impact:

1. Builder engagement - Track wallets of developers who follow/engage with Arbitrum accounts and correlate with deployment activity
2. Project growth - Measure new contracts deployed by engaged wallets
3. Transaction volume - Track onchain activity directly resulting from social promotion (especially via Frames)

Implementation Approach

Content Strategy

The core content strategy should highlight:

• Developer tools (particularly Stylus WASM VM)
• Grant opportunities and recipients
• Integration successes (like the recent Kinto adding support for Arbitrum’s Stylus)
• DeFi innovations (such as Cryptex Finance’s ARFI index basket for key Arbitrum protocols)

Here’s what those curated updates could look like in practice:

Warpcast/Farcaster Specific Tactics

• Revive the Arbitrum account with daily updates
• Create Frames that drive onchain engagement
• Develop a comprehensive ecosystem discovery pipeline within the /arbitrum channel
• Engage the 9.5K existing channel followers with high-value content

Other Platforms

• Focus efforts on Farcaster first, then expand strategically based on builder demographics

Measuring Success

With Warpcast connecting user wallets to onchain activity, we can precisely measure:

1. How many engaged social followers deploy contracts on Arbitrum
2. How much transaction volume is generated from Frame interactions
3. Growth in ecosystem activity correlated with social engagement

Strategic Integration

This approach should be explicitly included in the upcoming Strategic Objectives, with specific KPIs tied to onchain impact rather than vanity metrics.

Most importantly, Web3 social shouldn’t be viewed as just an awareness channel, but as a direct pipeline for generating measurable blockchain activity.

[Tekr0x.eth]

Awesome post @jchanolm Some great insight can be seen from your post and I like your proactive approach that you already posted an implementation plan. But another topic was posted on the forum yesterday about Arbitrum’s Ecosystem Marketing Plans

It looks like many people/teams are thinking about how we can improve our marketing. Great to see that!

But instead of each of us doing our own thing, it would be best to cooperate. The first thing would be to actively participate in the shaping of the strategy. To do that, we need to take part in the current Strategic Objective Settings (SOS). Is anyone here working on the SOS Matrix?

For example: Social presence was mentioned in @TempeTechie SOS submission (see Goal 2): [SOS Submission] Tempe Techie – Strategic Objectives

We can be active during the Feedback Period (April 9-30) to make sure marketing is included in the 2-year focus of the DAO. I think this is the best way forward.

[Euphoria]

The following reflects the views of the Lampros DAO governance team, composed of Chain_L (@Blueweb), @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.

Thanks for opening up this discussion @Tekr0x.eth and it’s an important one. We agree with the concern that Arbitrum has an official Farcaster and Lens account, but they are both inactive, while platforms like Base have already built strong communities on Web3 social.

Also, we want to mention we have seen @Tekr0x.eth as the only person posting in the official Arbitrum channel on Farcaster for quite a long time now about governance, voting reminders, etc. So we acknowledge the time and effort you’ve put in so far.

We want to support the general direction here and add a few thoughts that might complement what other delegates have already said.

@Tekr0x.eth

Who should define strategy, set up a plan, and run activities? DAO? Foundation?

We believe the DAO should define the high-level direction and expectations, still actual execution can be handled by a small working group something already other delegates have already proposed and as we used to have working groups earlier. As @GensDAO suggested, a team made up of 1-2 Foundation members and DAO contributors could work well to keep both alignment and execution speed.

We support this idea and believe this group should have a clear scope, starting with reactivating Arbitrum’s Farcaster account and the space and Lens presence, with content that resonates with builders, users, and governance folks.

@Tekr0x.eth

What metrics should define success?

Totally agree with what @jchanolm said — we should move away from vanity metrics like follower counts. Instead, we should track actions:

• Are builders discovering new tools or grants from Farcaster posts?
• Are governance posts getting people to vote or join discussions?
• Are devs from Lens tutorials actually deploying on Arbitrum?

These kinds of signals tell us whether the content is creating value or just making noise.

@Tekr0x.eth

Should this be included in the upcoming SOS (strategic objectives)? (exp.: Goal 2: Arbitrum has strong social presence and integrations)

Absolutely agree. A Web3 social strategy should plug into SOS and happy to see a goal by @TempeTechie and would love to add more details to it once the feedback period starts. Some examples such as, if we want more dev adoption, social content should highlight tools, new infra, and grant updates. If increasing governance participation is a goal, then regular proposal summaries and explainer content should be part of the feed. So a clear strategy needs to be developed to plan what needs to be marketed and using which social media platform.

And @jchanolm has already provided great insights with an implementation plan so it’s great to see we have many people thinking about increasing this aspect.

[Amira]

Hello there,

Thanks for the thorough analysis of the current situation.

@Tekr0x.eth

Current situation:

• Arbitrum has inactive accounts on Farcaster (last post 3 months ago) and Lens (last post over a year ago).
• There’s a Farcaster Arbitrum channel with 9.5K followers, but only a few posts per month - mostly by me.
• Base leads on Farcaster with 448K followers, and Jesse (founder) posts daily.
• Lens Protocol, live on Polygon for two years, is launching its own Lens Network (part of ZKSync’s Elastic Chain).

So far, I’ve mostly seen people talk about X. Even on X, there are so many Arbitrum-related accounts—we need clarity on which one is the official handle.

Appreciate you asking the most foundational questions.

@Tekr0x.eth

Open questions:

• Who should define strategy, set up a plan, and run activities? DAO? Foundation?
• Who should we be targeting: builders, users, governance participants?
• What metrics should define success?
• Should we expand to other Web3/alternative social platforms like Nostr, Mastodon, BlueSky, or DeSo?
• Any other ideas on how to improve Arbitrum’s presence on these new social platforms?
• Should this be included in the upcoming SOS (strategic objectives)? (exp.: Goal 2: Arbitrum has strong social presence and integrations)

This has been on my mind for a while, but I didn’t have the courage to bring it up. Since you raised question 1—who’s even managing the official X account?

I remember some ambassadors being selected—what are their responsibilities, and how are they chosen? I always assumed ambassadors would drive more engagement and excitement around Arbitrum, but that wave still feels missing. Are they looped in when big updates happen, or do they just post independently?

@Tekr0x.eth

Who should we be targeting: builders, users, governance participants?

To answer question 2: who should we be targeting?

From what I understand, builders and developers are our core users. Governance participants are more like org members. So we should be focusing on builders who want to use the Arbitrum network to build products.

@Tekr0x.eth

Should this be included in the upcoming SOS (strategic objectives)? (exp.: Goal 2: Arbitrum has strong social presence and integrations)

And to your final question—A strong social presence can never be a strategic goal; rather, it is a means to achieve our strategic goals.

Thanks again for opening this up. A strong presence on socials is critical, and we don’t need to wait for SOS to define that. First step? Let’s figure out the team that’ll lead this.

[404DAO]

Hey @Tekr0x.eth we wanted to answer some of your questions and guide this conversation constructively. TL;DR We value marketing but we’re uncertain whether the DAO has the necessary capabilities to execute a marketing strategy that’s distinct yet complementary to the existing efforts of the Foundation and Offchain Labs.

@Tekr0x.eth

Who should define strategy, set up a plan, and run activities? DAO? Foundation?

The Foundation as well as other key Arbitrum stakeholders are currently driving marketing efforts.
As you point out in the Foundation’s Transparency report, they have an existing marketing team. Offchain Labs, of course, also does.

With that said, the DAO could explore a unique community-first strategy focused on deepening engagement with creators, influencers, and brands.

@Tekr0x.eth

Who should we be targeting: builders, users, governance participants?

All of the above to deepen engagement.

@Tekr0x.eth

What metrics should define success?

Follower count, growth trends, community sentiment, number of influencers/brands engaged, etc.

@Tekr0x.eth

Should we expand to other Web3/alternative social platforms like Nostr, Mastodon, BlueSky, or DeSo?

Depends if the goal is to engage a new audience segment.

@Tekr0x.eth

Should this be included in the upcoming SOS (strategic objectives)? (exp.: Goal 2: Arbitrum has strong social presence and integrations)

Possibly—but a strong business case would be critical, supported by data-driven insights from other ecosystems, a clearly defined ROI, and evidence that the DAO has the required capabilities to execute on a cohesive and differentiated marketing program.

[bertani]

@Tekr0x.eth

Arbitrum is falling behind on Web3 social. How can we change that and build a stronger presence?

I think the @ arbitrum account on Twitter is strong and it seems to have similar metrics to its competitors. But, I agree that there’s a problem. I identify it as the lack of communication of DAO-funded initiatives from that account.
@ arbitrum is the account with the largest reach, yet we don’t use it to communicate relevant initiatives. Examples include LTIPP, STIP and STEP - all well-funded or high-impact initiatives that afaik were not communicated via the @ arbitrum account.

As for Farcaster, Base has a clear advantage there given the close relationship between the two projects/teams. That said, I agree we should put more effort into growing there.

[Jose_StableLab]

Thank you for bringing this topic. We believe that establishing a stronger presence on Web3 social platforms can be beneficial. However, attracting users through web3 socials should come from a higher-level decision for the DAO’s strategic goals.

Offchain Labs’ efforts to promote the Arbitrum ecosystem are satisfactory so far, with 1.1M followers in X (ex Twitter). The current web3 social user base is already in crypto and with inflated metrics due to airdrop farming, which doesn’t seem an attractive environment to onboard new web3 users.

We see the benefit of folding this into the Strategic Objectives (SOS) if the DAO collectively determines that a bolstered Web3 social presence aligns with near-term or medium-term goals.

As with any initiative, it’s essential to define success metrics and assess them through ongoing analysis. For example:

• Adoption Metrics: Growth in unique Arbitrum-related posts and user interactions on Farcaster or Lens.
• Engagement Metrics: Likes, reposts, comments, and mentions on Web3 social platforms.
• Conversion Metrics: Understanding how these engagements translate into real-world outcomes, e.g., more developers building on Arbitrum, more active governance participants, or increased community-driven proposals.

By regularly reviewing these metrics, we can determine whether certain platforms are delivering real value and adjust our strategies accordingly.

[jchanolm]

Sharing a resource for anyone interested in exploring Farcaster: farcaster.usequotient.xyz

It’s a research + search agent that takes a natural language query, i.e. “Who is promoting Arbitrum on Farcaster” and returns a report (with citations) in response.

Example report:

[Tekr0x.eth]

Last week at ETH Bucharest, I had some great conversations with fellow delegates, as well as folks from the Arbitrum Foundation and Offchain Labs (just to clarify, these were individual convos — not official org statements). These chats made it clear to me that there’s a lot we could learn by simply mapping things out.

The idea is to visualize how each contributes to the brand strategy — and where there might be gaps, overlaps, or differences in how things are being executed, both operationally and strategically.

I’ll be starting with a mix of interviews and my own online research. All findings will be shared here as I go.

Overall, I don’t think the current marketing efforts are bad - far from it. But I do think there’s real value in looking at things with a critical eye. Hopefully, this can help us push Arbitrum’s brand strategy to the next level.