Lens is a decentralized and open social protocol that gives users and developers full control over their experiences. As a user, when you’re following and getting followed on social media, you create your own social graph. In regular, centralized social networks, once you switch from one to the other, you can’t take your followers with you. With Lens, you can. Your profile, data and your social graph are only yours, and Lens provides the rails to make full control over it possible to you.
Developers can build “clients” or apps on top of Lens, and when you connect your Lens profile to the apps, your connections and content are available in that app. If you don’t like an app, you can simply switch and all your data will follow you. It’s that simple.
Since Lens is a blockchain-based social network, and blockchains have tokens, people can also tokenize their content, for other people to collect it, for free or in exchange for some crypto tokens. The latter is optional, and not everything should be collectable. Just the things you think are important. That content becomes, once collected, an NFT that lives on people’s regular wallets. The important thing here is again, that you control the full experience. Share your content for free, or come up with monetization strategies, or just post. You are in control.
Decentralized social media is a really powerful tool, and combined with monetization rails, it has the potential to be bigger than decentralized finance. But there’s still a lot of work to be done to achieve this, and it starts with you: the user and owner of your social digital space.
For this guide, we assume that you already have a crypto wallet, and some $MATIC, which you’ll need to mint your profile.
If you don’t, that’s alright. We’ll help you out. If you are on mobile, we suggest you get a wallet like Rainbow, or of course, our favorite wallet Family. If you are on a browser, get Metamask. Follow all the instructions and make sure you keep your private key safe.
Step 1: Mint your profile. Think of a name that really suits you, and follow the Lens flow to secure it. You’ll need to pay a one-time fee of $10 or 8 $MATIC.
Step 2: EXPLORE - the Lens flow will take you to explore different apps - take your time to explore them all. For the sake of simplicity, since here we’re covering monetization on Orb Social, we’ll talk about that one.
Orb is a social media app that lets you make every post collectable. It is a super powerful tool: minting on Orb allows you to split your revenue and help others get referral fees in super easy ways.
Orb is especially great for creators that would like to make art, video, memes or hot takes collectable for their followers. It also allows for the creation of clubs, spaces where you can find content about particular categories such as /art, /food, and many others.
In order to thrive on Orb/Lens, it is important to build your audience, and therefore, your social graph. After all, we’re building on-chain social media. To grow your audience, you need to engage. Start by joining clubs, and following recommended people. Engage with others, share their posts and comment thoughtfully. You’ll make wonderful friends in no time, as Lens is full of amazing, open-minded peers ready to make more friends and help you out in your journey through decentralized social.
Everyone on Lens/Orb loves collecting content, so maybe give free mints a shot: maybe make a meme and make it collectable? See how many people engage in liking and sharing, and how many in collecting. Keep at it - establishing deep connections with an audience takes time, and is at the same time, absolutely rewarding. Nothing feels better than finding true connections and having fun together.
Once you’re comfortable with the steps above, think of a post that people would love to tip you for. Make it collectable, and maybe this time, start at a very low price, let’s say 20 $BONSAI. $BONSAI is the Lens’ community favorite memecoin and they love using it to collect other people’s posts.
You can also play with “reposting” rewards, splitting fees with someone that helped you create that particular piece of content and much more.
For this stage we recommend keeping the minting/collecting open for several days. You want to test your reach and how many people engage with the content.
Did it work?
Amazing. Now, let’s say you are a photographer, and would like for people to buy your best photographs, and establish your presence. Here's a nifty video guide from a community member.
In order to do this, here are some strategies and ideas that are proved to work and can help you grow your audience and encourage people to collect your work:
- Low prices + open distribution for several days will help you establish a bigger audience.
- Big mint prices might look ambitious and successful, but they actually discourage people from collecting, and we’re all learning new habits here.
- If you need guidance on pricing, the Dune dashboard is your best friend. Price your posts at avergae
- Content quality vs. content quantity: it’s really important to understand that not all posts need to be collectable, make only your best content collectable.
- Comment thoughtfully and support others by collecting their content. Giving back pays off and builds friendships and careers.
If you are ready to take it to the next level, you can also take a look at our Dune Analytics Dashboard by Seaport, just like Stani did here. You will find interesting users - connect and learn from them too! Our suggestion is to scroll all the way down to “User Activity” to find exactly a pricing range for your best quality content. At the time of writing we suggest open editions to be priced between 20-40 USD or 400 $BONSAI.
Social connections are extremely important and they drive everything. You're more likely also to buy something you friend has also collected, comment or liked. You are most likely to buy stuff from a salesperson you like and that has spent time looking after you. In the land of monetizable content, you are your own and best salesperson. Be kind, grateful and helpful to others, not because there’s a reward, but because we are all building this social digital space. You are all part-owners of the Lens protocol and we’ll only win if we work together.