How can Brands Use DAOs to Build Communities?

“Brands think about DAOs as they think about how their brand develops over time and how close they would like their community to come into that. What really gets interesting is co-creation for DAOs. It allows the community – if the brand is willing – to participate in the development of the brand.”

-Jeremy Gilbertson
Metaverse expert

As you manage your brand and the stories that serve as proof points to its ethos, what tactics have you been using so far to build a deeper bond with your community?

In an earlier story I’ve written about the various roles an audience could play; from passive to super active.

A new addition to your community-building tactics you may want to evaluate are DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations).

DAOs leverage the power of blockchain to form communities around a common mission.

Growing up in Israel, a DAO reminds me of a kibbutz but on the blockchain 🙂 Kibbutz or a commune is “an Israeli collective settlement, usually agricultural and often also industrial, in which all wealth is held in common. Profits are reinvested in the settlement after members have been provided with food, clothing, and shelter and with social and medical services (Britannica).”

What is a DAO?

According to Wikipedia:

“A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), sometimes called a decentralized autonomous corporation (DAC), is an organization represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by the organization members and not influenced by a central government. A DAO’s financial transaction record and program rules are maintained on a blockchain.”

I further got intrigued after reading Jeremy Gilbertson‘s insightful article in Variety that covered how artists can use DAOs to mobilize their communities. 

So with that, I figured it would be good to chat with Jeremy about how DAOs can also help brands build communities as part of their larger metaverse strategy.

In this episode, we talked about what is a DAO? What are the key types? Misconceptions? What are the benefits for brands as a way to build and mobilize audiences? The process of forming a DAO, examples, challenges, his top 3 tips – and much more (see full topic list below).

It’s all in the latest episode of the Visual Storytelling Today podcast.

Watch the full video recording of this interview:

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Topics we discussed:

Use the time stamp markers in the above video to navigate.

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:11 Backstory
• 4:44 DAO definition
• 6:31 The process
• 9:39 Social tokens vs. DAOs
• 13:23 Managing conflicts
• 14:57 DAO types
• 18:15 Member roles
• 21:41 Legal & tax implications
• 24:10 Tools to get started (Aragon, Dao Haus or Syndicate).
• 26:03 Marketing goals
• 35:39 Success criteria
• 38:30 typical steps
• 41:23 Top 3 tips