Matt Bertram is Director of Strategy at EWR Digital. He sits down with Jessica Abo to discuss how to prepare your brand for Web 3.0 marketing.
Jessica Abo: Matt, what is Web 3.0 and how did we get here?
Matt Bertram: Web 1.0 was 1990 to 2005, 2006. The basic website, HTML, is only now starting to work like a payment. The rise of social media changed the world, where the problems really started, where they started monetizing our data. Web 3.0 is truly the next layer of the Internet. It will be everywhere. Everyone, every device, every app. Think about what Starlink is doing, wrapping the world with wifi, the Internet of Things, everything will be connected. AR, IR, Metaverse, NFT, Decentralized Applications, Blockchain. Artificial intelligence will have a place. Decentralized the web, everything is everywhere again.
Let me break it down in an actual comparison, just breaking down some tenants. For example, let’s use Twitter. Twitter, now, it can be censored. They can close your payment. So it’s permission based. If you want to interact with them, you must provide them with all your personal data. Then there is the centralization. It’s a server, and if something goes down, everything goes down. Web 3.0 is uncensorable. They can’t be closed. Similar to Condor, which dates back to federated social media, it’s peer-to-peer. You cannot be turned off. It is fully encrypted. It’s permissionless, so you can pay anyone directly. No one will stop you from doing this. It is decentralized. The Internet is the fastest growing technology in all recorded history. It’s growing about 63% a year, year after year. Blockchain is growing about 113% annually. So the speed of the internet doubled. At this rate, within four to five years, half of the world’s population will be using blockchain.
Related: Blockchain is Everywhere: Here’s How To Understand It
What role do you think blockchain will play in Web 3.0 marketing?
Bertram: Web 3.0 marketing is more than just having a website or SEO or AdWords. It’s enhancing the way you interact from the ad level and creating a richer experience to be able to interact with your customers through more targeted ads, AI-driven personalization, and a truly decentralized messaging framework. This will be reused, reshaped. You will be able to get your data back, and you will be able to monetize it yourself, or you will be able to keep it private if you wish. It will be a better way of working together.
What are your thoughts on Web 3.0 marketing and social media?
Bertram: Web 3.0 is building more meaningful relationships with your customers and is helping to create partnerships that benefit everyone, not just businesses, right? We’ve all heard that if you don’t pay for the product, you are the product. So it’s time for businesses to stop thinking about customers as numbers in a database and think more about people who are looking for a similar experience, product or value.
Related: Web 3.0 is coming, and what it really means for you
In your opinion, how can companies prepare their brands for Web 3.0 marketing?
Bertram: Businesses should pay close attention to users. They should focus on user experience, user interface, and how to interact online. They do need to increase transparency and authenticity as we move into decentralized structures. Users will have more control over their data. It will be more like you are communicating with each other. Business owners, more secure data, more transparency, there are many advantages. Then think about content creation, not just blogging, maybe NFTs.
