{"id":462,"date":"2024-10-28T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/28\/5-marketing-strategies-polymarket-is-using-to-be-everywhere-at-once\/"},"modified":"2024-10-28T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T11:00:00","slug":"5-marketing-strategies-polymarket-is-using-to-be-everywhere-at-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/2024\/10\/28\/5-marketing-strategies-polymarket-is-using-to-be-everywhere-at-once\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Marketing Strategies Polymarket Is Using to Be Everywhere at Once"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve followed the news or opened X this fall, you\u2019ve probably seen Polymarket<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s that prediction market for politics (and more) that\u2019s been all over the place lately. I\u2019ve been following their rise for the past year from a no-name niche betting market to over $1B assets under management \u2014 with the CEO on the cover of Forbes and presidential candidates mentioning them in speeches.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Throughout the rise of Polymarket, I\u2019ve become friendly with a few members of their growth marketing team here in NYC. And the one thing I keep asking them again and again is: \u201cHOW ARE YOU GUYS EVERYWHERE????\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned.<\/p>\n

A Breakdown of Polymarket\u2019s Marketing Strategy<\/h2>\n

Screenshot Marketing<\/h3>\n

The first time most people come into contact with Polymarket isn\u2019t their site or app.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s usually a screenshot posted on social media or across the news. And if you look at any screenshot of Polymarket, you\u2019ll see their name and logo.<\/p>\n

\n

There’s a 78% chance this election will have record voter turnout. pic.twitter.com\/aJVSyYOmND<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Polymarket (@Polymarket)
\n October 23, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This placement was not an accident, I promise you that.<\/p>\n

During talks with their team, I learned there was quite a lot of A\/B testing done to make sure their logo would appear on almost any possible screenshot.<\/p>\n

Anytime a screenshot is shared across the internet, from X to LinkedIn to TikTok to Reddit, Polymarket is right there.<\/p>\n

The logo and name are colored light gray so it\u2019s not too in-your-face to the point where you\u2019d want to crop it out. They\u2019re smarter than that. Instead, the logo is just subtle enough to be seen, but it doesn\u2019t take anything away from the image.<\/p>\n

This is a genius strategy built for the age of social media that couldn\u2019t have existed a couple decades ago.<\/p>\n

In fact, there\u2019s even a term for this style of marketing: it\u2019s called screenshot marketing<\/a>, and it involves using screenshots to make your marketing feel more natural.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like sending screenshots of someone\u2019s messages to a group chat. It\u2019s juicy. Intriguing. And in the age of AI pictures and Photoshop, screenshots are unfiltered and raw.<\/p>\n

Polymarket lives and breathes off screenshot marketing. $23B cybersecurity brands like Wiz do it<\/a>. And I\u2019ve used screenshots to go viral dozens of times.<\/p>\n

\n

Tricking AI replybots on LinkedIn is genius pic.twitter.com\/hpOBwR3A47<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin)
\n July 31, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In marketing, you always want to be as authentic as possible \u2014 and there\u2019s nothing more authentic than sharing a basic unedited screenshot with your following like you would with your friends in a group chat.<\/p>\n

Founder-Led Marketing<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m a firm believer every startup should be doing founder-led marketing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re Elon or an 18-year-old AI founder, you should always be the biggest voice and proponent of your company. If the founder isn\u2019t yapping about the company, then no one else will be.<\/p>\n

The founder of Polymarket, Shayne Coplan, definitely believes in the importance of founder-led marketing.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s built his audience up to 26,000+ followers on X, and he keeps his content to a strict diet of 100% Polymarket-related tweets and retweets.<\/p>\n

When Polymarket hit #1 on the App Store this October, Shane tweeted a simple screenshot (*cough cough* screenshot marketing) showing their success.<\/p>\n

\n

who would\u2019ve predicted this pic.twitter.com\/Sw5WmjuUlV<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Shayne Coplan (@shayne_coplan)
\n October 17, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Because there\u2019s been a lot of questions and attention on Polymarket betting versus regular polling, Shayne wrote a tweet to address this concern.<\/p>\n

\n

It’s important to understand how small a difference in probability 50% and 53% is. It’s microscopic.<\/p>\n

It’s not the same as 53 vs 47 in polling – it’s likelihood.<\/p>\n

With the increased attention on Polymarket, we need to do better to educate the public on how this actually works.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Shayne Coplan (@shayne_coplan)
\n October 9, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When Shayne spoke with famous political poller Nate Silver, he tweeted out the podcast to share this perspective on building Polymarket.<\/p>\n

\n

Nate Silver and I talk prediction markets. I grew up a huge fan of 538 so this one means a lot.<\/p>\n

Watch if you want perspective on why I’m building Polymarket.https:\/\/t.co\/wSWalsou9W<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Shayne Coplan (@shayne_coplan)
\n October 10, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Shayne is locked in!<\/p>\n

All Polymarket 24\/7. No selfies with his dog. No pictures of his Lamborghinis. Not even any pictures of his team. All business all the time. And that business is making billions on the internet. You gotta respect it.<\/p>\n\n

Social Proof<\/h3>\n

Typically when we think of social proof, we think of customer reviews.<\/p>\n

But for Polymarket, it\u2019s a little bit different.<\/p>\n

Rather than customers \u201creviewing\u201d Polymarket, their social proof strategy revolves around two things:<\/p>\n

Amplifying thought leaders who are talking about Polymarket.
\n Sharing new big bets on Polymarket (thus normalizing the act of betting on Polymarket). <\/p>\n

When other business leaders reference Polymarket, they repost it and hype it up.<\/p>\n

When Polymarket hit #1 on the app store, Shayne tweeted a picture of it. When a presidential candidate talked about Polymarket during a speech, they tweeted about it.<\/p>\n

But talk is cheap.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more important for them is showing that people are actively putting money into the platform. They frequently tweet out screenshots of big bets and share updates around them.<\/p>\n

(There we go with the screenshot marketing again!)<\/p>\n

Capitalizing on \u2018The Current Thing\u2019<\/h3>\n

The public\u2019s attention shifts like Charlie Sheen checking in and out of rehab programs. Remember him? Oh yeah, it\u2019s been a while since he was The Current Thing.<\/p>\n

See, with the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, there\u2019s always a new current thing. And whatever The Current Thing is, people can\u2019t get enough of it.<\/p>\n

Polymarket is built perfectly<\/em> to capitalize on The Current Thing.<\/p>\n

Anytime there\u2019s something happening in the news, Polymarket spins up a betting market for it, which they then make content to promote. It\u2019s the perfect cycle. And during the election season, there\u2019s a new current thing everyday.<\/p>\n

Here, you can see their post about the latest swing state odds<\/a> keeping people up to date with the swing state current thing. When a new big movie is hitting theaters, they\u2019ll spin up a market for that<\/a> too.<\/p>\n

Because The Current Thing is always changing, there\u2019s literally a never-ending flood of good content ideas \u2026 which also means a never-ending flood of memes to be made.<\/p>\n

Meme Marketing<\/h3>\n

The Polymarket team are some of the best memelords on the internet.<\/p>\n

I originally became friends with the Polymarket growth marketing team because they\u2019re customers of my meme marketing software, Memelord Technologies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(If you haven\u2019t already read my last HubSpot post on meme marketing<\/a>, check it out.)<\/p>\n

While Polymarket is a serious business with billions of assets under management, they also have a team of silly viral memelords on staff \u2014 and even more meme pages and freelancers on a consulting basis.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because when it comes to capitalizing on The Current Thing, memes are the #1 tactic. They\u2019re free, fast to make (and great for time crunch), and by nature, they can easily be shared and go viral.<\/p>\n

The tactic that really blew me away though was how their social media intern put Polymarket merchandise on popular memes. It\u2019s literally such a smart hack. You take an easily recognizable meme and put your brand assets on it. Easy.<\/p>\n\n

The coolest part though is that they don\u2019t just use memes for their content. Memes are baked into their product UX and philosophy.<\/p>\n

Not only do they post memes, but they spin up silly memey non-serious betting markets about whatever The Current Thing is. Like betting markets on whether presidential candidates will say \u201cskibidi\u201d or \u201cbrat\u201d before the election.<\/p>\n

These silly betting markets are a perfect recipe for virality. Money + Absurdity = Virality.<\/p>\n

How You Can Market Like Polymarket<\/h2>\n

Obviously, not all of us want to talk about politics in our marketing.<\/p>\n

And even if we do, most of us can\u2019t at work.<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t incorporate trends and whatever The Current Thing is into our strategies.<\/p>\n

Every industry has its own current thing \u2014 whether it\u2019s OpenAI\u2019s exodus of employees in the Silicon Valley startup community, the Met Gala in the fashion world, or maybe Black Friday for the e-commerce industry.<\/p>\n

Look out for The Current Thing and jump on it as soon as possible. Whether it\u2019s using my daily email of new viral memes<\/a>, X\u2019s new trend analysis tool<\/a>, or Hubspot Trends<\/a>, make sure you\u2019re incorporating new trends into your marketing.<\/p>\n

BUT \u2026<\/p>\n

… That being said, you can\u2019t just rely on trends.<\/em><\/p>\n

Even me as the meme marketing guy, I don\u2019t think you can just rely on just memes or capitalizing on The Current Thing for your marketing.<\/p>\n

Yes, I wrote a book called Memes Make Millions<\/a>, but they can only make you millions if you have a good product and message.<\/p>\n

This is what Polymarket has done so well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just memes and trends and news that is stale 24 hours later.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Shayne clearly explaining why he\u2019s building Polymarket. It\u2019s Shayne going on podcasts with industry leaders like Nate Silver.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the social proof of retweeting people like Elon Musk talking about Polymarket.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the constantly updated screenshots of political markets. It\u2019s the Forbes cover and billions of assets under management.<\/p>\n

Polymarket\u2019s marketing perfectly blends capitalizing on The Current Thing and using timeless marketing techniques. It\u2019s truly brilliant to witness.<\/p>\n

Watch out folks \u2014 I think we\u2019re witnessing the beginnings of a generational company.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve followed the news or opened X this fall, you\u2019ve probably seen Polymarket. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internship.infoskaters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}