Cryptocurrency has the potential to revolutionize how the world transacts. One of the leading companies to emerge amid the sector’s growth has been OKX. Haider Rafique, the crypto trading platform’s global chief marketing officer, took the stage Wednesday at Adweek’s Social Media Week Europe to discuss how the platform is using social media and the right partners to build awareness for the potential of crypto alongside Adweek’s Europe brand editor Rebecca Stewart.
The market that never sleeps
According to Rafique, the most exciting thing about the crypto landscape for marketers is that it’s always “on.”
“The fact that these markets are 24/7, people broadly in the world are used to markets that open up on Mondays and close down on Fridays, there are weekends, holidays, and in crypto, the fascinating thing is these markets don’t stop. They’re running constantly.”
Rafique said OKX makes it a point to take a fun and out-of-the-box approach to advertising, allowing the platform to stand out from its competition. The platform leaned into this during its rebrand earlier this year.
“One of the things we wanted to do was create a brand that had a lot of appeal and would attract people. But more importantly, we wanted to create a brand that could speak to the future of the company and the industry,” he said.
To help amplify its message and mission, Rafique said OKX needed to find the right partners. Although the brand’s partnerships with the likes of Manchester City and the Tribeca Film Festival may have surprised some, Rafique said his company dug deep to ensure they were the right fit.
“When we rebranded ourselves, we knew one of the things that was critical to our playbook was associating ourselves with the world-class brands that could help amplify our brand and bring us to the global stage,” he explained.
Using social media to build trust
Rafique calls social media the most fundamental fabric for engaging with customers in the crypto space, alluding to how much of the news in the crypto space is broken on Twitter.
“Twitter is also a great channel for us to engage with customers,” he said. “The best platform to nurture customers, interact with customers, have a voice of customer signal, is ultimately social media. It’s not just about pushing your products out on social. For us, it’s more important that we listen to customers.”
