PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SHILL THREAD
MARCH 22ND, 2022
A few new terms come with the NFT space, and one of those words is shill. The act of shilling is where an artist promotes and tries to sell/show work. Mostly, shilling happens under shill tweets, otherwise known as a shill thread. Anyone can create these threads. Shilling can also occur in 'spaces' on Twitter (where people can come together and speak verbally in a group). Shilling is usually done for oneself, but people can (and do) shill for other artists. There are disagreements about whether it's effective and if there is a 'proper' way to shill. The theories of shilling range from not caring where one shills, believing one should only shill under particular influencer's shill threads, and, finally, assuming one should only interact with a small number of artists one knows or believes in.
When it comes to the aimless shilling, an artist could be promoting on Twitter for hours on threads made by random people. The positive side to this is that some of these posts make it to the algorithm because of keywords, and someone might see the artist's comment. The other users in the thread might also review the comments and provide a retweet (RT) or like. These random shill posts will typically ask the artist to follow the original poster (OP) of the thread, or they might ask the artist to follow someone else.
Additionally, these posts will sometimes ask the artist to RT/like their post or another post for anything to reciprocate. Sometimes, the OP of a shill thread will claim that they will buy some of the artist's work and display a certain amount of cryptocurrency in the form of a screenshot. Before deciding to shill in a random shill thread, it might be essential to know a few things about the OP (their follower count, what their feed/timeline looks like, and, if OP is claiming to buy, a link that goes to OP's collection). Since most artists are not doing NFTs full time, doing the legwork for verifying OPs might take too much time – so some of these individuals have moved to only shilling under posts made by known influencers or top artists/collectors.
There are a variety of influencers, collectors, and prominent artists in the NFT community that host shill threads on Twitter. An aspect of following an influencer/collector for shill threads over an artist for shill threads is notifications/alerts. If posting in an influencer's thread is the individual's preferred method, it is best to have notifications on. To turn notifications on, navigate to the influencer's Twitter page, and once there, look for a bell up in the top right. Clicking this bell will turn on notifications, meaning you will be alerted when the influencer tweets – providing timely interactions on shill threads.
Lastly, some believe individuals should only promote on their feed (while interacting with active, well-known/established artists). This means that their feed and comments are curated for the most part. It also means they do not spend much of their time marketing their work on others' feeds. This should be taken lightly because if an individual is new to the NFT space, there is not much chance for this to work. When one is new, there are no established connections, followers, or collectors. After a few months of getting to know the community, shilling, and posting, an artist can morph from shilling to personal interactions and curated feeds.
Overall, shilling (and where to shill) is a personal choice. Whether one is shilling on random shill threads, influencer's posts, or curating their feed, the main goal is to get eyes on the work and make a sale.