The Dots 3rd Proposal: X & TikTok Growth
Proponent: 1jdqZ53uEWAVFMGD1FCYsUyu4BpqrbgwRw2NpKpPPPQEG2z
Date: 13th September, 2025
Requested: $39,000 USDT for 6 month of operational work.
Short description: The Dots is a meme and content production studio founded by two Polkadot fans in January 2024, with the mission to cover the Polkadot universe in a humorous, engaging, and easily digestible way - using our signature humor to attract and retain new users, while driving ongoing community work and maintaining TikTok growth and expansion for the ecosystem.
Previous Proposal: https://polkadot.subsquare.io/referenda/1091 (Audited by OGTracker: https://app.ogtracker.io/smallSpender/1091)
Who are we?
• Mantra, a Polkadot Rank III ambassador, Polkadot Community Manager, Meme Lord, professional content creator and ecosystem researcher.
• John Mental, a Polkadot Rank III ambassador, video production adept, professional content creator and contributor to the ecosystem since 2020. Councillor at Basilisk, contributor at Hydration.
What have we done so far and what’s our goal?
The Dots now has 5,435+ followers on X and 2,462 on TikTok. Over the past year, we’ve been actively building and engaging the community, collaborating with ecosystem projects, and creating consistent content. In doing so, we identified a strong demand for the Polkadot ecosystem to be showcased through short, digestible videos that make complex topics easy to understand and share.
We successfully launched The Dots as a video production team and have collaborated with a wide range of ecosystem leaders, projects, and builders - including Interview with Bill Laboon, Polkadot UX Bounty, Polkadot Marketing Bounty, Polkadot Blockchain Academy, WUD, Hydration, Mandala Chain, WebZero, DOTPlay (Polkadot Avatars), FIFA Rivals, and Pudgy Thailand, 265Dots.
We’ve proven our dedication and traction in the Polkadot community - not just through content, but through action. Our mix of insights, edgy style, market knowledge, and humor takes Polkadot community building to the next level. We already secured two OpenGov proposals previously and completed all milestones.
Main goal of the proposal is to break out of the echo chamber and make Polkadot accessible to mainstream audiences on TikTok and X - educating newcomers, simplifying complex topics, and sparking curiosity through content designed for the younger generation, the most promising audience for crypto adoption.
Analytics:
The Dots X Analytics over the past year
The Dots TikTok over the past 4 months
We’ve produced a total of 138 videos, generating more than 715,000 views and steadily growing both reach and engagement. Full breakdown of published videos and analytics can be found here.
Our main social media:
Each section is expanded on in detail in the Full Proposal.
Comments (2)
Saxemberg has voted AYE on the Polkadot referendum 1750. The Dots 3rd Proposal: X & TikTok Growth. We have insisted on funding for native creators.
Vote overrule procedure:
https://voting.opensquare.io/space/the-sax-guild/proposal/QmcvfBCasEPHPManCFfwZx3ypftwVrrNzptJrtEccfgbvr
Thanks to the Dots team for consistently promoting ecosystem projects without bias. The solid work you did promoting the UX Bounty when we were rolling out new programs was super appreciated. You’ve been great to work with and to follow on X, and I’d like to see your movement keep growing. That said, I do have a few questions and concerns related to this ask:
Have you considered approaching the Marketing Bounty for support? Curious why this is coming through OpenGov for what looks like a marketing initiative.
Engagement also seems to be trending down, and with the Kaito program ended, isn’t there a risk it continues to decline further?
On direction, I’m not convinced about funding AI-driven news highlights. This is probably my biggest hesitation before voting AYE. What makes the Dots special is the human element: the thoughtful (and often funny) posts and videos, and actually seeing the faces of the people behind the channel. Would you consider dropping the AI plans and instead using the funds to support your creators in making more custom content in-house? Even simple, gritty videos shot on phones or webcams would feel more authentic and impactful than automated feeds/updates, in my view.
@Flez
Hi Flez, thank you for the warm feedback, it’s really appreciated. Let me dive into your questions:
1. Our proposal covers two content pipelines TikTok and X, each requiring significant resources. We don’t want to scale them down, as both are critical for the community growth.
A. The Marketing Bounty does not fund X content. We managed to stay active through the Kaito Leaderboard, but we want to momentum keep going and expanding further.
B. We worked with the Marketing Bounty on TikTok, proved strong results, and showcased what formats can work. Marketing Bounty decided to move forward with larger agencies, while we chose to approach OpenGov. For this proposal, we’ve streamlined our scope, focusing on the most effective formats to ensure maximum impact
2. Indeed, engagement on X within Polkadot’s mindshare has decreased after the campaign ended. However, Kaito’s metrics and mindshare does not reflect real genuine demand and interest for the Polkadot ecosystem, as we saw a surge of low-quality AI slop toward the end of the Kaito campaign. We believe the community’s interest in Polkadot remains strong, and our goal is to sustain that momentum and keep growing it.
3. The AI component of our proposal is designed to build a universal tool that parses updates about Polkadot and broader crypto trends across X, TikTok, and other platforms. This will allow us to surface key news and trends faster and stay proactive in a rapidly moving environment. Importantly, we won’t rely on AI to generate content - it’s simply a tool to accelerate our workflow. Once developed, we plan to run it as a dedicated X account, giving the community a reliable, real-time source of updates.
The Dots will continue to focus on authentic, user-generated content with real people, guided by scripts and narratives we create ourselves. To support this, we’ve invested in a professional setup with camera and lighting for UGC videos, which remains our top priority.
Thank you for the thoughtful questions. Happy to answer anything further.