Technology
NClip: Building Stronger Creator Communities Through Engagement
Adrian Wilbrandt, founder and CEO of NClip, sees a pressing need in social media: turning casual followers into active community participants. Set to launch its beta version in early 2025, NClip introduces a creator space that rewards meaningful community engagement across social media channels.
Understanding the Community Challenge
As someone deeply immersed in gaming and online communities, Adrian’s vision for NClip stems from personal experience. “I watched YouTube videos before, and there was no way to monetize them,” he recalls. “I asked myself, ‘Isn’t there more we can do for communities?’ There are two entities, actually – a creator and a community. Both live for each other, but often not with each other.”
Adrian believes followers are no longer the metric creators should aim for. “The real metric is a strong, active, and engaged community,” he explains. “But this is the hardest thing for a creator because producing content is a full-time job. It is also a full-time job to keep the community active, engaged, and giving back to it.”
NClip’s Solution
NClip functions as what Adrian describes as a “payback for social media interactions.” The software enables creators to design custom engagement programs that reward meaningful community participation across their social channels.
Quest System Features
The software allows creators to develop various types of engagement opportunities through a quest system. “You can add quests here – everything you can imagine about all the platforms,” Adrian details. “You can add multiple choice questions where you give preset answers and open questions where you receive feedback on content or new product ideas.”
Key features include:
- Daily check-ins to encourage regular engagement
- Multiple-choice and open-ended feedback questions
- Voting mechanisms for community input
- Affiliate link tracking and rewards
- Secret codes that can be hidden in content
- Quiz features for community engagement
“For example, when you are a live streamer, you can release digits or letters over the stream, and setting them together will release a word that gives you access to solve the quest,” Adrian explains, highlighting the software’s versatility.
Customizable Rewards
The reward system allows creators flexibility in choosing incentives that match their community’s interests and available resources. “We think the best reward is the interaction between the content creator and the community member because it doesn’t cost anything,” Adrian notes. “Social recognition is the most valuable thing you can give to a community member.”
Available rewards include:
- Shoutouts in content
- Private messages via Discord
- Exclusive Discord roles
- Physical products (with the platform collecting shipping details from users)
- Digital rewards and recognition
- Community status markers
“A shout-out or a private voice message via Discord where you only say ‘Thanks for being an active part of my community’ – this simple thing takes the creator 10 seconds to make is more valuable than a discount code from a brand partner,” Adrian emphasizes.
Management and Analytics Tools
The software provides comprehensive tools for tracking and managing community engagement. “The quests that are solved by the community have to be reviewed by yourself,” Adrian explains. “Maybe you want to work with feedback or voting to export the results.”
Key features include:
- Dashboard analytics showing member counts and engagement metrics
- Quest completion tracking
- Reward distribution management
- Member directory with communication tools
- Export capabilities for data analysis
- Future email newsletter integration
“For the future, we are planning like an email newsletter tool,” Adrian adds. “You can do quests for marketing emails. The double opt-in is built into our platform so the creator can write emails from this members’ directory.”
Creating Positive Online Spaces
NClip’s approach prioritizes constructive interactions. The software uses AI technology to identify and reward positive engagement, addressing common challenges in online communities.
Promoting Constructive Interaction
Adrian explains that NClip aims to “make the Internet a better place.” “You will not get people to be nice when saying ‘You have to be nice,’” he states. “What works is rewarding everybody nice while muting those who aren’t. This is the absolute advantage of AI – we can say, ‘Hey, leave a positive comment,’ and the AI knows whether the comment is positive. It’s easy; there’s no magic behind it.”
AI-Enhanced Community Insights
The software’s AI capabilities extend to comprehensive content analysis. “AI creates many possibilities that will be useful to creators,” Adrian explains. “If you reach a certain number of Twitch chatters, you cannot follow the chat by hand. Your moderators aren’t doing anything else besides moderating the chat. You will never get questions unless they are asked twice or thrice.”
NClip analyzes content across platforms: “We can analyze Twitch chats to determine what’s happening in them. What’s the mood? What is the community looking for? What are they asking? What do they want to see? What’s the next content piece? And we can do it with everything.”
Maintaining Human Connection
While AI enhances NClip’s capabilities, Adrian emphasizes preserving genuine interaction. “I’m not a fan of letting AI take over the creator,” he states. “The relationship between creators and the community is the most valuable thing for me.”
Adrian adds that AI will support creators while they use it to automate community management and activation but strongly advises users “not to let AI completely take over. It should always be the human behind that interacts with the community.”
Business Strategy and Growth
NClip’s beta phase involves careful creator onboarding in one-on-one sessions, Adrian shares. “We spent a week just onboarding creators. They are setting up everything, from their first quest to onboarding their communities.”
The software remains free during beta testing. “The most valuable thing we can get now [while free] is just creators using it with their communities and then providing feedback to us,” Adrian notes. “We have created our own NClip page, rewarding creators for using the space. For example, you can get €100 as a gift code for your community when you solve NClip quests.”
The plan is to switch NClip to a tiered subscription model. “When you have 1,000 quests solved monthly, you must go into a higher tier, and the pricing ranges from €20 to €100. A small content creator doesn’t need to pay much money to start using NClip.”
Additional planned revenue streams include:
- Direct fan subscriptions for enhanced features
- A marketplace for brand-sponsored quests
- Integration with creator monetization tools
Building for Community Success
As NClip moves through its beta phase in 2025, Adrian notes that the focus will remain on user experience and platform refinement. “What we want to do next month is onboard creators and see how they use our tool. This is the most important thing for us,” he shares. “There’s a little bit of fundraising on our schedule. The biggest goal is implementing the AI and having the soft launch by the middle of the year.”
Adrian concludes with an invitation: “If anybody reading this wants to try it out, feel free. Contact me whenever you have any questions. I’m only trying to build something valuable for everybody in the end.”