Cover photo

The Farcaster Playbook for Media Companies

A tactical guide for podcasts, newsletters, and creators to build a presence on Farcaster.

Adrienne

Adrienne

Farcaster isn’t just another Twitter alternative. It’s an open protocol. That means you can do more than post: you can own your identity, reach your audience directly, and experiment with new forms of media and interaction that aren’t possible elsewhere.

As cohosts of Farcaster's longest running and number one podcast, GM Farcaster, Nounish Prof and I have been at the forefront of this shift. We’ve built a Farcaster-native media brand from the ground up, with live shows, podcasts, newsletters, community events, and an AI assistant—all integrated with the Farcaster protocol.

This playbook is open-source and based on everything we’ve learned since launching our media business on Farcaster in 2023. Farcaster has been an incredible place to grow both audience and community, and we’d love to see more media brands lean into this growing ecosystem. We’ve found success with tools like NFT mints, AI bots, and MiniApps, and we hope this guide helps you try them too.

→ Feel free to use this playbook, remix it, or reach out if we can help.

📝 The Playbook

The four primary building blocks we’ve found effective for establishing a media presence on Farcaster are channels, group chats, mini apps, and AI bots. Together, they form a lightweight but powerful foundation: a place to gather and connect with your community, a way to showcase your content inside the feed, and a smart assistant to help people explore everything you’ve made.

1. A Farcaster Channel

Think of a channel like a subreddit or hashtag you control. Channels create a dedicated space in Farcaster where you can post your updates, where your community can find you and get some basic information, and where anyone can indicate they're talking about your brand.

Having a channel in Farcaster is like putting up a shingle in the real world. A channel is dedicated real estate for your brand.

For GM Farcaster, we used our channel as the central hub for our show, the way traditional companies use websites. In fact, we used our channel as our "home page" long before we even had a website.

In this screenshot of our /gmfarcaster channel, you can see a few features of channels:

  • Name & Description - Establish your brand presence

  • Follower counts - People can follow channels the way they follow accounts. We have 17k followers for the GM Farcaster channel.

  • External links - You can easily link to your podcast or newsletter or website for people to learn more

  • Membership - You can set up membership to limit who can post to your channel

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The GM Farcaster channel

2. A Private Group Chat

Today’s media companies understand that a smaller but active community can be more valuable than a larger but passive audience. Farcaster supports private group chats - dedicated spaces where your most engaged followers can connect directly with you and with each other.

We use our GM Farcaster group chat to share previews of what we’re working on and to gather early feedback from our most loyal listeners.

3. A Custom MiniApp

MiniApps (formerly known as Farcaster Frames) are lightweight web apps that run directly inside the Farcaster feed, on both mobile and web. They feel like native apps but are just regular websites, so you can launch quickly without worrying about app store approvals.

Because MiniApps live inside the social feed, usage is almost always higher than standalone apps. Users can interact with your content without leaving Farcaster, and when they engage (watching, collecting, commenting) it happens in public, where others can see and join in. That’s where network effects kick in.

Every media company should consider launching a MiniApp. Why? Because the hardest part of running a show or newsletter is getting people to come back. Subscriptions help, but we’ve all seen what happens when Gmail tosses your email into the “Promotions” tab. A MiniApp gives you a direct line to your audience.

When someone saves your MiniApp to their favorites, you can send them push notifications. That means you can tell fans when you’ve released a new episode or published a newsletter, without relying on third-party algorithms or email filters. (But of course, be careful and don't abuse it, or people will disable alerts or remove your MiniApp.)

We built a MiniApp for GM Farcaster so users could watch our live stream without leaving Farcaster. When someone is scrolling the feed, they don’t want to jump to YouTube or Spotify. Now, every time we go live, we send a push notification, and fans can watch the show right inside of Farcaster.

We also added a “Cast that you're watching” share button to the MiniApp that encourages users to cast about our show to their followers, further amplifying the episode to others on Farcaster and drives more views, more discussion, and more community engagement.

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Our Miniapp where users can watch our latest episode

4. An AI Assistant

Farcaster is a social network, which means everything happens in the feed. Users post casts, reply to others, and all of it is public and searchable.

So what if your brand could be part of that conversation—literally?

That’s where an AI Assistant comes in. Instead of thinking of it like a chatbot hidden on a website, think of it as a Farcaster user in its own right: replying to posts, answering questions, and surfacing content from your back catalog at the right moment.

For GM Farcaster, we built an AI bot called GMFC101. It looks like any other Farcaster user, but behind the scenes, it has access to transcripts from 300+ episodes of our show. It can help new users learn how to use Farcaster or point longtime fans to past discussions on specific topics. It lives in the feed, participates in real conversations, and is always on-brand.

It’s also open source. You can find the code here: github.com/atenger/Farcaster-101-API (Apache-2.0 licensed), and I wrote a detailed walkthrough of how I built it: How I Built GMFC101.

Why do you need an AI Assistant?

If you produce podcasts or video content, you’ve probably run into the same issue we did. Audio and video aren’t inherently searchable like text, so all that valuable content becomes hard to access. YouTube search only gets you so far as it relies on your titles, descriptions, or chapters. But how does someone search inside one of your conversations?

That’s what an AI Assistant solves. It unlocks your full catalog and makes it interactive, discoverable, and shareable—right where your community already is.


🧰 Tools and Tech Stack

Beyond the core playbook items above, Farcaster is made of legos, and that’s where the fun begins. These additional tools can be used to increase your brand presence and build deeper connections with your audience. Using crypto-native tools signals that your brand is aligned with the values of the Farcaster ecosystem: openness, experimentation, and community-driven growth.

For Distribution & Engagement

Paragraph.xyz - Syndicate newsletters directly to Farcaster
Users can read your posts in the Paragraph miniapp without leaving the feed, and subscribers get push notifications when you publish. It’s like Substack, but crypto-native.

Ponder - Create native polls inside the Farcaster feed
Ask your audience things like “Which topic should we cover next?” or “What’s your favorite episode so far?” Polls are a great way to boost interaction and crowdsource ideas in public.

Buoy - Real time keyword alerts
Set up real-time alerts whenever someone mentions your brand on Farcaster. It's a powerful social listening tool to track keyword mentions and stay in tune with the conversation about your content.

For Onchain Presence and Credibility

Pods.media - Host Your Podcast Onchain
With Pods, you can publish your podcast episodes onchain, letting users listen, mint, and collect them as NFTs. It creates a permanent record of your work and lets your audience own a piece of it. We’ve been using Pods since Season 3 of GM Farcaster to make our episodes more discoverable and collectible in the crypto-native world.

Zora, Highlight, Rodeo - Mint Media That Matters
These platforms let you mint full episodes, clips, artwork, newsletters, or one-off moments and share them on Farcaster. At GM Farcaster, we’ve experimented with all of them - from minting sponsor receipts to posting clips. Each platform offers different mechanics, and trying them helps you understand how your audience wants to engage.

Clanker - Launch a Meme Coin
Clanker lets anyone create a meme coin in seconds using nothing more than a cast. It’s a Farcaster-native tool that turns community memes into shareable, tradable assets. We launched $CastOut using Clanker during our CastOut competition. It’s playful, sticky, and a great way to gamify participation.

Hyersub - Build Memberships Onchain
Hypersub is a protocol for onchain memberships, similar to Patreon or NPR’s supporter model. You can offer perks like bonus content, early access, or shoutouts to fans who subscribe. We've had success with our GM Farcaster hypersub which allows people to directly support us and take advantage of membership benefits and perks.


💜 If It Worked For Us, It Can Work For You

Farcaster is still early. Farcaster users are curious, engaged, playful, and global. They don’t just consume media passively, they build with you, remix your memes, show up live, and give feedback that actually helps.

We’ve seen this firsthand at GM Farcaster:

  • Our community consistently joins live episodes and participates in the chat.

  • Livestream viewership jumped ~25% after we launched our MiniApp.

  • Our AI assistant has become a go-to for onboarding and content discovery.

  • Our Hypersub members actively help us shape the show.

If you’re looking to build not just an audience, but a community, Farcaster offers the most direct, flexible, and creator-friendly rails on the internet today.


💬 Want Help Getting Started?

We pioneered this model with GM Farcaster, and would love to see more media brands take the leap and join us on this sufficiently decentralized social network.

Now’s the time to get in early, grow with the network, and build a trusted presence while attention is still easy to earn. As Farcaster expands, early media brands will benefit from credibility, community, and momentum that’s hard to replicate later.

If you want to:

  • Launch a channel

  • Build a miniapp

  • Set up a meme coin or AI bot

  • Mint media onchain

  • Or just understand what’s possible...

Start experimenting with the four building blocks in this playbook, try the tools we recommended, and let us know how it goes!

Or if you'd like some help getting started, reach out and let’s talk

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GM Farcaster cohosts NounishProf and Adrienne (me) at ETH Denver Podcast Studio 2024

bradqFarcaster
bradq
Commented 1 month ago

3 great content items this week for those playing the Farcaster long game, that probably not enough people read: * This convo is gold if you are interested in FC growth challenges. It's @androidsixteen.eth & @cameron & then @dwr.eth jumps in; I'm linking to a specific cast so you see dan's responses but scroll to top | https://farcaster.xyz/cameron/0x341798b3 * @adrienne dropped 'A Farcaster Playbook for Media Companies' but it's applicable to builders beyond Media Companies | https://paragraph.com/@adrienne/the-farcaster-playbook-for-media-companies?referrer=0xA7F49EFDC904e8906817aFbEc3E2Ae73E2a4e113 * @reidtandy dropped his next in a series discussing coins, writers, & readers that is important for content creators to consider as he & @colin continue to explore how @paragraph can lead in web3 writing and content disruption | https://paragraph.com/@reidtandy/mixing-coins-and-nfts?referrer=0xA7F49EFDC904e8906817aFbEc3E2Ae73E2a4e113

Cameron ArmstrongFarcaster
Cameron Armstrong
Commented 1 month ago

🫡🫡🫡

Asha 🎩↑🔵Farcaster
Asha 🎩↑🔵
Commented 1 month ago

Just read through Android and Cameron's convo. I never get in my feed the type of videos Cameron shared. I'm probably living in a bubble 😅

Reid DeRamusFarcaster
Reid DeRamus
Commented 1 month ago

heyyo! thank you for sharing & the incredibly kind words!!

adrienneFarcaster
adrienne
Commented 1 month ago

I missed that thread about fc, thanks for highlighting it! 🙏

TariqulFarcaster
Tariqul
Commented 1 month ago

Great roundup — tons of signal here for builders and creators. 👏 Also, for those exploring Web3 gaming, don’t miss Ascend the End — a playable PvPvE shooter with a $10K tournament kicking off June 27! 🎮🔥 Join in: https://discord.gg/P5EjdQmJyd

Reid DeRamusFarcaster
Reid DeRamus
Commented 1 month ago

Welcoming you to the 45th edition of Paragraph Picks, highlighting a few hand-selected pieces from the past couple of weeks. ⤵️

Reid DeRamusFarcaster
Reid DeRamus
Commented 1 month ago

@jihad explores how economic infrastructure is becoming seamlessly integrated into everyday digital experiences, from programmatic tipping and stablecoin checkouts to instant DEX access. "Programmatic tipping makes the invisible labor of digital culture finally visible and economically meaningful." https://paragraph.com/@bedrock/003-the-embedded-economy

Reid DeRamusFarcaster
Reid DeRamus
Commented 1 month ago

@blockchainbrett makes the case that crypto’s most powerful mainstream catalyst will be enabling everyday people to earn real value by doing things they actually enjoy: playing, collecting, creating, and being early. "But wouldn’t it be awesome to make a living — or even just cover your side hustle needs — by doing something you actually want?" https://paragraph.com/@consumercrypto/have-fun-make-money

Reid DeRamusFarcaster
Reid DeRamus
Commented 1 month ago

@adrienne shares a tactical, open-source guide based on lessons from GM Farcaster, offering media brands a blueprint for building community, engagement, and ownership on Farcaster. "Farcaster isn’t just another Twitter alternative. It’s an open protocol." https://paragraph.com/@adrienne/the-farcaster-playbook-for-media-companies

BrightFutureGuy 🎩↑Farcaster
BrightFutureGuy 🎩↑
Commented 1 month ago

Lovely picks 🫶

adrienneFarcaster
adrienne
Commented 1 month ago

I wrote a playbook for media companies to grow on Farcaster 4 building blocks: 1. A channel 2. A private group chat 3. A mini app 4. An AI bot Plus, crypto native tools for distribution, engagement, onchain cred: →️ Paragraph - for newsletters →️ Ponder - for polls →️ Buoy - for keyword alerts →️ ️Pods - for podcasts →️ ️Zora, Highlight, Rodeo - for minting media →️ ️Clanker - for meme coins →️ ️Hypersub - for memberships Send this to media companies you wish would lean further into Farcaster. We deserve a /moz AI bot is all I'm saying https://paragraph.com/@adrienne/the-farcaster-playbook-for-media-companies

adrienneFarcaster
adrienne
Commented 1 month ago

tagging the best of farcaster media @boysclub @pauline-unik @christin @bankless @laurashin @erik @rsa.eth @trustlessstate @deana @caitcavell Would love to see miniapps and AI bots of your podcasts and publications! 💜 https://paragraph.com/@adrienne/the-farcaster-playbook-for-media-companies

christinFarcaster
christin
Commented 1 month ago

amazing work!!!

Pauline is based in Los FomosFarcaster
Pauline is based in Los Fomos
Commented 1 month ago

Thank you for the tag, @adrienne! Cc @losfomos and @tako-unik Diving right in 🕹️🕹️

BanklessFarcaster
Bankless
Commented 1 month ago

Just catching up — Very good read 🤌

adrienneFarcaster
adrienne
Commented 1 month ago

🙏 let me know if you want help setting up the bankless AI bot here :)

Nounish Prof ⌐◧-◧🎩Farcaster
Nounish Prof ⌐◧-◧🎩
Commented 1 month ago

420 $degen

Jack DishmanFarcaster
Jack Dishman
Commented 1 month ago

thank you for mentioning the clank!

adrienneFarcaster
adrienne
Commented 1 month ago

We love the clank!

Irina IdeasFarcaster
Irina Ideas
Commented 1 month ago

I need to distribute this across my other social media. Phenomenal overview @adrienne

Samuel ツFarcaster
Samuel ツ
Commented 1 month ago

happy to help any media company looking to enter here by guiding and developing. cc @yerbearserker who's building tools for everyone too

yerbearserker.base.eth 🏛️Farcaster
yerbearserker.base.eth 🏛️
Commented 1 month ago

I’d add EmpireBuilder /glanker to help anyone deploy a core token (as a clanker approved interface) to build around, as well as post-launch tools, resources, & services 😉 🫡 EmpireBuilder.world

LilPingFarcaster
LilPing
Commented 1 month ago

1000 $DEGEN

Dan SimmonsFarcaster
Dan Simmons
Commented 1 month ago

Great resource, love it! 👏👏

adrienneFarcaster
adrienne
Commented 1 month ago

Feel free to share it with any podcast creators!

coachcoale.base.ethFarcaster
coachcoale.base.eth
Commented 1 month ago

5. A coach :)

HaeleFarcaster
Haele
Commented 1 month ago

Thank you for sharing!

The Farcaster Playbook for Media Companies