Social media and crowdfunding go hand in hand. If you’ve come across a campaign that’s getting a lot of buzz and backers, odds are the project’s team has cracked the code to spreading the word via social media. We interviewed a group of successful Indiegogoers, Kickstarters and crowdfunders to find out their best social media strategies for crowdfunded campaigns and pass them on to you.
Send An Email Blast To Your Connections
Mike Street created his crowdfunding campaign in order to raise funds to attend Blogalicious 5. He surpassed his goal, and found that email blasts helped put him over the top. His tip? “Use your LinkedIn connections and export their email addresses from the system and send out an email blast via MailChimp.” It’s an easy way to reach everyone in your network in one fell swoop.
Create A Central Hub
David Mullings used Indiegogo to fund his project “End of the Line,” a documentary about the Jamaican railroad. For him, having a central location for updates was key. “I created a Facebook fan page where people could see what was happening. A central location is always easier since not everyone was guaranteed to see my tweets or Facebook status updates.”
Identify Your Influencers And Thought Leaders
Jonas Hudson from Trailers From Hell launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of 1,000 episodes of Trailers From Hell. Since the site caters to a pretty niche audience, the team focused on using influencers to help spread the word. “The influencers and thought leaders in film are our hosts, or ‘gurus,’ and they have niche artist communities that enjoy discovering their work. Once they grab onto something they love, they turn to their social channels and voice their support. We started the campaign with a fairly sizable Twitter and Facebook following – nearly 100,000 aggregated liked and follows. Yet, our network of 45 plus Gurus, was the game changer as their fans multiplied our reach and got the Kickstarter message out.”
Give Supporters And Influencers The Tools They Need
Janna Leyde, author of “He Never Liked Cake,” funded her book by using Pubslush, and found that by giving materials to supporters and influencers, they had the materials they needed to spread the word. “I invited my most social media active friends and followers to help me out. I had 90 days and I chose to send out a mass email encouraging everyone to get involved anyway they could by sharing the information about my book and the campaign. I wrote out sample emails, tweets and posts that each person could use during the campaign, which I included in my mass email and three that followed as the end of the campaign came to a close: one month before, one week before and the day before.”
Find And Be An Active Member Of The Community
Chocolatier Mario Lurig went above and beyond with his geeky, chocolatey Kickstarter campaign by tapping into the community that would be most supportive. “The primary location I targeted was the Reddit community with this post. The tip is to not try and target a generic thought leader or focus on getting that *one influential person*, but rather get your project in front of the small community that cares about the same things that your project satisfies. Be part of that community prior to launching your campaign so that you understand the nuances of that particular community online.”
Show Your Gratitude
Kat Hurley funded her memoir successfully via Kickstarter by showing her gratitude socially. “My strategy was gratitude. Every day I’d post a thank you to my new Kickstarter backer. I’d friend them on Facebook and then tag them in the post. There were days when I was posting three or four times, but none of it sounded salesy. I was being authentic, I was showing gratitude, and people responded very well to that.”
Keep It Visual
Brian Davis’ Fix It Sticks Kickstarter campaign received nearly three times its funding goal, and he found that visual media was the key to success. “For nearly every update or social media post, have a video or photo to keep interest high.”
Inspired? Learn how to back your next research project by using crowdfunding.
