Crowdfunding

13 Tips to Promote Your Crowd Funding Campaign

Crowdfunding

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The term “crowdfunding” means: You need a crowd to fund your idea.  And: supporters of your crowdfunding campaign are your (future) customers.  You also will get for FREE what industries have to pay for top $$$ when you are running a crowdfunding campaign: responses to your pledge proof the interest in your book or product.
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First Steps in Promotion
Plan well ahead to get a great start. According to Kickstarter’s own data: the vast bulk of backers seem to happen at the very beginning and very end of a project.

Approaching family and friends might be your first step.
Checking your email contacts, Facebook and Twitter friends and Google+ or LinkedIn followers for those who might help to support your campaign is the next.  Customize your pledge!  You wouldn’t send the same note about supporting your crowdfunding project to a social media acquaintance or business associates as you would to a family member or a good friend.

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Rich Brooks explains in an article: “You’ve heard the old saying, ‘you only get one chance to make a first impression.’   Well, it is even tougher on popular crowdfunding sites where there are 30 other projects simultaneously trying to make a first impression on the same page.  Moreover, do create compelling rewards!
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Considering that only a small percentage – max. twenty percent of any fan base will actually donate, the more followers and fans you can assemble, the better your chances of success.  When identifying people who can help promote your campaign, think about all the folks who relate to your project.  You want to find groups that have the same goals as you do; they’ll be the most motivated to support your efforts.

Websites & Social Media to Promote Your Crowdfunding Campaign:

  1. Before you start your website und sign up for several social media sites: Get your Google+ site running, but not one, set up several sites for your crowdfunding campaign.  To be on Google+ with several accounts means to get every post directly on to Google’s search engines!
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  2. After signing up for Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr etc. get as many followers as possible, and follow and re-tweet others as much as possible.  If you only have a personal Facebook, Twitter or Google+ page, start one for your campaign. Find real friends on these sites who are helping to promote your campaign (after you helped them promote their pledge or book or other agenda).
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  3. The best site to promote your crowdfunding campaign is…your own website!  It is easy and often free to put together a simple website with a home page and a blog, using WordPress.org, WordPress.com or Blogpost.com.  Write and blog at least two times a week for a couple of months before and during your campaign.  And immediately post or tweet your article!
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  4. Add your project to Kicktraq as soon as it goes live – by simply placing your Kickstarter web address into the search bar.  This site tracks Kickstarter campaigns, providing information on daily pledging and estimates on how likely a campaign is to reach its funding goal.  Campaigns that were added on their first day go into a special list that people can browse and the site has several other categories where your campaign can be found by visitors.
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  5. Crowdfunding communities members on Google+ start at 180 members to more than 18,000 and have the same benefit as every post is immediately seen on Google’s search engines.  The group is also more active than others and you can pick up some great ideas on how to promote your crowdfunding campaign besides just posting your link and talking about the campaign.
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  6. As with all social media groups, be sure to answer questions from other members and be social besides just posting links to your own campaign.
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  7. Another benefit: Every post of others that you “plus”  on Google or repost their article will show up on the search engines – with a link to YOUR site!  Being very active on Google+ helps your campaign immensely.
    LinkedIn has a large and strong community of groups dedicated to crowdfunding.  Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and other crowdfunding groups on LinkedIn are also pretty engaged.
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  8. Use tools such as HootSuite, Buffer, SocialOomph, SproutSocial, TweetDeck… to schedule automated posts to your social media accounts.  Many are free and allow you to post on multiple social media sites simultaneously – big time savers!
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  9. While it is generally for selling stuff, Craigslist also can be a good resource to promote your crowdfunding campaign.  Post in the discussion forums or in one of the other categories.  If your crowdfunding campaign offers rewards, try posting as if a reward were a product for sale to get people to come to your page.
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  10. Forums can be another great place to promote your crowdfunding campaign and are usually a little more active than social media groups.  There are a couple of crowdfunding-related forums and a few that are directly related to your campaign topic.
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  11. The Google+ Crowdfundingforum has over 18,000 members and tens of thousands of posts with usually a couple of hundred members online at any given time.  You’ll find posts for general crowdfunding questions and project manager tips on different types of crowdfunding.
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  12. Most of the posts on Kickstarter Forum are for rewards-based crowdfunding.  However, it is not affiliated with Kickstarter.
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  13. Articles about campaigns and interviews with campaign owners can be found on the Crowd101 blog.  Talk with others about crowdfunding, something that interests the audience.  This blog is more a social media site – less to promote your own campaign. But you are much more likely to get your article read and shared. That means your short description of the campaign and link gets seen by more people!
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You can see how important it is to start preparing your crowdfunding campaign as soon as possible – months before you actually begin to pledge at the crowdfunding site.
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Find more tips:
https://www.savvybookwriters.com/what-we-learned-from-thom-feeney-about-crowdfunding/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/11-tips-for-crowdfunding-how-to-raise-money-from-strangers/

http://bit.ly/1I8FobT

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