The going social phase of your crowdfunding campaign is focused on getting lots of social shares to get the word out about your crowdfunding campaign. In most cases, the going social phase should take you about a week or so to do effectively.
Facebook Campaign Page
One of the first tasks in going social is developing a campaign Facebook page. While there are many social media platforms Facebook has the broadest user base and is, therefore, a must for any crowdfunding campaign. The goal of the campaign’s Facebook page is to build awareness of your upcoming crowdfunding campaign and to receive Facebook Page likes and accumulate a base of fans. A Facebook Fan is defined as a user who liked your Facebook Page. You need to accumulate as many fans as possible before launching your campaigh so that your organic content (Content that you post on your Campaign’s Facebook page timeline) will stand a better chance of reaching your target audience’s newsfeed.
Once your campaign Facebook fan page is complete, you should reach out to the other campaign owners you spoke to a few weeks earlier during the Campaign Research step and ask them to tweet or share your campaign Facebook page through their social network. It is always a good practice to ask them if you can help them in any way since they have been so helpful to you. That way it never appears like your relationship with them is only a one-way street.
Facebook Groups
Search for an affinity with the topic of your campaign. Engage with the groups to build trust by getting involved in community discussions. Some groups are restricted to only accepting Facebook Profiles (Individual users), but many also allow Facebook Pages (Businesses/Campaigns) to join the group. To discover if they allow Pages to join, hover your mouse over the “+ Join” button. If the Facebook Group allows pages to join, there will be a popup message indicating that Facebook pages can join the group. Some groups are closed, and it may take a day or two for the group’s admin to approve your request to join.
Search Twitter for Hashtags
I find Hashtagify and RiteTag to be particularly helpful in identifying popular hashtags. Another valuable way to locate active twitter shares for a similar campaign is to use Twitter’s advanced search function. In addition to Facebook and Twitter, you may also want to search Pinterest to find related boards.
Do you have a plan to use social media to extend your crowdfunding campaign reach?
