One of the fundamental aspects of a successful crowdfunding campaign is to build an audience of followers before you launch. These followers will be your advocates and will support your campaign when you are live. They are the lifeblood to your campaign success and your business goals. But how can you build an audience of raving fans and followers? That’s where social media comes into play. A solid social strategy can be the difference between a successful crowdfunding campaign and a campaign that fails.
If you want to use social media to build your audience then you can get help from your crowdfunding marketing agency or you can manage the campaign yourself. Here are some tips and advice on what you need to know and do.
How can you use social media for your campaign?
If you already have a presence on social media then continue to build and promote your channels. If you are starting from scratch then choose a platform that suits you and also is where your target market is located. Posting regular updates is the key to building a following. Be consistent, post each day and nurture a relationship with your fans. This will lay the foundation for converting them into backers and paying customers.
What social media platforms can use for your campaign.
Facebook is the world’s No1 social media platform, with 7 billion users. It is recommended you have some kind of presence on this platform as most target markets can be found here. Bear in mind most ages group on Facebook are 30+, (whereas younger age groups are on social platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok). Set up a Facebook business page to represent your business or product. You can also set up a private ‘community group. Both are great ways to build a following and spread the news about your product and crowdfunding campaign. Most successful crowdfunding campaigns use Facebook Ad campaigns to advertise the campaign and build a database of leads.
Twitter is a great platform to find supporters, journalists and people of influence who are interested in your niche and may want to write about what you are doing. Building an audience can be done quickly when posting regular content and by using certain hacks to find people who have an interest in your topic.
Instagram is great for sharing images of your products and behind the scenes of your campaign. Instagram (owned by Facebook) has a young and old audience and includes great features like Instagram ‘Stories’, where you can upload short recorded videos. These are really handy for posting quick content to capture a moment and let your audience know about it.
Is the social media site for business, predominantly B2B and is a great way to search for prospective investors to support your equity crowdfunding campaign.
Pinterest is not often viewed as a social media platform but it really is and is a great way to source traffic and leads for your campaign. Similar to Instagram, you can post images and video. Pinterest is a great way to build up visual content related to your topic using other peoples imagery. Pinterest has a very big ‘female’ following.
Your Social media Strategy
It can be important to use different social media platforms to connect with your audience. It’s likely your audience is spread out across multiple platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linked In etc. So, it’s critical that you publish relevant material and syndicate across the platforms in order to reach as big an audience as possible. Use syndication software like ‘Buffer’ to automate sending the posts out each day.
Pro tip – keep your branding the same across all of your social channels, so the public can easily recognise you.
Content Creation Strategy
In order to market your campaign effectively develop an effective social campaign that engages with your audience and gets them to interact with your brand. The content you share should be insightful, entertaining, educational and most importantly well presented. Start by sharing useful industry-related information, news about your product or cause and share stories about your team and the obstacles you have faced during developing your product.
Here are the goals of your content creation strategy:
•Increase awareness and engagement with your target audience
•Drive traffic to capture leads interested in your crowdfunding campaign
•Create a buzz and galvanise support for your project
Create Specific Hashtag
Pro tip – create a hashtag that is unique to your crowdfunding campaign and use it in all social media articles and posts. By doing this people can quickly find all discussions surrounding your campaign and access more content about your campaign which they may not have seen.
Pre Launch Posting Schedule
You should keep in mind these points when creating a social post schedule for your Pre-Launch
•Create a schedule that outlines, at minimum, a plan for two weeks. Ideally, it’s better to create a social media plan for the whole duration of your Pre-launch campaign.
•Aim for 5 posts a day, sent out across all social channels
•Schedule three posts in the day and two posts in the evening.
•Mix up post content use images, text and video
•Share stories on Facebook or Instagram.
Monitor Results
Track your social media campaign’s results. Analysis of each post to gain better awareness of what content receives more interest. Check for shares and feedback and access interaction. Search for mentions and retweets on each social platform. See what is working and getting the best engagement. Then create more of this content and share it with your audience.
Conclusion
Social media is an important part of promoting your crowdfunding campaign. When implemented correctly it is incredibly effective at building a following and buzz around your project. Concentrate on developing content that resonates with your target audience. Create, test and repeat. Build awareness and in the process a community of followers who love your idea. If you need any support, as an experienced crowdfunding marketing agency we can help. Get in touch with us today and let’s crowdfund your BIG idea.
