If you’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign and haven’t been really active on social media to promote your project, you’re missing out on a large number of audience who could have possibly been your future backers. I don’t say this because I am a social media buff. I say this because close to 1.7 billion people have active social media accounts. Having a proper social media strategy means you’re actually taking advantage of this new-gen opportunity and trying to make your project reach out to those you couldn’t have done offline. Now, jumping on to social media isn’t an overnight business. You need to chalk down what you want to do and on which platforms from beforehand. You need to be versatile in your campaigns and entertaining at the same time. Because social media (like the term says) is all about being “social”.
So here I am trying to help you create that perfect social media strategy for your crowdfunding campaign. Just to make it easier for you to read, I have tried to represent my points through bullets. Here you go!
1. First and foremost, you need to analyse the tons of social media platforms out there and which would suit your product really well. For example, if you’ve got really cool product photos (especially lifestyle ones), posting more on visual social networks such as Pinterest and Instagram is always a good idea.
2. Always choose to have a social media dashboard for your marketing plan. The purpose of using them is to have a prior schedule for your accounts as well as real-time analytics to keep a check on where your social traffic is coming from. Apps like Buffer and Hootsuite work well in this area.
3. If you’re using Instagram, prior scheduling might be a bit of a problem. But with Onlypult, things will be easy-peasy like always.
4. Next, no matter which social media platform you’re using, always make sure you have an updated profile image and background image, profile bio and project link. It shows how organized you are in terms of launching your project.
5. Be versatile in your outreach plan on every social media platform. Use photos, videos, GIFs, infographics and more to highlight the best of your product.
6. If you’re looking for promotions in general, having a Facebook page dedicated to your product and a Twitter profile will work. You can also try separate portfolios on LinkedIn and Google+ if required.
7. You can always use your Twitter profile as an alternate customer support handle to answer your backers’ queries.
8. Participating in relevant Twitter Chats and pitching to renowned bloggers who could tweet or post on your project is a good idea. But don’t do it too often! That might make your project look too spammy.
9. Stick to images and videos on your Facebook page and boost some of your posts to targeted audience if possible for a better outreach.
10. Create interesting boards on your Pinterest profile and be regular in pinning on them. You don’t need to pin your project only all the time. You can always pin from other projects and profiles and increase your social awareness that way.
11. Use Instagram to highlight your product’s best features as well as glimpses from the workshop if possible. That would help backers be aware of the progress.
12. You can also use live video sharing platforms like Periscope and Meerkat to do real time chatting with your backers.
13. If blogging isn’t your forte, you can make use of Tumblr and do mini-posts from time to time.
14. Try doing some infographics for your project if you have enough data. You can create them by using templates from Canva and then share them across social media as well as dedicated infographic channels such as Visually.
15. You could do the same with slideshows and use Slideshare for special attention.
16. Always remember to answer the queries or responses you get on your social channels. Show people that you genuinely care for your product and want to work hard to make it a success.
17. Participate in forums and discussions and talk your experiences with other like-minded folks from time to time.
18. Do some rigorous survey and research based posts on the industry you’re covering with your product and share them across content sharing platforms such as Reddit, Inbound, Hackernews in order to make yourself and your project stand out. That’s what you indirect marketing!
19. If you have a team, make sure the tasks are well distributed among every body in order to make the social media activities on every channel a success.
20. Finally, don’t forget to be social all the time! That’s what will lead to success eventually.
Got more ideas to contribute? Why not share with me in the comments below. Happy Marketing!
