The success of a crowdfunding campaign depends largely on two major factors: how well the campaign is presented and how many people it reaches. The reality check is that there is no way you can connect with your audience, engage with your individual donors and manage successful crowdfunding campaigns without making use of the essential tool that is social media marketing. 

If you’re serious about your organization’s crowdfunding results, then you need to step up your social media game whether you’re already using social media or still haven’t created a profile. 

To do social media well, it must become part of your organization’s marketing strategy. We have broken it all down into pint-sized steps you can follow to start using social media well in the world of crowdfunding.

Let’s dive in!

Choose your platform(s)

You’ll have to pick the right social media platform(s) for your crowdfunding campaign. To pick the right channels, consider these questions:

• On which channel do you have the most followers?
• What people have the greatest influence in your community?
• Which platform are you most comfortable with?

Develop a persona

Unfortunately, it’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of situation. You must develop a persona that is a semi-fictional representation of a group of your followers. It will allow you to tailor your tone of voice to one that your audience will like and enjoy.. Find your authentic voice that resonates with your audience. I know this might be cliché to say, but there can only be one you and only you can do you well. (Read that again!) The key is to determine what your organization is aiming to offer through your crowdfunding campaign and then match that to a target audience. Your audience wants you to vigorously support them to overcome challenges. There needs to be a direct link between your campaign and the alleviation of their lives in some way. Your social media accounts can be used to create targeted advertising and branding to spread the word about your campaign.

Be Creative in your content and pick a good hashtag

It’s understandable that you should want to publish content that is about your organization and what you are offering, but the content you put out there shouldn’t always revolve around your organization. No one wants to hear you boast about your organization post in, post out. One thing you can do is create valuable, industry-adjacent content, which is a great way to stay attractive to your followers and engage more donors. What content can you post to pique your audience’s brains and address their needs? Think about who to collaborate with so that you diversify your content and give it some color, all whilst still fulfilling your organization’s crowdfunding goals. Picking a creative and good hashtag will encourage people to keep on checking and engaging in all posts related to your campaign in one space. As for the content, you can use informative posts, stories from your supporters, campaign updates, and behind-the-scenes stories. Interactive and engaging posts and stories are the most popular on social media.

Keep a running list of videos, articles and more

In digital marketing lingo, we call this “creating content” which requires you to think outside the box. It’s important to keep your audience up-to-date with the progress of your crowdfunding campaign, no matter how small. The easiest way to publish great and informative content (and to post it regularly!) is to keep a running list of the content you come across in the hustle and bustle of your day-to-day, and then sit down and structure it accordingly.

Respond to everything

Here is something you should ask yourself: what’s the next step after your content has inspired someone to engage with you? Think about it – what’s the reason you chose to take your crowdfunding campaign to social media? The reason is to connect with people and get them on board your quest to create change. It’s important to ensure that you don’t spend so much time and energy trying to get people interested in your organization and then failing to solidify the connections you’ve made. Make sure you keep comments and message notifications on. When you reply quickly, people feel included, and soon enough they will naturally feel a part of your online family. So when you need support in your crowdfunding campaigns, they will not hesitate to do their part.

Track the numbers

In order to do social media well, you need to understand who is engaging with your posts and what is resonating most with this group of people. Why? So you give them more of exactly what they want and keep the engagement flowing. Keeping an eye on your analytics may seem a bit overwhelming in the early days but it’s necessary. You can structure it in this way: what were your top published posts the past month?; how much engagement (likes, comments, shares) did these posts receive?; who exactly is frequently engaging with your posts? Start by answering these questions as often as possible. Arming yourself with this information will make your content creation process flow much better and help you harness the connections your organization needs.

Connect with Journalists and Influencers

Try to build relationships with journalists and influencers to help put the campaign in front of a much wider audience. They will expose the project and promote it to their followers and audience, this way it will be spread massively.