By
Julie Keck
Crowdfunding campaigns, when run well,
can seem effortless, almost magical, if you’re watching from afar. Seeing the
money and backers pile up, especially in the last phase of a campaign, can be
breathtaking, when everyone is hugging and high-fiving.
However, crowdfunding is not a walk in
the park. Unless that park is covered with broken glass. And a lion ate your
shoes at the entrance gate. And he is now chasing you.
There is anxiety, especially during
that famous mid-campaign plateau. There are sleepless nights, when instead of
counting fluffy sheep you’re counting all of your Facebook friends who haven’t
contributed yet. And don’t forget about the obsessive-compulsive “refreshing”
of your campaign page to see if there are any new backers. Yes, crowdfunding
can be stressful, but if you do the proper prep work — and create the right
relationships on social media — crowdfunding can be full of great joy and
excitement.
Below are some hard lessons I’ve
learned after helping run many crowdfunding campaigns.
1) Crowdfunding starts before the
campaign launches
The day you launch your crowdfunding
campaign is not the day you should start considering whether or not to use
Twitter or Facebook. Or Instagram. Or Tumblr.
Bottom line: You need to at least be on
Twitter and/or Facebook to have a decent shot at crowdfunding, and you need to
have been using them for a while. If you’re reading this and want to crowdfund
but are not on these platforms, don’t fret; start social media-ing today, and
postpone your plans for crowdfunding until you’ve established a solid social
media presence.
Why do you need to be on social media
in order to crowdfund well? Because if a tree falls in the woods and no one is
there to hear it…you get the picture. You can have the best campaign in the
world, meant to support the best project in the world, but if you don’t have a
way to spread the word, it won’t matter. You won’t raise the money you need.
(One exception to this rule is if you have a tremendously large email list of
fans or potential donors, or have built up fans on another social platform.)
What happens if you start a campaign
without laying down the social media groundwork and without that kind of list?
- This Kickstarter campaign for a documentary about people really into sneakers ended nowhere close to its $100k goal. If you’re not into sneakers, you should know something: People immersed in sneaker culture spend a lot of money on their kicks, so this is a potentially very lucrative niche audience to hook. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though the team behind the documentary connected with their intended audience prior to the campaign. Instead, according to this article, one of the directors thought Kickstarter would find the backers for them. This was not the case.
- Alternately, “Ride the Divide,” a documentary about the toughest mountain bike race in North America, raised more than twice its Kickstarter goal in 2012, mostly because they worked very hard to connect with the people most interested in their subject prior to the launch of their campaign. Be like “Ride the Divide.”
2) You can't rely solely on your
Facebook friends
Facebook is a great way to get started
with social media, but you have to move past your personal Facebook page for
crowdfunding success. If you only post your crowdfunding campaign to your
personal Facebook page, you will place the burden of the success of your campaign
on the shoulders of your friends and family. Don’t do this, unless you want to
get uninvited from Thanksgiving.
Of course you will promote your project
on your personal Facebook page sometimes, because your real life friends want
to know what you’re up to and want to support you. But you should also have a
Facebook fan page for either your project or a larger entity under which your
project will fall.
Filmmakers often have a page for their
production company so that they can showcase all of their individual movies
there, alerting fans of their previous work to their new work. Authors often
opt for fan pages for themselves so that fans of previous books can find out
about new ones, and so on. Chances are that the project you want to crowdfund
for is not the last thing you’re going to do. Make your social media presence a
significant and lasting one.
3) The crowd is not looking for you
No matter how amazing your film or book
or custom leather bracelet or designer ice cream cone idea is, no one is sitting
around flipping through projects on (insert your crowdfunding platform of
choice) looking for your project. Yes, all crowdfunding platforms create a hub
for your campaign, but no, it’s not their job to drive traffic to your hub.
That’s your job.
Even a firmly established and trusted
brand has to work it to hook their crowd for a new crowdfunding campaign. Kartemquin
Films has been making documentaries out of Chicago for just shy of
50 years. They have lauded films such as “Hoop Dreams,” “The Interrupters” and
“The New Americans” under their belt. If you’re in the docs industry, you know
them. One might think that the crowdfunding campaign for their
latest project, a documentary about Roger Ebert called “Life
Itself,” would have no problem raking in the dough, especially with big names
like Martin Scorsese and Werner Herzog behind it.
But the team behind this
campaign is not resting on its laurels. Instead, they’ve created a very active
and interactive campaign that draws in long-time Ebert fans and younger
cinefiles at the same time. One of their simplest and most effective social media
moves: dedicated one of the movie reviews from Ebert’s vast catalog (he wrote
almost 8000) to each backer. This is a smart way to use an available resource
and welcome each new supporter into the fold.
4) Pick the perfect platforms
You don’t have to be on all of the
social media platforms that exist. That would be exhausting. Instead, pick the
right platforms for you according to:
- where your audience is;
- what you can reasonably handle in your daily life.
For example, if you are a filmmaker,
you’re likely posting videos and commenting on the videos of others on YouTube
and/or Vimeo. If you have a fashion-themed project, make sure you’re on
Instagram. If your project is attractive to foodies, find people who love
pictures of food on Pinterest. There is no cookie-cutter plan for social media;
you have to find what appeals most to your specific audience.
5) Social media is fast; get pithy and
quippy
Yes, your dream project is important
and deserves much discussion, but the key to effective social media is hooking
people quickly. Tweets need to be short, awesome punches that people cannot
resist clicking on and re-tweeting. On Facebook, you can write longer messages,
but don’t go into multiple paragraphs; you’ll have plenty of copy to dive into
on your campaign home page. And never underestimate the power of a good picture
on Facebook.
6) Forget about going viral; focus on
being vibrant
Anyone who gives you advice on how to
make a “viral” video or “viral” crowdfunding campaign is not trying to help
you; they are taking advantage of you. There is no guaranteed way to get
millions of people to see your crowdfunding pitch video, so focus on what you
can control: giving your crowd consistent (and consistently engaging) messages
that remind them that you’re still working hard and that they are still a part
of the team.
7) Give it. Give another little piece
of your heart
Understand what your audience wants,
then give it to them. In some cases, a crowd connects with a creator on a
personal level, but how do you do this without TMI (a.k.a. too much
information)?
In 2012, I consulted on a Kickstarter campaign for Katie Todd,
an indie singer who produces her own albums and has a dedicated fan base on Facebook. For every 10
backers we gathered, we released a cute or goofy picture of her from her
childhood. This was mildly embarrassing for Katie, but a great incentive for
her adoring fans to get their friends to contribute so they could see the next
picture. This was a fun (and free) way to make the backers happy while also
getting them to do some recruiting. Win-win.
8) "Hey, brother, can you spare a
re-tweet?"
Recently at a Doc U event on
crowdfunding by the International Documentary Association,
Adam Chapnick of the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo said, “If you’re asking
for money, you’re doing it wrong.” This couldn’t be more true. No one likes the
guy who says, “Come on! Give $10 to my campaign.” Instead, try these:
- “Help me spread the word: LINK HERE”
- “Know anyone who might like this? LINK HERE”
- Who can help me find the next backer? LINK HERE”
These are very basic, and you should
put your own shine on them, but you get the drift. You get people on your side
without putting your hand in their pockets and, in the course of it, they
become invested in your success. A handful of re-tweets (or spreading the word
about your project at their office) is way more useful than one $10 donation.
9) Eat your wheaties; crowdfunding is a
workout
These crowdfunding campaigns are
grueling, masochistic marathons (30 to 60 days, generally), so you have to pace
yourself. Hydrate. Take your vitamins. Take a walk. Take a shower. Eat a
vegetable or two. Take breaks from checking for backers. Shut off your
computer. Turn the reins over to a trusted collaborator for a day while you
take a technology sabbath. Use
tools like Twuffer, Hootsuite, or TweetDeck to schedule tweets ahead of time.
(Hootsuite can do Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, too.)
Overall, give yourself breaks from the
grind so that you can return to your tasks with vigor.
10) After the campaign: don't love 'em
and leave 'em
Once you’ve met your crowdfunding goal
(and even if you didn’t), show respect to those who tried to help your dreams
come true. These people are now a part of your project, so keep them
up-to-date. Invite them to share milestones with you. Let them know when you
send out perks. Let them know when your project gets reviewed. Send them an
update when you win your Oscar or Pulitzer.
The other side of this is also letting
your backers know when things don’t go as planned. If you’re late sending your
perks out, notify them. If your book is going to take longer to complete than
you anticipated, be honest about it. They’re not going to be mad when you hit a
snag; they’ll appreciate that you respected them enough to keep them in the
loop. The crowd might, however, start to worry that they’ve been fooled if you
fall off the face of the Earth.
The only true test of whether or not
you can run a successful crowdfunding campaign is actually doing it. Be smart;
do your prep work; and try to have fun in the course of it.
This post was originally featured on PBS MediaShift and is
published on IJNet with permission.
Julie Keck is a social media and
crowdfunding consultant based in Chicago. She has run and consulted on
crowdfunding campaigns that have raised more than $300k over the past 4 years,
mostly for independent films and webseries. You can find her on Twitter at @kingisafink.
Image CC-licensed on Flickr via Tax Credits.
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