Social Media

The Crowd Funding model for supplying seed capital for technology-based projects relies upon the use of the project owner’s social networks to locate potential backers. The project owner must be prepared to hit the ground running and start promoting his/her project to the network the moment the project is approved and released to the FundaGeek catalog. You have a fixed number of days to reach your goal amount so every day of promotion to your social network counts. Don’t wait until your project has been approved to start planning your social media strategy. This is where the fun begins because you have direct control over how much funding your project attracts based on the success of your use of social media.

Historically in the Crowd Funding arena, a majority of the funding dollars attracted by a project comes from the project owner’s social network. The rest comes from backers who find your project using the catalog search feature on the FundaGeek website. A 75% (your network) to 25% (our members) split is not uncommon.

We have prepared a special "Promoting Your Project" whitepaper with many useful tips about how to attract backers. Here is a link to download the document.

Social Media Tips

Once your project is approved on FundaGeek and everyone can see your project in the catalog, it is time to gear up your social network engine. Here are some tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your social network:

1. Create an announcement of your new Project on FundaGeek, include our Widget that will take them to your project page, ask for their support and send this to all of the contacts in your email list. Request them to forward the announcement to everyone in their address book with a personal recommendation that their contacts go take a look at the project.
2. Tweet important details about your project to your followers. In effect, you’re engaging in Twitter advertising about your funding campaign. Be creative in your Tweets and make your project compelling to the potential backer. Send Tweets when you update your project.
3. Join LinkedIn and Facebook groups that match the subject matter of your project for expanded exposure. Mention your project in the group’s forum and be convincing as to why the world needs your new technology.
4. Post project information on your Facebook page. Make sure your friends know what you’re doing and how to help out.
5. Embed, embed, embed! Be sure to embed a link to your project page in everything you do while your campaign is active. Think about embedding a link in your e-mail signature area. To get the link, just click the “Get Project Link” button on your project detail page.
6. Utilize the power of the widget! Embed a special project widget in your blog, in other people’s blogs, in e-mails, in websites, etc. To get the widget code, just click the “Get Project Widget” button on your project detail page.
7. Make sure you read and apply all the tips provided for you in our White Paper, Promoting your Project through Social Media.
8. Follow up, follow up and then follow up one more time. Everyone is busy today and we all have the good intentions of doing things, but with the pressures we all deal with daily, often good intentions get set aside. Don’t be afraid to contact all your sources MULTIPLE times. Remember, your project is your priority not necessarily everyone else’s, so follow up.
9. Post the video that we’ve recommended you make about you and your project on YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Here is a link to some additional popular video sharing sites.

Going Viral

Social media is important from another perspective when using FundaGeek as your funding resource. It is crucial for project owners to attempt to get their projects to go “viral” by asking early backers to spread the word about the project to their own social network. For example, if your first ten backers use their social network to spread the word about your project and manage to reach ten people each, you suddenly have an order of magnitude increase in “reach” for potential backers. The viral approach is a proven mechanism for reaching or exceeding your goal amount.

Be sure to include a note in your project detail page for all your backers to see, requesting that they help you out through their own social network.