How Social Media Can Help You Hit Your Crowdfunding Target

The crowdfunding industry is projected to grow by over $300billion by 2025 and it’s increasingly part of the mix of income streams for purpose-led organisations.  Creating an engaging social media campaign can make or break a crowdfunding campaign.

I worked with Jo Darling at Menopoised on the social media element of her Crowdfunder campaign.  Jo has practiced as an acupuncturist for 10 years, mainly treating women. Many of her patients asked for help with symptoms of menopause, particularly women being treated for breast cancer who had been thrown into early menopause and were ineligible for Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).  Jo had been shown a technique by a Korean acupuncturist where a tiny magnet is placed on an acupuncture point on the back of the neck, indicated for heat. After seeing some positive results from the technique in clinic, Jo conducted a trial with Sussex University which indicated that around 75% of the participants saw a reduction in the frequency and intensity of flushes.  Her goal in launching a crowdfunding campaign was to help more women by bringing the tiny magnet to market.  

Jo’s campaign reached over 5,000 people via social media and successfully hit the £10,000 target (£11, 276 raised with matched funding contribution of £5,000 from Natwest’s Back Her Business).  

Campaign video produced by Seashell for the Menopoised Magnet Crowdfunder Campaign.

Top 5 tips to boost your crowdfunding campaign

Know your audience

Knowing your audience demographics, values, motivations and behaviours will help to determine which platforms you should be using as well as the look, feel and messaging for the campaign.  

Jo was targeting women in the UK aged 40-65 who had an active interest in the menopause.  That demographic is a good match for Facebook and while the prevalence of that audience is slightly lower on instagram, research showed that it has become a hub for conversations about the menopause, with a number of menopause influencers using it as their main platform.  

Tell the story

We used storytelling throughout the campaign to drive interest and engagement, starting with a core campaign video that featured on the Crowdfunder page and also across Menopoised social media.  

Storytelling was also really effective in communicating various elements of the campaign including:

• A photo series demonstrating how to use the magnet.

• Instagram stories on the night of the live launch event for the campaign.

• Swipeable multi-image posts to provide updates on the total raised so far.

• Video and quote card testimonials telling the stories of women who had used the magnet. 

Soft launch before you hard launch

It’s never too early to start talking about your plans to crowdfund on social media.  Followers want to feel like they have been on the crowdfunding journey with you, so get them involved!  Ask them where you should do the live launch event, or ask them to vote on the name for your new product.  

We used World Menopause Day as a good point to soft launch the campaign…..which leads me on to the penultimate point...

Look for hooks

Look for awareness days, news events, Hallmark holidays or other hooks that you could capitalise on to boost the reach of your campaign, but use them wisely.  

We chose not to hard launch the crowdfunder on World Menopause Day because getting cut-through as a small brand on a big awareness day can be hard.  However, it was ideal for a soft launch as the only call to action was for people seeing the content to register that a crowdfunding campaign was coming and to begin to get excited about the product.  

The Facebook post on that day reached 1,580 people.   It was the best performing post for reach across the campaign.

GO LIVE (or at least use video)

Live video content is really valuable for driving reach and engagement across many of the social platforms.  It gives that ‘in the moment’ experience for your target audiences regardless of where they are geographically located.  And it feels real and authentic - polished content does less well on social media.  

The other advantage of live video content is that it can be re-purposed in a number of ways:

• The video can be used in a post

• The sound file can be stripped and used in a podcast

• Clips can be edited from it and used for future content

We live-streamed Jo’s speech at the launch of her crowdfunder and while we had less than 10 people tune in live, the post of the recording was the second-best performing across the campaign with over 1,400 people reached and more than 100 watching for a minute or more.  

If you would like to have a conversation about running a campaign with Seashell’s support on strategy or campaign management, please be in touch: Seashellsocials@gmail.com