Social media planning for your crowdfunding campaign

So, you’re launching a crowdfunding campaign and need a social media plan. There are a lot of strategies and tactics out there, but in my experience, simple is better than trendy. It’s not about posting daily or having a large following—it’s about being intentional in how, what and when you share social content.

The social media plan outlined below is a beginner-friendly framework that I created to simplify your content planning process. It’s led many entrepreneurs to save time on content creation, increase post views from hundreds to thousands, and it’s the framework that helped me raise over $5K in the first month of my crowdfunding campaign.

Using social media to amplify your crowdfunding campaign

When most entrepreneurs think of social media, they associate it with the end goal of boosting web traffic and conversions. Fortunately, that’s not the only way it can impact your business. 

Social media can help generate awareness and humanize your brand. It allows you to nurture relationships while building an engaged online community. And perhaps even better than visibility and engagement, social media helps activate the know, like, and trust factors key to growing your influence and income. 

This is where social media shines as a strategy to amplify your crowdfunding campaign. 

Take Embrace Change NYC for example. Founder, Cynthia Pong posts to Instagram three times a week, on average. Rather than switching to solely promote her crowdfunding rewards, during her IFundWomen campaign, Cynthia continued to build know, like, and trust factors by showcasing her experience and expertise as a career strategist. 

The result? She recently crossed 3,000 highly engaged followers, and while there’s no doubt it took more than a social media plan to raise a whopping $48,379, social content played a supporting role in her success. 

How to create a crowdfunding social media plan

Throughout my career as a marketing strategist, I’ve witnessed organizations big and small struggle to get organized and create a content plan. Entrepreneurs in particular fall into one of two camps:

• You struggle to come up with content ideas.
• You have so many ideas, you don’t know where to start. 

In both cases, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Identifying three to five go-to topics or content pillars can help with this. I designed the 9Square Formula™, my signature social selling technique, to help solve for this overwhelm.

The 9Square works great to plan social content on a monthly basis, but it’s also perfectly suited for a launch—especially a crowdfunding campaign. Why? Because it allows you to communicate your story and value without having to create an overwhelming amount of content in the process.

The How

On average, it takes between 11 - 13 marketing touchpoints before you're able to make a sale. Crowdfunding is no different. 

The idea behind the 9Square Formula is to create some of those necessary touchpoints by turning your social feed into a mini sales page. The 9Square includes 9 posts, broken out into two categories:

1. 6 value posts consist of content to build know, like, and trust with your audience
2. 3 social selling posts outline exactly what and how to buy 

These nine social posts are then shared on a specific schedule to help your marketing work harder and smarter. As a result, your crowdfunding social media plan nurtures your relationship with funders while selling in the process.

The What

The social selling posts in the 9Square focus on a specific offer you want to sell. This could be marketing a specific reward or inviting people to choose their level of contribution on your IFundWomen page.

When you’re writing your three social selling posts, go back to your business pitch:

• What problem do you solve?
• How does your product/service solve this problem?
• Why are you uniquely qualified to provide this solution?

Also reflect on the specific impact or result that your rewards will create. In my campaign, I shared posts letting people know a $25 donation would pay for 1 hour of work for the part-time team member I planned to hire. 

I also let funders know that for $250 a year, they could hire me as their marketing coach, have content ideas delivered monthly, and get expert marketing training by buying my content planning membership reward.

The six value posts in the 9Square Formula are just as they sound. What can you share that will deliver value to your audience? 

The three categories of value are: educate + inform, connect + engage, and influence action. 

1. Educate + Inform: Share a resource, tip, or interesting insight to showcase your expertise. 
2. Connect + Engage: This type of post focuses on opening up a dialog with your audience about what makes you, your business, and your crowdfunding campaign unique. It can be a personal share, a relatable moment, or even something inspirational. 
3. Influence Action: Think of this as a soft sell. This type of post subtly persuades your audience by overcoming objections and reducing perceived risk. Tell stories about where others have had success with your solution. Share details on how you’ve made an impact so far. 

A good way to think about how value posts and social selling posts fit together is to consider social selling posts as content that markets your crowdfunding campaign, while value posts dive deeper into your unique differentiators. 

The When

Once you’ve written three social selling posts and six value posts, schedule them on your content calendar in this order: value > value > value > sell > value > value > sell > value > sell.

• So, if your campaign is 30 days long, schedule posts up to 3 days apart for a full month of content. 
• If your campaign is 60 days long, schedule around one post per week. Or, repeat the 9Square twice and produce 18 posts that go out over two months. 

It’s common for sales content to get lower engagement than content that educates, entertains or inspires. To help with this, the 9Square Formula uses value posts to build engagement and reach, in order to increase visibility for social selling posts. Neat right?

It’s a strategic and intentional framework that warms your audience by educating, connecting, and influencing, so when it’s time to ask for the sale, they’re well informed, actively engaged, and ready to take action.

All that’s left is to add a few posts specific to your crowdfunding progress. Keep it simple, and plan for three to four updates at a minimum:

1. Crowdfunding launch announcement at the start of your campaign
2. Update followers on your progress mid-way through your campaign
3. Last call for donations a week before your campaign ends
4. Thank you to all your supporters after your campaign 

A few more ideas you could plan out or post on the fly include social media shoutouts for funders, support posts asking followers to share, or reaction posts celebrating each new crowdfunding milestone you hit.

Whether you’re launching a crowdfunding campaign or creating your monthly content calendar, the 9Square Formula can provide clarity on what to post and higher engagement on the content you share, with far less effort and overwhelm.

If this strategy resonates with you, connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram and let me know, or visit the IFundWomen workshop library for more tips to create a social media plan for your crowdfunding campaign.

 

 

Sharon L. Hadden is the founder and Chief Idea Officer of Content Planning Company, a marketing education company that helps female founders become confident content creators and reduce social media overwhelm.

Inspired by Sharon’s advice? 

Start crowdfunding today