I recently had the great pleasure to provide the social media strategy and management for a crowdfunding campaign for Goldfinger Factory. They are a social enterprise based in West London who provide space for artists to work so that they can become self funding, and they train young people to help them get career ready. We recently finished their first crowdfunding campaign, it was such a wonderful journey with a huge amount of work involved.

What have I learned from the experience?  The most impactful insight was that the network of friends and supporters of a business or social enterprise are as passionate about the business as us.   I have also learned some things that might help other people thinking of embarking on their own crowdfunding journey.

 

Planning

Each campaign that runs needs to have serious planning behind it, launch with just the hope that you’ll succeed and the chances are that you might fail. Months before the campaign, we set out a plan of what we needed to do to achieve success. This took more time than you might expect, but if we hadn’t laid our foundations we would have faced issues when things got busy, and they got busy very quickly!

Choose your Crowdfunding platform wisely

Some platforms sound like they are all singing and dancing, but there might be a platform that is better suited for your audience or aim. Some might have match funding available if you reach a certain funding level.  Have a good look round, there are lots to choose from.

Partners

Goldfinger Factory were very proud to have had support from Tom Dixon, who designed the furniture range used as crowdfunder rewards.  The support they continue to have from the Tom Dixon team has been invaluable.  Is there a business or person who could help your crowdfunder by mentoring, designing something or just by adding their voice and support? Put them in your plan.

Tell your friends

Obvious, right?  But it is worth thinking about everyone that your business or charity has come into contact with and getting in touch with them. Pop in, phone them, send an email don’t just rely on tweets and Facebook.  Some amazing support came from people that are not on social media, and everyone values a non digital conversation sometimes.  The crowdfunding message was not only supported but amplified by friends of the business.

 

Shouting from the rooftops using social media

Don’t be backwards in coming forwards; make sure you’re sending out updates and new messages regularly. Social media is such a great tool for this, plan to spend time and budget on getting your social right. Listen, engage and be social before and during your campaign – and don’t forget to say thank you to supporters.

In fact we more than doubled the usual output on social media.  We learned that we really needed to use short, punchy messaging, great images, to sometimes be a little cheeky.

Events

Everyone loves a party, and the build up to any crowdfunding event and the support that Goldfinger Factory got at them was fantastic.

The crowdfunding campaign was a huge effort for every single member of the team, but all the work paid off. Goldfinger Factory are opening two new sites, they received pledges from individuals and businesses and significant funding from Santander and Catalyst Housing.

If you supported the campaign, thank you very much indeed! If you’d like to know more about what Goldfinger Factory do head to http://www.goldfingerfactory.com

If you would like help with social media for your crowdfunding campaign please get in touch!