This post was updated on 10/26/2015
It takes a crowd to crowdfund! After you create your campaign it’s up to you to bring as big a potential donor base as possible to your project page. Here are some online tools that can help you do just that.
One of the most popular choices, Facebook allows you to share your Indiegogo campaign with your existing social network — the place you’re likely to find the most support. Share your campaign link as a status update, message your friends to ask them to donate and share or post to your friends’ walls if you think they might be interested. In addition to sharing your project with your personal network, you can create a Facebook Page or Group dedicated to your project or organization. You can also create a Facebook Event around your Indiegogo campaign. Remember to keep your Facebook Page updated with campaign milestones and any other unique tidbits that your community would be interested in.
Create a Twitter profile for your project or organization. Or if that doesn’t make sense for your particular project, use your personal Twitter account to share information about your campaign. Be careful not to simply broadcast information about yourself; instead, follow users who might be interested in what you’re doing or those who can spread the word — like similar organizations or journalists who write about your subject area. You can conduct research to discover influencers in your particular industry and share your campaign with them. You can also add a link to your Indiegogo campaign to your Twitter profile and talk about your fundraising goal in your Twitter bio.
Your Email Signature
Think about it: how many emails do you send out each day? A simple, unobtrusive link to your Indiegogo project at the bottom of your email signature is another great way to raise awareness of your campaign without being too over-the-top and in-your-face. It also reaches a slightly different audience than your Facebook or Twitter profiles. Adding a link to your project in your email signature is one of the easiest ways to continually share your campaign link with little effort.
Your Blog
If you have a blog no doubt you’ve written something about your Indiegogo campaign in a post already. Consider adding your campaign card to a sidebar so that your readers and subscribers will be aware of your project. Simply embed the automated code from your campaign page onto your blog pages. Or write a short post about your Indiegogo campaign and make it sticky — so it stays at the top of your blog even as you add additional posts.
YouTube & Vimeo
Remember: the best pitch videos are short and sweet. But who says you have to stop at just one video? Use YouTube and Vimeo to host a series of videos about your project and provide more in-depth information, profiles, interviews, and concrete examples of the work you’re doing. Whenever you create a new video related to your campaign, share it with your community via a campaign update. Successful campaigns post at least 4 updates throughout the duration of the project.
Flickr
Got photos of your progress? Interesting shots that would make your project appealing to people interested in your subject matter? Say, for instance, you’re raising money to start a Doberman Pinscher rescue and rehabilitation center in Los Angeles. Upload photos of some of the dogs you’ve already worked with, tag them with descriptive terms like “rescue animal,” or “Los Angeles pet adoption,” and provide information about your project with a link to more information. (Keep in mind Flickr Terms & Conditions prevent you from directly selling anything via your account.)
Google Hangouts
Go beyond ‘Busy’ and ‘Available’ and provide a link to your Indiegogo campaign in your Google Hangouts status message. This is another excellent hands-off approach to promoting your crowdfunding campaign online.
Your Website
It seems like an obvious place to start, but you’d be amazed at how many organizations fail to place a link to their crowdfunding campaign on their own websites. Whether you choose to create a status bar that appears on every page, make a landing page dedicated to the campaign or have the Indiegogo logo and campaign link front and center on the homepage, make sure that you mention your campaign somewhere on your website.
Your E-Newsletter
If you send out an email newsletter with any regularity, let the recipients in on your crowdfunding campaign. Or, if you’ve been collecting email addresses of your followers, customers and supporters, you can send out a one-off email announcing your campaign.
Your Profile — anywhere it appears online
From LinkedIn to LastFM, there are dozens of sites where we create profiles, write bios and share information about ourselves. Take an inventory of where your profile appears online and systematically update your ‘About Me’ to include information about your crowdfunding efforts. Who knows, some anonymous donor who finds your Indiegogo campaign via Plenty of Fish might just plop down $2,000. (Okay, maybe that’s a bit creepy, but you get the idea.)
