Hopefully you are reading this before launching your Kickstarter campaign! We try to reach creators early on so that they can build an audience before going live with their crowdfunding campaign.
This way, you can introduce people to your project, educate them about what Kickstarter is and how it works, and slowly get them ready to back your project when it goes live.
If you have already launched a Kickstarter campaign, don’t worry. Anyone can use the tips below to kickstart their Kickstarter social media marketing, even if their campaign has already been launched and hit a snag early on.
One of the best ways to learn how to successfully market your Kickstarter campaign on Facebook is to look at what others are doing. The Facebook Page for Gravity: The Weighted Blanket for Sleep, Stress and Anxiety (which has raised over $3 million on Kickstarter at the time of writing) is a great example of a strong overall strategy.
Their heading is a picture of their blanket with clear text that gives a brief description of what they are promoting. Their profile picture incorporates their logo and you can see that they have a general branding style that they are following. Their Kickstarter campaign link is featured and easy to find on the right and they have a short, two-minute video posted that is easy to click on for people who want to learn more.
Check out these easy-to-follow tips with more examples from recently successful Kickstarter campaigns to improve your visual Facebook marketing strategy and get more backers:
1. Keep it Simple
Coming up with great visuals for your social media marketing campaigns seems hard, but it doesn’t have to be. We get bogged down by the details. Taking the picture or video, editing, writing a great caption… the list goes on.
The truth is, it doesn’t need to be all that complicated. People lost interest when they can tell that you’re trying too hard, so the best thing is to keep it simple. What do you want people to know about your project? What vibe are you trying to give off? Focus on those things and create visuals with captions that are to the point.
Molly Ostertag, creator of the Kickstarter campaign for Strong Female Protagonist, has raised more than 5x her $12,000 funding goal and has a strong Facebook following.
Here she shares the link to her Kickstarter campaign with her video’s thumbnail, a clean and well-designed image with bold writing that is easy-to-read. Her caption is short and provides information about her project’s timeline and the rewards that are available to her backers.
2. Post Great Visuals
Part of keeping it simple is trying to post great visuals in and of themselves. Post pictures and videos that are going to capture people’s attention. Visuals of your product or service in action, symbolic images of beautiful scenery, and pictures of your team or fans are just a few examples of visuals you could post.
The main idea is to try to keep most of your images on Facebook looking professional, uncluttered, and have an overall brand image. If your visuals are relevant and high-quality, the rest will work itself out. Try to avoid posting things like low resolution and badly edited pictures or videos.
Obvious State, the creators behind the Kickstarter campaign Literary Art on Letterpress, have raised over $35K on Kickstarter. They have also posted the link to their Kickstarter campaign with the thumbnail to their video, which clearly shows what their project is about and their general vibe.
Notice how they use their logo in their profile picture and the black and white design matches well with their art prints?
3. Go Live
Going live is a great strategy for Kickstarter creators because it gives your growing fan base a chance to see you in action.
Being part of a live stream is cool for fans, because you can write comments for the creator to see and reply to. It is a way to make your follower really feel included in what you are doing at that moment, more so than the person who has to watch the replay because they missed the live stream.
There are tons of things that you can live stream to Facebook to get people talking about your project. You can do a live Q&A session, demo your product or service, show backers prototypes or rewards as they start to come in, share more about yourself and your team… and anything else you can think of.
4. Engage Fans
Engaging fans is important on social media. Remember that Facebook is a two-way street. You may not have personal relationships and conversations with everyone who follows you or likes your page, but it is important not to be too one-sided either.
You should reply to most or at least some of the comments or questions you receive on your posts and find other ways to engage your audience that won’t take up a lot of time for you.
One great way to do that while incorporating visuals? Showcase your fans! Hold a contest and have your followers send in pictures that you can post on your page. Ultimately, it’s about making people feel like your project is really about them because they are the ones who are funding you.
5. Take Advantage of Proven Digital Design Tactics
I know it can be hard to create great looking pictures and video with little to no experience. If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional to help you, you can still put together great visuals with a little help.
To help you we’ve put together a list of 9 Helpful Design Tools for Your Crowdfunding Project.
You can also check out the infographic, 8 Key Digital Design Trends for 2017 to learn more about what people are doing to successfully make their visuals stand out on social media.
Conclusion
The worst thing you can do in Facebook or any kind of social media marketing is start a page, leave all the important information blank, and start posting the link to your Kickstarter campaign every day or every few hours. That won’t get you anywhere.
If you want to drive traffic to your Kickstarter campaign from Facebook you need to make your page look attractive. That means great visuals, including a page header, pictures and video. You need to post things on a consistent basis so people can become familiar with your idea or campaign.
Likely people aren’t going to go ahead and back you the minute they add you or like your page, or see you post something. But they might be thinking about it, and after a few engaging posts you may encourage them to pledge to your campaign or at least share it with their friends.
Feel free to leave any questions or comments below!
