What would be the best way to promote a Kickstarter, Indiegogo, RocketHub or appbackr fundraiser?

We recently did a blog post published on http://equitycrowdfunding.net but in summary here are the best ways: 1. Your website. Duh! It sounds unbelievable but so many organizations forget to post a link of their campaign on their own website. DON’T be one of them!!! 2. All your social media page. We all have profiles in several websites, such as LinkedIn or Facebook. Don’t forget to update the “About me” and include your equity crowdfunding offering link. You never know who views your profiles. 3. Google Chat or Messenger. Your status message can do more than say “Online” or “Busy.” Give it a chance by putting a link to your offering. 4. http://www.youtube.com/ & https://vimeo.com/. What better than a visual presentation to introduce you to potential investors? While a video is a MUST in equity crowdfunding websites, you should not stop there. Try recording a series of interesting and fun videos about your project and post them on YouTube and Vimeo and leave it up to the audience. You’ll be surprised. 5. https://twitter.com/. There’s so much Twitter can do for your project. Start by creating a profile (or using your personal one) and give updates about your project. But be strategic: follow people who may be interested in your project, such as investors, celebrities or journalist. They can spread the word for you. Don’t forget to include a link to your offering on your profile. 6. https://www.facebook.com/. This is the place where you will probably find more support. But instead of spamming people with your link, create an account for your project, or a Facebook Event related to it, where you can invite everyone.Another choice is to share the offering with interested Facebook Groups. Sharing has never been easier! 7. http://www.linkedin.com/. You can use it just like Facebook. The groups on Linkedin are a very powerful venue. 8. Your Blog. This is an obvious choice. I’m pretty sure that if you have a blog, you’ve definitely mentioned your offering. Make your blog more helpful for your offering by writing an entry about it and make it sticky (which means it will stay at the top of the page, reaching everyone who sees your blog). 9. Your email signature. While it is always professional to have an email signature, a link of your project on the very bottom can only be helpful to you. It is a simple way to raise awareness to people other than your Facebook or Twitter fans. 10. Your E-Newsletter. Do you have a group of addresses of your followers or fans? Then it’s time to start sending e-mail newsletters with the latest updates of your offering with a link to it. 11. http://www.flickr.com/. An image is worth a thousand words. Start taking interesting pictures of the progress of your campaign. Tag them with descriptive terms and provide more information that will lead to potential investors. 12. http://www.pinterest.com/. Take full advantage of the newest hit. Pin pictures from your offering and add the link. Dedicate a whole board to your campaign and follow boards/people who may be interested in it. After they have followed you back, you will appear everywhere in their newsfeed and you may get repins. But be cautious: take fun and interesting pictures that will catch the attention of other users, otherwise, they will unfollow your board. 13. http://www.reddit.com/. This social news website can promote your campaign more than you can ever imagine. But in order for your story to be successful, you need as many “Up” votes as possible. This way your story will stay on top of the pages. So write a good and impressive article/story about your project, don’t forget the link and soon you will turn many heads. 14. https://news.ycombinator.com/. Hacker News is an alternative option to Reddit in the event your company is a tech startup. 15. Press releases. This venue may help to get some additional exposure and potential pickups on the press. In addition to press releases with venues such as http://www.prnewswire.com/, you should also join http://go.helpareporter.com/ and secure interviews with reporters.

You would do all the things you would do to draw attention to anything, both on and offline. The thing to remember about crowdfunding is that it's still fundraising, and the main thing that determines your success in any fundraising endevour is your preparedness to ask, along with your clarity of purpose and credibility. This means that while Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blogging and the rest are necessary they are often insufficient on their own. Email, phone calls, holding events and talking to people in person are absolutely critical too. The more meaningful and personal you make the ask the more likely people are to respond to it. Crowdfunding is a tool to activate the community you already have - all successful projects would get out to "the people that don't visit Kickstater often", because that's almost everyone.

I agree with above, and would add that you need to think big if you want to get to critical mass. Consider what publicity stunt you can pull for very little money. Viral video? Scantily-clad coeds? The sky's the limit. Skywriting? Also consider penetration into communities that would care about your idea in particular. If you are trying to fund a webcomic, find where the webcomic aficionados hang out, and then target your publicity to that community directly. Presently, it seems quite effective to micro-target messages and calls to action to the communities that legitimately care. Hope this was helpful and gave you a few ideas.

If you look carefully at Kickstarter and the most successful fundraisers that they have had, you will notice that all of them had a well produced video and that video was promoted on other sites. Why video? What you have to remember is that in order to get people interested in your cause, you need to engage them with whatever you are doing. The best way to do that is through video. The more professional the video you produce, the more engaged and more serious people will be about your cause. How do you reach people through video? The beauty of the video is that it can be easily shared on social networks, e-mail, embedded into blogs and viewed on any kind of media. What you will need to do is to figure out who will care the most about your cause and contribute financial resources to it. Once, you figured that out, then you will need to promote your video towards your desired demographic. An easy way to do it is to use Virool (http://www.virool.com). Virool is a video advertising network that allows video producers to reach desired audience by having their video displayed on blogs, social games and iPhone apps. Anyone can start a campaign for $10 and can see measurable results right away. Other ways of marketing your video are somewhat conventional: Twitter, Facebook, E-mail, etc. If you are interested in using Virool's services, then please get in touch with me at:

When you have a well thought out, well planned Kickstarter or crowdfunding campaign, it's the fuel that turns your social capital into money capital. That's what Eric Migicovsky did with Pebble. He raised $10M+.   An awesome product helps, too. Figure out who are your fans and who are your evangelists. They all have their own networks that you'll want them to tap. It's a network of networks game.   I found this great video about a Kickstarter crowdfunding checklist, road map, plan, plus lots of additional advice. It helps you get funded on Kickstarter. Over 200 things to consider for a successful Kickstarter or crowd funding campaign.  [video]

Once you've got people to the project though, you've got to get them to donate. I wrote this article last year that was well received and featured as source in a couple of other articles... http://cinespin.com/indie-film-funding-crowdfunding/crowdfunding-think-like-a-marketer-increase-conversions/

You need to go where your target market goes, exactly as said. Also the more people you can have promoting your pitch the better, pitch ambassadors - as then the work is split further and reaches other networks that you may not otherwise have reached. Lastly, a video pitch really helps - it's a clear indication of the effort you've put in and being able to either see the pitch owner or view their work helps to validate the pitch.

Here's a great article on how to market your crowd funding project: http://blog.rockthepost.com/2012/05/10-tips-to-market-your-rock-the-post-project-online-and-offline/

Depends on what your asking the money for, If it's for something awesome go ahead people will love it. If not, don't do it.