First Time GOFUNDME How to get traffic

[walmart]

It's my first time helping to launching a gofundme project for a non-profit. How do I get attention besides facebook, nobody cares on FB about anything but pets and kiddo photos. Btw.. it's for a person offering free drug detox kits to help people kick opiates.

[Harold Mansfield]

It's my first time helping to launching a gofundme project for a non-profit. How do I get attention besides facebook, nobody cares on FB about anything but pets and kiddo photos. Btw.. it's for a person offering free drug detox kits to help people kick opiates.

You need press.
You need to draw attention to it.
Send press releases and press packs to related blogs and websites that you want to post about it. Go on related podcasts. Go on related webcasts. Get on the local news. Radio shows.

If people are interested in it, they'll back it. If not, they won't.
But you can't just put it online, sit back and hope. No one is going to ever hear about it that way.

Just like anything else in the world, you need to market it.

[walmart]

I have sent out over 50 press releases and submitted stories. Never checked into podcast before. Maybe I am thinking it will happen overnight, it's only been 2 days.

[vangogh]

it's for a person offering free drug detox kits to help people kick opiates

That's a good human interest story for the news. I can't remember where, but I remember reading advice about someone who would approach the local news with the story. Every local news station has a reporter or two out in the street interviewing people for the kind of story you have. I think he would find a way to contact those people and present the story to them. He did it in a way where it wasn't so much marketing as it was him basically giving the news person an idea he or she was likely to cover. I wish I could remember the specifics, but hopefully the general idea helps.

Now that I think about he found in his story the angle the news person usually covered. He thought first of the news person and the type of story that they usually covered and then found a way to share his story with the reporter in the way the reporter was likely to want to share on TV.

[Freelancier]

Sending a press release is what I do about my business just to get SEO. What a PR person does is call and e-mail directly to the people who will write these kinds of stories for other publications and get them interested in the story.

[walmart]

Thanks for the advice.

[worldlearner0411]

You may think that Facebook and Twitter are a wast of time, but there is no faster way to get so many people to see it. Aside from those networks their are places like this that you can post on. To be honest it may be no help at all. The majority of those who would view this are trying to post campaigns themselves. Who knows though; even if only a few see this page and decide to share it on Facebook, that could be thousands more that see it. Hope this helps anyone :)

[HooktoWin]

It's my first time helping to launching a gofundme project for a non-profit. How do I get attention besides facebook, nobody cares on FB about anything but pets and kiddo photos. Btw.. it's for a person offering free drug detox kits to help people kick opiates.

Hi Cindy,

It really depends on the project. As Harold and Vangogh mentioned you need press. I can suggest some more specific ideas if you're able to share more details. This essentially boils down to one simple strategy.

Get those with a large audience to share their audience with you.

Here are some specific steps you can take to get the attention you're looking for.


Find the news, blogging and reporting most relevant to your non-profit. These sources should be high traffic and high visibility.
Create an angle that uses emotional and psychological triggers to draw in attention. Certain emotions reduce sharing while others amplify it (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-emotion-goes-viral-fastest-180950182/?no-ist).
Leak (do not pitch) your story to your outlet(s) of choice.
Give your sources some juicy tidbits, exclusives or gossip they can sink their teeth into. Remember certain emotions spread faster than others.

The most important component? That you create a story or angle that matters to your outlet. As you know, a lot of these outlets focus on clicks and views. The more views your content generates the more ad revenue they generate. That's the lay of the land, as disappointing as that is.

News and reporting outlets are starving for great content. Starving. Find an angle that sparks interest and connect it to your non-profit. Do it the right and you'll generate a massive amount of attention in a short period of time.

If you're able to share more details I can provide more specifics and ideas. Let me know.

Andrew

[KristineS]

That's a good human interest story for the news. I can't remember where, but I remember reading advice about someone who would approach the local news with the story. Every local news station has a reporter or two out in the street interviewing people for the kind of story you have. I think he would find a way to contact those people and present the story to them. He did it in a way where it wasn't so much marketing as it was him basically giving the news person an idea he or she was likely to cover. I wish I could remember the specifics, but hopefully the general idea helps.

Now that I think about he found in his story the angle the news person usually covered. He thought first of the news person and the type of story that they usually covered and then found a way to share his story with the reporter in the way the reporter was likely to want to share on TV.

I've talked about this before in seminars and articles too. Local news is often starving for human interest stories. It doesn't even need to necessarily be a press release, look on the website for the local television stations, do some research and see what reporters cover what, and send an e-mail to any reporter who seems like they might be sympathetic. Keep it short, and emphasize why this is a good story. Do the same for newspapers and magazines.

Don't forget organizations that help people with drug addictions. Take the same approach. Do some research, figure out who in the organization might be open to hearing about what you're doing and politely make an approach.

Another thought is to do a short video about how this program will or has helped people, and put it on You Tube. Production values should be decent, but they don't have to be top of the line. The goal is to get the story out there and let people know about it.

Keep working social media too. Remember, it's not just about putting up a link to your GoFundMe and making a plea for donations, it's about telling your story. If you have a compelling message, please will share it. You also need to take advantage of outlets to share the message you're putting out on social media. You could have posted it here for us to look at and if it was compelling enough, some of us might have passed it to our networks.

[fullflavor]

Here are some tips that may be useful
1.Create an infographic (or an instructographic). Visual content is a great way to get the attention of bloggers and Pinterest users, which means more traffic, links and brand opportunities for your campaign. If you create something truly remarkable with a great hook you will see a high return on your investment.

2.Create Link Bait material

3.Join the online communities of your target audience

[webfanatic]

Do paid Facebook Ads. You can target extremely well and put your offer in front of your target audience. I suggest you go to LinkedIn - it's more professional and you won't see pics of kittens or babies.

[MotiveGraphics]

Usually the #1 way to get crowd funding campaigns to really start accelerating is SOCIAL MEDIA... If you don't have enough ofa social media presence, then you can try contacting local news papers and editorials or even blogs related to your target audience that might help you out .. Sometimes itw ould require writing your story on their website.. which shouldn't be hard

[BobOlmstead]

I would strongly suggest checking out this link to Tim Ferris's piece on this: LINK (http://fourhourworkweek.com/2012/12/18/hacking-kickstarter-how-to-raise-100000-in-10-days-includes-successful-templates-e-mails-etc/)

[Harold Mansfield]

Make a website
Bulild up email database
POint the webiste to the funding page
Get people involve
Do SEO so that you rank high for some keywords
then you'll start generating users from search engines and this will pretty much solve all your problems

Sounds easy. It should be said that each of these things a separate skill set (with the exception of redirecting a URL) that you will have to learn to do successfully, or hire someone to help with.

I agree that if you know how to do these things well, you'll be in a much better position to see some success. But "making" a website, building an email list, and SEO aren't just check boxes on a form. They each require some real knowledge and hard work.

Not sure about solving all of your problems though.