Crowdfunding in the Spotlight: Planning Ahead

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Today I received a note from LiveJournal announcing that they intend to feature crowdfunding in the LJ Spotlight.  This is exciting news!  I want to start making plans now so that this exposure will be as useful to us, and attractive to visitors, as possible.  Please pitch in to share your ideas and content.

View the schedule of planned activities so far.


Here is the original message that LJ sent to me, so you'll know what's going on.

Congratulations!

We would love to place your community, crowdfunding, in the LJ Spotlight,
beginning July 18th, 2011.

Spotlights generally last for seven days and result in increased activity,
posts, and comments. They can also bring anywhere from hundreds to
thousands of new members. If you don't already moderate posts in your
community, you might want to do so during the spotlight period. Everything
will calm down after it's over, but it's a good idea to keep an extra eye
on things while you're in the spotlight.

If you don't want your community to be in the spotlight, please let us
know by replying to this email and we'll shine our light elsewhere.

If you have any problems or questions during the spotlight period, please
contact our Support team here:
http://www.livejournal.com/support/submit.bml

Enjoy the spotlight!

Truly,
Yori

I have some ideas for things I would like to do in advance of this activity, as well as during the Spotlight week July 18-24.  These are just starting points; more suggestions are welcome, especially if you can volunteer to take some of the load.

1) Have at least one post per day on this community between now and July 18.  There are 5 days between now and then, and there's one predated post for the 13th, so that leaves 4 days to cover.  Posts by diverse people during this time are welcome; it doesn't matter what you say as long as it's related to cyberfunded creativity somehow.

2) Arrange supervision for the Spotlight.  Currently we have three maintainers: myself, haikujaguar, and talkstowolves.  We could use help keeping an eye on the massive influx of traffic that is likely.  If you're frequently active on this community and would like to be a maintainer, please contact me.  

If you don't want to be a maintainer, but are willing to help answer visitors' questions, quash any flames, etc. then that's also welcome. Ideally, mention which Spotlight day(s) you expect to be available for that. It'll help spread out the load if people volunteer to cover different days.

Membership is currently set to "open" and anyone any member can post.  I'd prefer to leave it that way because it's less work and we're going to be busy.  However, if trolls or other troubles appear, we may need to switch to Moderated status for a while, and/or make other adjustments.

3) Update community materials.  This includes the Profile page and the Links sidebar.  I will try to find time to do these things between now and July 18.  If you have a current crowdfunding project that is not on our Links list, and you'd like it added, please speak up.  It needs to have a landing page and/or its own blog/website, so that the link will point to somewhere obviously connected with that project.

4) Spread the word.  The Spotlight week will be a good time to visit this community for people who aren't already members, as there will be lots of activity for the occasion.  Please consider making a post to your blog that will encourage readers to drop by.

5) Make a "Welcome, Visitors!" post on Monday, July 18.  This should include a summary of what our community is, who it's for, and what we do here (briefer than the Profile page).  It should also list some resources for crowdfunding in general and suggestions for what to explore.  I plan to do this.

6) Present a featured format every day of the Spotlight.  I'm going to contact some folks backchannel and try to arrange for a different person to make a post each day.  Currently I'm thinking of these features: shared world, webserial, fishbowl, one-card draw, free icon day, webcomic, nonfiction; plus an extra for patronage on Monday.  These will ideally become good anchor posts that can go in our "Memories" file.

7) Offer a variety of project posts.  These come in two flavors: A) posts consisting of or pointing to a live crowdfunding activity that day (such as a one-card draw), and B) posts describing a particular crowdfunding project that isn't doing anything particular that day (but may be ongoing).  For everyone who runs a project, this is your chance to wave it in front of a LOT more eyeballs than usual.  Make it count.  If you do a sporadical project that goes live for a day here and there, scheduling one during Spotlight week is a good idea.  For patrons and fans, feel free to blow the horn for your favorite project(s) and tell people why they should go take a look at it.  It helps if you list the day(s) you plan to make your post(s).  Remember, you'll probably get more attention if you have fewer projects competing with yours on that day, so try to spread out instead of piling up.

8) Start some discussion posts.  These will just be brief posts aimed at encouraging conversation about cyberfunded creativity in general.  They might consist of a paragraph or two of background followed by one or more open questions.  I could theoretically lay out a batch of these myself, but as you can see, I have a ton of other stuff to juggle (plus my ordinary workload).  It would be very helpful if folks would suggest topics/questions for this activity, and/or volunteer to make a post and keep an eye on its comments.  If you don't have time to manage a discussion, you can still help by making suggestions and/or comments.  I'd like to get one per day.  If we wind up with extras, we can use some of them for later days.

Closely related, certain discussions might work well in poll form. For instance, it would be cool to have a poll like, "What types of crowdfunded project have you produced? Viewed? Sponsored?" If anyone wants to post that, or another poll, please volunteer.

9) Mention the Rose & Bay Awards for excellence in cyberfunded creativity.  This is one of our community's big projects, and we should share it with newcomers.  It could go on any day.  Monday and Tuesday are the highest-traffic days, and Monday already has a bunch of stuff going on, so I'm leaning toward Tuesday, July 19.  Is anyone willing to make a post describing the Rose & Bay Awards?

10) Include some followup.  If the LJ Spotlight does its usual trick, we'll pick up a bunch of new members.  We don't want to disappoint them by putting on a great display during the Spotlight week ... then rolling over and playing dead immediately after.  If you have ideas for some other posting activity, or if the project and discussion lists get crowded for Spotlight week, please consider doing something in the later part of July.  This will help us retain new members, and may encourage more people to sign up if they decided to take a few quick peeks before actually joining.


For tracking purposes, as of today we have:

1,148 journal entries
55 tags
26 memories
44 interests
208 members

With a little luck and some careful planning, most of those numbers should go up shortly.

Comments

Re: Okay...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. Thanks for keeping me posted.