*UNDER CONSTRUCTION* Signal-boosting #ToryBritain truths to the nation. Helping YOU be part of the fightback.
Want to reach ordinary voters in your local area? Want to reach like-minded people? Want your own easy and hugely fun publishing project?
If you can lay your hands on any money at all (from your pocket, from clubbing together, or by fundraising, you can order Facebook sponsored posts (paid advertising). You will then be able to reach hundreds of the Facebook users of your choice that we normally don’t reach:
Can you fundraise £100? Then you’re sponsoring reach to between 15,000 and 30,000 Facebook users…That will include thousands of Tory supporters, thousands of unengaged people, and many undecided voters!
Learn Facebook page publishing and crowdfunding here… it’s easy! Anyone can do it. Get started right now with the step-by-step instruction guide we’ve lovingly prepared for you.
And if you choose to, you can tell Facebook to show your ad only to the exact audience you want:
With a big fundraise, you might be able to reach most of the Facebook users in your town, or your community of interest.
It’s easy to get your Facebook page started right now!
Step 1: Go to your Facebook home page.
Step 2: On your Facebook home page, go to the ‘EXPLORE’ section in the left-hand bar, and select ‘Pages’. (Your ”EXPLORE’ menu will look a little like the picture on the right, although everyone’s is a little different.)
As the owner of your new page, by default you see a somewhat different view of your own page to a normal page visitor. When you first see your new page, the lower part of your window should be headed ‘Welcome to your new Page’.
Below the ‘Welcome to your page’ heading are the three easy steps to get your new page looking good and ready to start sharing around.
A Facebook page is automatically public. Anyone can ‘like’ and read all the posts on your public page.
Your project group however can (and should) be closed, so that only group members will be able to read group posts. Group members are added by you or by another group member. Group members can be removed if necessary by an admin.
Your main focus will be your public Facebook page. However, if you don’t already have another safe digital space available for keeping in touch digitally with your own project team – a space that other people who are interested in helping you out can find and join – then it might well be worth starting a ‘group’ too on Facebook.
Creating a group really couldn’t be much easier.
It’s usually a good idea to get a few posts under your belt on your new page, before you go off and invite people to like your page, so that invitees aren’t looking at a completely empty page.
If you can post a photo or video directly to Facebook, do so – you’ll tend to get the best response that way.
Also – pithy, deft, and satirical all tend to be good options, at least some of the time. Remember that (more than Twitter) Facebook is mostly a leisure platform used by pretty much everyone!
There’s a number of crowdfunding platforms to choose from. Some crowdfunding sites are based on the model that your “target amount” is all important. On those platforms, If you don’t meet your target, you’ve failed, and all of your donations are cancelled. You DON’T want to set up your #StopTheTories crowdfunder like that. We’re rapidly building up #StopTheTories from nothing. None of us knows how successful this project might become in the coming weeks, but let’s not expect too much of ourselves either. Don’t put at risk getting some money in to make a difference with; don’t put yourself under that pressure.
Our recommended crowdfunder platform with fully flexible funding is YouCaring, which is super user-friendly to set up. All you’ll need to get started is a PayPal account, to withdraw your funds to.
On the previous page we showed you how to set up the basics of a crowdfunder page on Youcaring.com.
Now it’s time to provide a bit more info about what you’re doing, and make your page look its best. Here’s how.
A good first step for promoting your crowdfunder is to share it on social media.
Make sure you write appropriate and personalised covering text for your social media shares!
All election material “that can reasonably be regarded as intended to influence voters to vote for or against a political party or a category of candidates” must carry what is called an imprint. Here is an example of an imprint for a Facebook page:
Promoted by: John Smith, 123 Acacia Avenue, London, W5 8HJ.
While this law obviously predates the social media age, and you don’t exactly see an imprint on every election meme on Facebook or Twitter, the Electoral Commission confirm that the law does apply. If you are taking paid advertising on Facebook to reach thousands of people who wouldn’t “naturally” see that post, we strongly recommend taking the following one easy step to definite legal compliance.
So, you’ve raised some funds for a paid Facebook boost – congratulations! Here is the start of our step-by-step guide to putting your advertising budget to good use.
Basic paid boosting of Facebook page content is neither difficult nor scary! Facebook has two different methods of boosting – one of which is really simple and easy for anyone to use! This page shows you everything you need to become proficient in placing Facebook paid ads, and using the money you’ve raised effectively to reach hundreds of real voters.
Once you’ve thought carefully about how to spend your hard-raised funds, it’s time to put your first paid boost into action. Here are the buttons to press, step by step.
Exhausted all the funds you’ve been able to raise? If your boosted post has done well, it should have driven a number of the people who saw it into clicking ‘Like page’. What’s your follower count now? It might be surprisingly high. They are now your “organic audience”, and some of them (it all depends on Facebook’s algorithms) will continue to see your non-boosted posts.
This means that you’re now in a strong position to continue to publish, to reach supporters “organically”, and to continue to grow your follower numbers if some of your supporters share some of your posts.
You can now use your page occasionally for action shout-outs, encouraging your followers to get more engaged in the movement. Don’t forget to keep mixing it with news, comment and memes that will help keep up the passion and morale of our movement.