Organize Your Contacts

Once your project is ready to share with the world, DO NOT simply blast everyone you know with a mass email. Leveraging some strategy when marketing your project will pay dividends!

Start by organizing your address book in to the following categories:
1. Nearest & Dearest:
These are the people you trust most, who you are in regular contact with, and who you can count on for their support.

2. Small Groups:
Identify people that you interact with in specific groups of 5 – 10 people. Are you in a book club? You may be closer to some individuals in the group than others, but that's not important.

3. Large Groups:
Which larger groups are you a member of? Do you have email addresses for everyone in your office, a mailing list for your band? Do you sing in a chorus, or does your apartment building have an email group? Identify people that you interact with in groups of more than 10 people.

4. The Public:
This is where you can lump everyone else… Your general Facebook friends (not otherwise captured above), Twitter followers, distant acquaintances, etc.

Now that you're organized, start by priming the pump with your Nearest & Dearest. Talk to each of these people directly about your project. Try to talk to each of them in person or on the phone! This is much more effective than email communication.

Once that is complete, your project is live, and contributions from your Nearest & Dearest have begun, quickly send emails to your Small Groups. Make sure to "CC" everyone in the group on the email, so they can all see who is being included. Follow up with individual emails to the social leaders in each group.

When one member of the group Fuels your project, make sure to send an email to the entire group to thank the individual! This will serve two purposes: 1) it will publicly recognize and celebrate the Fueler, and 2) it will exert some gentle peer pressure on the other group members!

Do the same with your large groups.

Rather than starting with a mass appeal via social media, celebrate and thank your Fuelers. Once your project has real traction from the groups above, take that social proof to Facebook and Twitter, and spread the news far and wide.