Having created two campaigns through thepoint.com there’s a bit of a learning curve. There’s some things that I learned after starting the campaign that I wish I knew before I started.
- There’s a character limit for the campaign description. If you have a long link there, it will take up part of your character limit. A way around it is to go to either http://is.gd/ (or) http://tinyurl.com/ to create a smaller link. If you enter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4 into http://is.gd you will get the shorter link http://is.gd/S23 which saves you over half of the character count.
- Save your campaign as a draft at least once before launching. You can check any links, check for typos, or even ask a friend to read through it. If you are not sure if the aim of the campaign is dead on, you don’t need to launch it. Instead post in the BRAINSTORM section of the COMMUNITY page and see if others can help you. You can even share the link to your draft version of the campaign with them for feedback. For the most part, once you launch a campaign, you can’t change it that easily.
- Having just said that, between when you launch a campaign and when the first person joins the campaign, you can still EDIT the campaign. It seems like once that first person joins then the campaign gets locked in and editing is no longer possible. I was told that if campaigns need to be changed, people should post this in the discussion section instead.
- You’re running to the end of your character limit in the pitch section, and there’s a lot of background material or a really good example that you still want to write about it. What do you do? Two things. First, write it all out in the first post of the discussion. There doesn’t seem to be any character limit there. Second, link to the first discussion post from your pitch. You can end the pitch with a For more information, click here" and link “here” to the first discussion post where your post is located. For the Free Hugs Campaign 2.0, I did the following:
People can share pictures, videos, or stories & reports of their huggalicious adventures in the "discussion section below. …And those last three words link to the first discussion. I also like the idea as it directs the members to continue the conversation in the discussion section.
- In the media section of the campaign, you can add a video. YouTube almost always has a video that you can pull for your campaign. And what’s cooler, you can add more than one video too. The screenshot of the first video you post seems to be one used on the main campaign page.
That’s about it. Add any tips or ideas that you wish you knew before you started your campaign.



