A crowdsale in the form of reward-based crowdfunding supported by corresponding internet platforms can be useful to young companies and SMEs in various ways. It not only opens up additional financing options, but also serves risk reduction, product development, market research, target group communication and, last but not least, sales.
Critical to the success of a reward-based crowdfunding campaign is the targeted and appropriate use of social media before and during the campaign. Based on two common theoretical explanatory strands, namely the information economics approach (signaling theory) and the resource-based approach (social capital theory), the article presents the functioning and background of crowdsale and explains the relevance of social media for the success of such projects. The article shows how the probability of success of campaigns can be significantly increased by reducing the information asymmetries between backers and starters and by activating the social media network.