Is it true that you need to build a "following" prior to launching a campaign?

[engineheat]

What kind of "prep work" is most critical? I'm not savvy on social media. I just know you need to have a good idea, a good video, but I feel there is something else one can do to make it more successful.

thanks

[EEVblog]

No, countless crowd funding campaigns makes million with zero existing following.
Part of why they are on Kickstarter and Indiegogo is because those platform have an existing user base who love gadgets and other things.
But there are so many new campaigns every day it's hard to stand out.

As for building a following, basically, if you have to ask this question then you have little chance of "building a following" in any meaningful time frame. Building a follow takes content, lots of content that people are interested in.

What you should do is try and get your product or whatever it is reviews / talked about by influences (hate that term) in you target market.

[engineheat]

What you should do is try and get your product or whatever it is reviews / talked about by influences (hate that term) in you target market.

Is it a good idea to find popular bloggers or Youtubers in the target market and ask them to review or write about your product/sample? That seems to be a way to reach a large audience with minimal effort...

[pylo]

Depends on what you call "following".

If you mean followers on Youtube, Facebook, Insta etc. on social media, then it is just as Dave said above.

But even if you do not have that, I'd recommend you build a list subscribers of interested people who know about your future project and are potentially ready to back you right away when your campaign starts. That is something you can build "relatively" quickly (over a course of a few months, maybe even weeks). This is vital to catching media attention and drawing in new masses when your campaign launches.

[EEVblog]

What you should do is try and get your product or whatever it is reviews / talked about by influences (hate that term) in you target market.

Is it a good idea to find popular bloggers or Youtubers in the target market and ask them to review or write about your product/sample? That seems to be a way to reach a large audience with minimal effort...

Yes, of course. But they often get flooded with such requests.