Fear of Being Thunderclapped

Do you know what a Thunderclap is? Yes World of Warcraft geeks it’s a spell the warrior can do to create agro….. But that’s not the kind of thunderclap I am talking about. I guess if you were fighting against a warrior then it’s ok to fear being thunderclapped. Warrior thunderclaps shocks you a bit and hurts, it’s annoying.

Okay let’s get back on track here. The Thunderclap that I was talking about was the crowdspeaking platform that’s used to gain a social reach for all sorts of online campaigns. This is how Thunderclap describes themselves:

What is Thunderclap?
If a tweet falls in the forest…

Social media is an easy way to say something, but it’s a difficult way to be heard. Thunderclap is the first-ever crowdspeaking platform that helps people be heard by saying something together. It allows a single message to be mass-shared, flash mob-style, so it rises above the noise of your social networks. By boosting the signal at the same time, Thunderclap helps a single person create action and change like never before.

You don’t need a huge following for a successful Thunderclap.
A user with 200 Facebook friends could amplify her message better than someone with 3,000 friends. It all depends on your cause’s voice and shareability — and how much your friends are engaged. Thunderclap has already reached millions of people. Check out some of the successful projects on our homepage!

The tipping point
The beauty of Thunderclap is that it sets the goalposts: one message, one number, one date. It’s a common threshold you and your supporters work toward together. It’s a tangible way to measure awareness.

The text above can also be read here:

Sounds pretty awesome right? Well it is they have created a tool that helps a campaign gain its footing and get noticed and recently I decided that I would try Thunderclap out in running a campaign to get readers to check out Kindlescout which is a place where Indie Author’s post samplings of their novels to gain “nominations” (which is basically votes from readers) and ultimately gain a publishing deal through Kindle. I’ve noticed that there is a bit of a fear with using Thunderclap to support a cause. The fear is coming from the potential supporter in logging into Thunderclap and allowing Thunderclap to send out the Thunderclap message over social media on the campaign date.
I received this email from someone who wanted to support the campaign but was leery on the process.

They wrote:
Hi C.R. Misrty, thanks for reaching out! Just out of curiosity, have you submitted a book through the Scout program before, or are you planning to in the future? I’m halfway through my campaign now and it’s a grueling process for sure, but I’m quite excited about it! I love hearing experiences from other indie authors who have gone through similar trials with self-publishing. I will certainly look into your books — I love supporting other indie authors, as we all know it’s a tough road. ;)
I actually looked into a Thunderclap campaign for my Scout entry — but I think my hang-up with it is that they want your social media login information for them to personally post on your site. Honestly I’m not all that comfortable with some 3rd party having my personal passwords and such. I understand their point, as far as them having access to get their word out for the message, but it seems to me there would/should be another way of getting that message public without having to hack (legally, lol) into people’s personal accounts. I wish there was another way for them to still reach the same successful results but perhaps without having to obtain people’s personal log-in/security details. I know my own friends and family would have an issue with giving out such information to a 3rd party site (heck I don’t think they would even give such private info to me personally, lol) so I understand the struggle.

Anyway, I wish you much success with your campaign. It’s a wonderful thing you are doing, trying to spread the word for indie authors and I am certainly on board with the message. I do hope you find Thunderclap is a successful way of achieving that. Good luck!! :)”

When I received the above email I was happy that they were on board for supporting the cause but this email confirmed my suspicion in that either people thought the process may be too cumbersome or they didn’t want to use their social media profiles and grant access to allow for a post sent on their behalf. Now, my suspicion was confirmed.

What did I do? I accepted their concerns as value in using and forwarded their correspondence to Thunderclap Support to see if they could explain further.

This is Thunderclap’s Response:
Thanks for getting in touch. Below is some sample language that might be helpful if others have any questions or concerns about privacy:

When you sign up to support a Thunderclap campaign, you’re allowing Thunderclap to share a single, one-time message on your behalf. This is only the case when you click the button on the campaign page to support with Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr. After the campaign is complete, Thunderclap won’t post any additional messages.

Thunderclap uses the minimum level of permissions offered by each social network, and some of these include permissions that Thunderclap has no intention of using. The platform will never interact with your friends’ accounts, store their information, or post on their behalf. Thunderclap pulls in the number of friends or followers someone for the sole purpose of calculating the campaign’s social reach.

Additionally, we encourage you to direct your audience to our landing page for those supporters that might be unfamiliar with Thunderclap or have questions.

Hope this helps!

So there you have it. I wanted to share in hopes to help rid fears and I want you to join my campaign on spreading awareness for Indie Authors and their hard work.
Here is the link to my Thunderclap Campaign. Please join and share.
Indie Authors Getting Noticed

I just supported Indie Authors Getting Noticed on @ThunderclapIt // @AuthorCRMisty

www.thunderclap.it

I’m an indie author who has a love for reading and writing. Read about & join my Thunderclap campaign to help create awareness for creative indies who are posting their work and looking for votes. Support indie authors on Kindle Scout.