Even before the hotly contested 15,000 ballot places for the London Marathon have been allocated, the Golden Bond places have already been sold. These places are sold to the thousands of charities that recognise the marathon as the single biggest fundraising event of the British calendar (the London Marathon raises a whopping £45 million annually). Individual fundraising targets are competitive and are normally around the £1500 – £2000 mark.

This week I began fundraising for the MS Society with a target of £2000. I’d set up my Justgiving page last year in preparation (it took me that long to photoshop this picture for the page)…

I know what you’re thinking, nice bulge? Seriously though, that’s not me. But my head is that big. By the by, if you’re currently fundraising for the marathon and you haven’t heard of Justgiving then throw away your abacus and sponsorship sheet you old fart and get with it. Not only does it mean that you can grab sponsorship from all of your acquaintances from across the globe but you can claim the tax back as an additional bit of wedge for your charity. God bless the Inland Revenue.

Now, if you’re reading this blog or have written one yourself then you’re probably aware of how powerful social media is as a tool. I started a Facebook group containing links to my sponsorship page and invited every one of my friends to join. This has kick-started things quite nicely. Facebook is probably one of the strongest methods of drawing people to your sponsorship page but there are techniques you can use to maximise the effects of your Facebook campaign. See the Justgiving blog for some fantastic tips but here are a few to get you started:

• Keep everything up to date
  A boring, old news group will lose its hit count quickly unless you keep it up to date. Keep your news wall up to speed with training targets you’ve met and sponsorship updates. Use your status updates enough to keep people in the loop but try not to do it too often as it might start to irritate your friends.
• Use video
  I haven’t done this yet but I think it’s a great idea. If it’s funny it’ll generate more traffic for your sponsorship page. I might do one of me dressed up in my black hat and hoody running up some stairs and dub it with the Rocky theme tune. I’m so original.
• Say thanks, publicly
  When someone sponsors you, take to the time to thank them on their Facebook wall (even if you’ve already thanked them personally). It’ll raise awareness to your page and remind others to do the same.

For those of you who aren’t Facebook friendly then there are some other tips you can try out. The idea is to be as creative as you can. You’re doing a wonderful thing by giving up three months of your life to raise money for a worthy cause so make sure people know it. The girl in this video spelt out the link to her Justgiving page by using a watch with GPS functionality and a website called GPS Visualiser. I wish I’d thought of that (cracking moment when she slips over at the end but well done Jenny). Another chap used eBay to promote his page.

Some people will send the details of their sponsorship to their local paper (Justgiving have a draft press release you can use). Now, I work at gorkana (who provide a  media database to the PR industry) and have the newsdesk email addresses of all papers across the country at my disposal (little plug there – the CEO can thank me later). Do you think my little page could make it in to the Daily Mail? I know enough about the PR industry to know that blanket-emailing the national papers doesn’t work unless your story is an exclusive or really captivating. Maybe if I offer to run it naked? You’ve all seen the picture above…

So far I’ve raised £367. That’s from having my sponsorship page in my email signature at work, emailing the link directly to EVERYONE at my company and having the Facebook group up and running for 3 days. There’s still a long way to go but I’m hopeful. They haven’t seen my Rocky video yet…

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