Creators: Expands Awareness of Work through Social Media Initial findings suggest that creators were motivated to participate in crowdfunding because it expanded their awareness through social media. An anthropologist who used RocketHub to fund her research on ancient Roman skeletons, described being motivated to not only share her work publically but engage in a dialogue about her work. “I’ve gotten dozens of emails from people around the world who are really interested in the project, and who want to help on the scientific end or telling their friends and family. A documentary TV producer contacted me… these are things that don’t normally happen if you just have a grant proposal, or you have an article in the journal, you know, that maybe nobody reads. And so putting it out to the public um has been really, really great for me…[My project] was picked up on Twitter by a British science journalist, and so he pitched it to CNN, and then CNN covered it and Forbes covered it and then everything just went crazy after that... I really didn’t expect this… I’m really excited that people are just so, so excited about this project that they're willing to give me $20 or $50 or $1000.”

In addition to the online communication about her work, the monetary gifts confirms that awareness of her work is spreading.

Participation also influenced her online profile. She commented:

“I’ve been communicating with people through Twitter, I’ve gained a bunch of new Twitter followers, a bunch of new G+ followers…I put up a website with a blog, and people can comment on the blog…I wanted to engage the public in a little more of a dialogue.”