The best way to get initial signatures is to ask your friends and family for their support. You can forward your petition to them via email, call them, or talk to them in person. It's best to address each person individually instead of sending out a mass email, as those are easier to ignore.

Here's a sample email. Feel free to copy and paste it - just don't forget to fill in the blanks!

Hey Jane!

How are you? How is your family/new job/class going?

I'm emailing you today because I want to share a petition that I've created with you.

[In this paragraph, you can describe your cause. Talk about why your petition is important and what you hope to achieve by getting signatures with it. Keep it short and sweet - we recommend three to five sentences.]

Here's the petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/. It would be great if you could sign it and send it to your friends and family who would be willing to help.

Thank you for your support! I really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Your Name Here

Social media makes it easier than ever before to spread ideas. Ensuring that your petition has a social media presence from Day 1 will help you build a successful campaign.

Facebook

The first step you can take is to create a Facebook page. Select the "cause or community" category. Follow the steps and make sure you fill in all of the information completely. In the 'about' field, write a short but impactful summary of your petition/cause and why it's important. End the description with a call to action to ensure that people head straight to your petition to sign after they like your page on Facebook.

For more information about setting up a Facebook page, visit Timeline for Facebook Pages: The Complete Guide.

Here's an example description:

[Name of Facebook page here] is committed to [issue you want to change.] Show your support by signing our petition today! [link to petition]

Make sure you post updates on your Facebook page regularly. You can post about how many signatures you've received, inspiring quotes, related news articles, and offer suggestions for people to promote the petition.

Example status update:

We are so lucky to have all of your support! Have you emailed your friends and family the petition yet?

Twitter

Twitter gives you access to a huge audience of millions of users and it's a great place to promote your petition.

First, choose a Twitter user name that reflects your cause or petition. Second, add a user image. This could be a headshot of yourself, a logo, or another image that expresses your petition. It's also recommended that you create a custom background to make yourself stand out from the crowd.

Next, create a hashtag. A hashtag is the '#' sign followed by a short phrase which groups certain topics together. Using a hashtag lets you see who is tweeting about your petition or cause so that you can reach out to them and thank them personally via Twitter or other means.

Here is a Twitter user who both created a hashtag for her petition #MeetMegan and also leverages her access to celebrity accounts to get them to retweet her petition: https://twitter.com/#!/lesismorelrb.

For more information about using Twitter, visit The Twitter Guide Book on Mashable.

A useful tool for managing your Twitter and Facebook account is HootSuite. This is a free service that lets you schedule tweets and Facebook posts so you don't have to log on to the services every time you want to share something. You can also keep track of replies and respond directly from the interface.

Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social media networks today. The way to get lots of attention on Pinterest is to post images that are visually appealing and make people want to share them with others.

When looking for images to use on Pinterest, ask yourself, "Would I reshare this image (plus text)?" It's good practice to find a handful of images and ask friends and family members what they think. Also browse some of the pins that are getting shared and see what works and what doesn't.

When you've chosen your image and are ready to pin, make sure you fill out all fields completely. In the description box, you can link to your petition so that people will be inclined to click on it after they have reshared your image.

For more tips about using Pinterest, read: Nine Pinterest Best Practices for Nonprofits and Going Viral on Pinterest. [[This is great and we should have this for FB and Twitter, etc, too. Just 1-2 links is fine.

YouTube

YouTube is one of the most viewed sites on the internet and can be an integral part of your campaign. Since videos are easy to share, you can generate lots of signatures for your petition if you can make your YouTube video go viral.

Make sure you fill out all of the information in the video profile completely. Include a link to your petition in the description box first, then add a call to action like, "Sign our petition!" Also include relevant tags and a keyword-rich description so your video will come up in search results.

Further information: The Secret Strategies Behind Many Viral Videos

Others

Reddit is another popular social media network that has made many a website go viral in a matter of minutes. Create an account and read A Web Marketer's Guide to Reddit to learn how to use it.

StumbleUpon is another network that deserves a mention and can send large amounts of traffic to your petition if done correctly. Read Getting Massive Traffic from StumbleUpon on ViperChill for more information.

Depending on your petition's topic, Google's social media network Google + might be helpful as well. KISSmetric has an excellent guide here.

Tumblr is a popular blogging platform that, when used correctly, can send visitors to your petition. Check out 5 Ways to Use Tumblr to Increase Traffic to your Website.

If a popular blogger becomes interested in supporting your petition, it can easily take off. One way to find relevant blogs is to do a simple Google search.

Type in your keyword phrase to bring up the results page in Google. To look for bloggers, click on the 'everything' tab and narrow the results to 'blogs'. You can further narrow it down by looking for results from the blog's home page or individual posts, and the date the article was written.

Once you've found a relevant blogger who might be willing to help, browse through their blog and read a few articles.

Look for a contact form or email address and write them a short email. Mention that you appreciate them talking about the topic and tell them which articles you enjoy on their site.

Next, add a link to your petition and ask them to sign it and spread the word. They might even write about it in a new article or post it on their social media networks. You may find some of your biggest supporters this way.

To make sure you're staying updated on who mentions your petition or cause, you can set up a Google alert as well as a Topsy alert (to see who tweets about it.)

You can also do a Twitter search to find bloggers. Try filtering results by both tweets and people. Once you've found their website, follow the steps above to share your petition with them. You can also link to it and mention them in a tweet.

If your petition is relevant to your county, city, or state, you can reach out to news reporters, journalists, radio stations, and television news stations.

Most of these websites will have a tips page or a contact us page where you can send in news tips. For example, if your petition is relevant to the Los Angeles area, you can navigate to the local CBS news chapter and send a tip to their dedicated email address.

If your petition is based around a national or global issue, contact media people who work on that level. You can use the same steps you used to find bloggers, except filter the search by news. If your issue is current, try sorting results to the last week to find those who is presently talking about the cause.

If there is a group of people who support you, ask them to reach out to relevant media as well. If enough people are talking about it, it must be worth reporting about!

Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, it's unlikely that your petition will get one million signatures overnight. The way to get people involved with your cause is to be persistent.

After you've completed steps 1 through 4 above, go through them again. Did you email everyone you know that might be interested? Try a follow-up email thanking everyone for their help and asking them to share it.

Are you keeping your Facebook page updated? Make sure you post updates regularly, welcoming new fans, sharing how many new signatures you've received, and posting any changes.

What about Twitter? Have you identified any new users who might be interested? Are you tweeting on a regular basis?

Are you keeping up with Google updates to see if any bloggers and/or reporters are mentioning the story and reaching out to them?

Keep following these steps until you've reached your signature goal. After you've achieved your goal, let us know. You might just be featured on our site as a success story!

We appreciate you starting a petition on ipetitions.com. Don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date with the latest petitions created on our site.