Many people spend lifetimes looking for a cause they feel worthy of sinking their teeth and efforts into. Once discovered or created, in the hearts of people who participate in these foundations, each cause deserves all the attention and funding in the world. Gathering resources and contacts in order to build up the non-profit’s financial side can be daunting and at times vexing. In an age saturated with multimedia access, where every pocket has digital communication, information, and advertising, the power of a social influencer is hard to ignore.
Why use a social influencer?
In a nut shell, a social influencer is someone with a large online following. With that following comes the ability to sway the opinion of others. A productive social influencer should have the following:
How do you choose an influencer for your cause?
- A sincerity and trustworthy nature that carries their followers across expansive time frames as opposed to moments of shock value and spectacle.
- They should have a densely populated following across multiple platforms. Things like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram draw in different crowds, so to have a high number of followers in each means the influencer’s reach is vast and varied.
- When a social influencer is engaged with their followers, when throw out a call to action for a non-profit, event, fundraiser, etc. their fans are more likely to be active and contribute to those events. The engagement should be active on both sides in order for results to flourish.
Measure the influencer’s social impact
There are a number of websites available that analyze an influencer’s influence and will provide you with a rating. A low score would indicate they don’t have a tangible effect.
Follow them
Sometimes the best way to get a feel for an influencer and get a feel for their impact is to follow them yourself.
Seek out appropriate influencers
To choose an influencer that primarily deals with health and wellness for a charity that hopes to raise money for big cat conservation would be a disparity of motives. You want your cause to match what the influencer influences.
Organize options after searching for them online
Searching specific topics, hashtags, and articles is a great way to track down like minded people. Organize those people into a chart in order of preference or perhaps in order of potential influence power. This will help you develop a plan of attack to establish connections.
Contact them
After getting a feel for who you want to work with, reach out. Odds are if your cares and goals are on the same page, they’d love to raise money or awareness for a worthy cause.
At the end of the day, a social influencer can carry a powerful impact when it comes raising awareness and funding for any given non-profit. Don’t be afraid to put the neck of your cause on the line and see how it can be elevated and benefited by the power of an influencer.