Ep 281 | Collaborating with Influencers on Social Media

In this episode of the Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast, we're diving into the world of social media influencers – but not the kind you might be thinking of. It's time to reframe the way we think about influencers and how nonprofits can leverage these powerful connections to grow their community and reach new audiences.

Influencers don't have to be super famous and with tons of followers. They just have to have an engaged audience that would be interested in learning more about what your organization does.

What you'll learn:

→ How to identify potential “influencers” that align with your nonprofit's mission and goals
→ Strategies for reaching out and making a clear, specific ask
→ Tips for creating shareable content and tracking the success of your influencer outreach
→ Creative ways to think beyond the traditional “influencer” mold
→ The importance of building genuine relationships with your influencer partners

Want to skip ahead? Here are key takeaways:

[00:00] It's time to think about influencers in a different way. Influencers aren't just celebrities, but anyone who has built an engaged community around their social media presence.
[04:46] Finding influencers can be the struggle. Start with local “celebrities,” media personalities, and advocates who share similar causes to your nonprofit.
[05:23] Look for the less obvious infuencers . Think outside the box and consider adjacent topics that might still align with your mission. This could be related products or services that would compliment the work you do.
[06:25] Put a process together for how you reach out. Research their social media presence, look for mutual connections, and personalize your outreach message. When you can, have someone on your team, board, volunter, etc, reach out to them if they know them.
[06:42] Make the ask clear and specific. Be clear about the desired conversion, such as event promotion or resource sharing, and offer something in return.
[9:40] Don't forget to track the results. You want to know if your efforts are working. Be sure you understand the desired outcome so that you can track for future projects.

Resources

[blog] Amplify Your Cause with Nonprofit Influencer Marketing Tips

Full Transcript

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Let's talk social media influencers. And before you turn this episode off and say, not for me, hear me out just for a second. The term influencer is thrown around a lot, and we typically think of them being like the Kardashians or some big celebrity or a YouTuber or a tiktoker who has gotten famous, right? My kids love Mr. Beast. He would be an influencer. And we kind of think about them as these larger than life, huge personas, huge personalities, that there's no way that we could even engage with them or get connected to them in a meaningful way. So I want to reframe that term influencer, because really, to me, an influencer is somebody who has built community around their social media, somebody who does social media really well. It's more about are people engaging in their content, connecting with them? Do they listen to what they have to say? Thought Leaders could be influencers, right? And so when we think about how we as a nonprofit can engage with influencers, and if you're watching this on YouTube, you know I'm using air quotes, but how can we connect with people that can just help us build our community, get in front of new audiences and grow it's really just a fancy term for collaboration. Now, sometimes these things create or require a monetary component. A lot of times they don't, especially for nonprofit organizations, but what they do require is alignment, alignment in mission, alignment in connection, alignment and community.

So what we're going to talk through today is how you might want to go about researching quote, unquote influencers that you want to connect with, and how you can approach them, and what you can provide for them to increase the the chances that they will connect with you and that they will post on your behalf or share about your organization with their audience. Because we know when you hear about something from somebody you already know, like and trust, you're much more likely to take action, or at least dig in a little bit deeper. So that's what we're going to talk about today on this episode of the digital marketing therapy podcast. But before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by our November freebie. It is the month of social media. And so I have for you a 2025, social holiday calendar. It has broken down by month for the entire year, themes for the month, social holidays that you might want to think about. So that you can start to build out your social media calendar for 2025 so that you have a few things in your back pocket that you can post about when you're like, oh, I don't really know what to talk about. It will help spark ideas and energy. So you can go to thefirstclick.net/resources, to snag that 2025 guide and get to planning. I hope that you enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to put together for now, let's get into the episode.

Intro
You're listening to the digital marketing therapy podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell-Mulhern. Each month we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement in your organization. Each week, you'll hear from guest experts, nonprofits, and myself on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals.

Sami Bedell-Mulhern
Okay, so first of all, let's talk about who are these influencers that we want to even potentially reach out to, and now this is going to decide, like, depend on the size of your organization, the size of your reach, your geographic reach, but really it comes down to goals. So we are serving this particular city, or we are maybe we're expanding into a new location, and so we want to get in front of people that are more closely related to that area. Maybe we are national. We want to make sure we're make sure we're hitting the right cause, right so we want to think about what are the goals? Because it could be great to have a lot of impressions, a lot of posts, a lot of contact, but if there's no real, tangible way for people to take action, it doesn't matter. So influencers can look like a lot of things, and really the biggest thing is making sure that it's somebody who is engaging in the same community that is similar to who you would want to get in front of. So for example, if we think about it on a large scale, right? Let's go, like, as big as it gets, right? Yeah, it could be great if you're a cat rescue to get Taylor Swift to post about you, because she loves cats like that's her thing. They're all over her social media. It would be very authentic to her, if you were a dog rescue to have Taylor Swift post about your Yes, she's an animal lover, but it just wouldn't connect the same way with her audience. Yes, because her audience is huge and massive, you would probably still get some results from that, but it's just not the best alignment, right? It wouldn't be as as authentic and as clear as if you were a cat rescue.

So let's think about first, who are some of the local quote, unquote celebrities, media personalities, you know, editors or writers in the area, who are some really strong advocates for some. Similar causes that might be interested in you, right? You could start there and make a list and see who's active. You could search for keywords on your Facebook, LinkedIn, for groups and kind of see, okay, well, who is really doing a lot of work in this space that might make sense for us to reach out to. You might want to do some Google searches and look for bloggers YouTube searches to see kind of who is really talking about the work that you do, that might be willing to support things that you do and be creative and think outside the box, a little bit in, like, what are some adjacent type situations? So if, like I said, if you're a cat rescue, who is talking about cat accessories, who is talking about, you know, like the little mini rooms that they're making for their cat. If you run a museum, take a look at the people that have been commenting or coming to your events. How Are they active on social media? The term influencer is really broad, so we really just want to make a list of the people that we know are active on social media that have an engaged audience, that are in alignment with the things that we do. So that does take a little bit of time and a little bit of effort, but we want to kind of put that list together, and then we want to think about how we're going to reach out to them. So how we do that looks like a couple of different things. Number one, you can definitely creep on them on social media and see who they're connected to. Are they connected to people that you already know, people that are on your board, people that are on your team, volunteers, other donors that could maybe make an introduction, or you might just need to kind of figure out what are the things that they're most excited about, so that you can kind of make some notes for Well, when I do reach out, I can make sure I personalize it in this way. Share this post, share this information, yada yada yada. So we want to kind of think about how we're going to do that, and then we want to think about what the ask is. What are we asking them to do? Because we want to be very specific. It's not good enough to say, hey, Jill, we love your content. Will you post about our organization that's not gonna fly, and likely that's not gonna happen. And even if they do post something, it's probably not gonna hit or engage with your audience.

So what are we asking them to do? And what is the conversion that we're looking for. So is it, hey, we want to reach out to you because we've got this really cool event coming up that we think your audience would really be interested in. Would you mind sharing it? And we'll get into some specifics about that here in a second. Is it that you're just trying to get people to your website? Are you trying to get people to download a resource? Are you trying to get people to buy tickets to your museum exhibit? Like, what is it that we're trying to get them to do? How does that align with their audience? And be very, very specific. People want to know exactly what you need them to do, and it will help them say yes or no, and it'll help you get better results. So then, when it comes to making the ask, we want to have everything as pulled together and tight as possible. So like, let's use the example of we have an upcoming event come that we think your audience would be interested in. So I'm going to send them a message, and I'm going to say, hey, Jill, I love your take on XYZ. I love that you're passionate about it. We have this really cool event coming up that's supporting our organization, which does, and then, in like a quick sentence, what you do? We think your audience would really enjoy coming to this event and learning about it. We'd love to offer you and your audience 10% off tickets, if you would be sure, if you would share it and share this code, so there's something in it for them. There's somebody that's mission aligned. And you know, if this is something you think you might be interested, let us know. Our team can give you some language and graphics to make it super easy for you. We've got them all in Canva so you can update them and edit them to make sure they fit your brand and esthetic. But we'd love to talk to you about potentially helping us promote this event, right? It's a one shot deal. It's a good conversation. You see what happens? And then they're going to say one of two things. They're going to say, Yeah, sure. Or no, I need more well, three things maybe, yeah, sure. No, I don't think this is the right fit. Or, you know, maybe I need to have some more information. No matter what you're opening the door for conversation, and you can continue to have further conversation as you go. Hopefully they share. The great thing about also offering their people a discount is that you can track how successful that was, but you really being clear about that conversion. If it's a free resource, it could be, hey, Joe, we've got this free resource that helps you really understand how to what can be recycled and what can't. And we know that your audience is really excited about conservation, and you talk a lot about upcycling and recycling, you know?

Would you be interested in sharing this resource with your audience? Right? It's a win for her. She's got great content that she can share with her audience. And off you're off and running, and away you go. Okay, so those are just some things to think about. You want to be clear, simple. You. Want to give them the specifics. And then once it's done, you want to make sure you follow up, set specific dates to say, this is when this is going live. This is when we want you to post. This is when you can post a follow up. Here's the content, be very specific. Ask them how they want to be engaged with how they want to interact with you, what that looks like for them, and then follow up and keep things moving, keep things moving forward, keep things growing and see what could happen. You never know who else they can introduce you to, or when they might want to do another post all on their own, just like with your donors, the more you engage and keep them apprised of your impact. You never know when they're just going to go ahead and post something on their own. So start small. Start with your local community. Those are still influencers, right? We think that we have to have these big, huge numbers, but that is simply not the case. Because remember, we want to focus on targeting our niche community. We want to connect with the communities that are similar to us, that are like minded, that are going to be the right conversions, that are going to be the right connections. So we don't just want to go out and, you know, smatter out a bunch of stuff and say, Hey all. We need all of you guys to talk to us. Okay, so I hope that you will think about influencers a little bit differently. This was a super short episode, because I want you to make sure you're getting into action. If this is something that makes sense for you, start with the research. That's going to be the longest phase. Create your outreach plan. Make sure you're very specific. Create simple graphics specifically, if you can do them in Canva or some easily editable tool, create copy that they can use, make them the hero in their audience. So it's not just them posting a beauty product. Hey, I use this. Give them something that they can give their audience to increase conversions. Make sure you follow up and continue to build relationships. And then you'll grow and grow and grow from there. I know you can do this. I love it. Make sure you stay tuned for the rest of the episodes that we have coming up this month, all around social media. And don't forget to go to the first click.net/resources, to grab that social media calendar. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you are subscribed. If you're not, make sure you are so you don't miss out on a single episode. Watch us here on YouTube if you prefer the video versions. Thank you so much. I hope you're having a great November, and I'll see you in the next one.