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Untapping the power of social media influencers is the key to enhancing digital marketing for nonprofits. Every day, over 5 billion people turn to their social media apps to connect, catch up on news, and learn.
Love it or hate it, nonprofit influencer marketing is a creative and proven strategy. But don't jump in head first without knowing the basics.
This comprehensive guide is your go-to resource for building a nonprofit influencer campaign yielding the largest return on investment (ROI) possible.
What’s an Influencer?
Good question! An influencer is an individual, sometimes an organization, who impacts other people's opinions, behaviors, and decisions. Influencers have always existed in some form, but today, they're most commonly known for their social media presence, reputation, or expertise on a niche topic.
Over the past few years, the role of an influencer went from product endorsement to a trusted source of information, trends, and advocacy for various causes. The rise of micro and nano influencers with far less of a following also showcases the power of personalized connections online.
Influencers play a huge role in consumer culture, which is why over 80% of marketers created a budget to work with them. The more an audience relates to an influencer and sees themselves in their lifestyle, the more willing they are to trust them.
A well-rounded view: what is influencer marketing?
Well, depending on who you ask, influencer marketing is:
“… businesses partnering with individuals with a significant social media presence to market their products and services.” - Mailchimp (Intuit)
or
… a collaboration between popular social-media users and brands to promote brands’ products or services. - McKinsey & Co.
and
… a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services. - Influencer Marketing Hub
It's worth noting that it can be hard to define “significant social media presence.” Also, just because an influencer has a “significant social media presence” doesn’t mean they have an engaged audience.
These things matter, which we'll dive into next.
What is influencer marketing for nonprofits?
Influencer marketing for nonprofits is a collaboration that helps charitable organizations connect with a big audience, amplify a message, and inspire action through donations or fundraising support.
Nonprofit influencer marketing can help you enhance:
Awareness campaigns: Nonprofit influencers share information about your mission, campaigns, or events with a wider and more diverse audience.
Storytelling: Nonprofit influencers are expert content creators who can apply their personal lenses to your story to create a deeper emotional connection.
Fundraising: Nonprofit influencers naturally encourage followers to donate or participate in fundraising with specific links, challenges, or live events.
Cause advocacy: Nonprofit influencers often educate followers, making them a great source of information about your cause and goals.
Events: Nonprofit influencers can promote upcoming fundraising events by attending themselves, sharing their experience, or offering a discount code to increase participation and engagement.
Why Influencer Marketing is Effective for Nonprofit Organizations
In 2024, the influencer industry will be worth $21.1 billion. You might understand the possibilities of nonprofit influencer marketing but still feel a bit skeptical about whether it can work for you.
Below, we'll explore specific benefits and outcomes for nonprofits.
The benefits of working with influencers for nonprofits
Trust: Influencers can offer a much-needed dose of realness that can pleasantly surprise the 62% of consumers who say they are less likely to engage with and trust content if they know an AI application created it. That trust turns into long-term relationship building that benefits nonprofits well after a single post.
Visibility: You already have an excellent message and story, so getting it in front of more people through an influencer's following will only expand your community. It's also a great way to diversify your communications as you engage donors more frequently.
Credibility: Influencers create viral moments and bring a lot of views to what they share. The more you appear in search results on social apps with endorsement from the people your donors trust, the better.
Financial savings: Instead of hit-or-miss marketing and traditional advertising that comes with a huge budget, you can lean on influencers. While you may need to pay them for content creation, the impact and price are well worth it.
Authenticity: Influencers can include their personal stories and heartfelt thoughts in each new post they create. That goes a long way toward showcasing the impact of donations and what your nonprofit can accomplish.
How to Choose the Right Influencer for Your Nonprofit
Identifying the right influencers
We put together a few questions nonprofits working with influencers can ask to evaluate the best fit for their social media strategy.
Does the influencer's follower base relate to your nonprofit's cause?
It's important to find a balance between an influencer who can speak to those interested in your cause and one who can attract a new audience of prospective donors. Ideally, you’re looking for an influencer with at least 9% of their follower base having interests that match your nonprofit’s cause directly or indirectly.
What influencer niche would best serve your nonprofit?
The more specific you can be about the area your influencer specializes in, the more likely you’ll be to reach your ideal audience with their content.
Some common influencer niches you might want to start your search with include:
Lifestyle influencers: Daily lives, travel, and health
Beauty and fashion influencers: The latest makeup, skincare, fashion trends and brand deals
Health and wellness influencers: Nutrition, cooking, mindfulness, mental health, exercise, and wellness
Tech influencers: Technology product and service updates, digital trends, and reviews
What type of content does the influencer typically create?
Influencers have become known for many types of content. Understanding what you want to focus on will help you narrow your list.
A few content categories influencers can fall into include:
Video creators: Video content, YouTube vloggers, TikTok creators
Bloggers: Written content, personal blogs, in-depth articles, reviews, and opinion pieces
Podcasters: Audio content and timely discussions with guests
Social media influencers: Content based on a specific platform, such as Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok
How original is an influencer’s content?
It's always a good idea to start looking through any prospective influencer's content to see how it may feel as a viewer. You'll know pretty soon if things feel aligned or if you see any red flags.
Authenticity is always key to making sure the content feels natural and comes from a genuine place instead of one that seems more like a sales pitch. You also want to look at post frequency.
Influencers post a greater proportion of original content tend to stand out more, attract more attention, and appear more knowledgeable and authentic. That's why they earn a 15.5% higher ROI.
Identifying the right platform
Not all social media platforms perform similarly, and that’s okay because they each serve a different audience and purpose.
The following stats will help you get an overview of the social landscape today:
53% of X users use the platform to get the latest news.
The 4 Types of Influencers
Influencers are often categorized by their reach, and there’s no wrong type. Each has its benefits and set backs that help you determine what may be best for your nonprofit.
Pros and cons of the 4 types of influencers
Pros
Cons
Mega influencers (over 1 million followers)
- Wide reach and exposure
- High credibility and widespread recognition
- Involvement can often attract media coverage
- High cost
- Lower engagement rates
- Lack of personal touch
- In-depth contracts and content approval processes
- Time-consuming
Macro influencers (Between 100,000 and 1 million followers)
- Broad audience
- Specialized niches
- Cost may be more affordable than macro-influencers
- Cost can still be a significant investment
- Engagement rates vary
- Limited personalization
Micro-Influencers (between 10,000 and 100,000 followers)
- High engagement rates
- Loyal and targeted audiences
- Cost-effective
- Authentic content that relates to the audience
- Limited reach
- Potential challenges to managing several micro-influencers at once
- Niche audiences may be so specialized that it’s harder to find an exact fit
Nano-Influencers (less than 10,000 followers)
- High engagement rates with a close-knit follower base
- Highly authentic and relatable
- Low-budget friendly
- Great to start your nonprofit influencer program and grow in time
- Minimal reach per post
- Time-intensive relationship management
- Potential lack of experience
- Lower conversion potential per post
Ready to reach out? You can contact influencers you want to work with similarly to how you’d engage a prospective donor. Check out tips on email marketing for nonprofits to master your relationship-building skills and kickstart your campaign.
Creating a Successful Influencer Marketing Campaign: 4 Essential Steps
Finding influencers for your nonprofit is one thing, but developing a strong nonprofit influencer marketing campaign is another. Let’s discuss the 5 essential steps to bring everything we've covered into an actionable game plan.
Step 1: Know your audience
When you know exactly who you're trying to reach, you can be more specific about choosing an influencer, message, and platform to focus on.
Start by noting the demographics of your target audience, such as:
Age
Gender
Income level
Education level
Occupation
Geographic location
Marital status
Household size
Language
As you nail down the persona of your target audience, you can break out even more audience segments to address in your marketing campaign.
Segment examples for charity influencer campaigns:
Young professionals, new to the workforce and interested in charitable giving with their employer
Health-focused parents who focus on building wellness habits in their homes and keeping balanced routines for children
College students who are mental health advocates and particularly interested in supporting awareness of causes that create change
Major donors and activists with a larger income and affinity for charitable giving and partnership with nonprofit organizations
Now you know exactly who you're speaking to with your nonprofit social media influencer campaign. The next step is to understand where you can reach your desired audience.
You can go about this in a few ways:
Look at your social media analytics on each major platform where you already have a presence to play on your strengths.
Review the statistics we've laid out earlier in this article about the audiences and reach of each social media platform to see where you have the most potential success.
See where your influencers thrive, and consider opportunities to broaden your presence on newer social media platforms.
Step 3: Make a social media plan for your nonprofit
Having a social media plan to lean on helps you identify when and where you might need an influencer's support. Think before fundraising events, at the launch of a peer-to-peer campaign, Giving Tuesday, and other big moments.
Your social media plan should clearly outline:
Your goals and objectives
Your target audience for social media, specifically
Types of content you create (stories, videos, carousel posts, etc.)
A posting schedule and desired frequency
An engagement plan to interact with your followers
Roles and responsibilities to outline who does what on your team or if you’re working with nonprofit marketing agencies
Step 4: Develop a compelling influencer marketing campaign
Now, you're ready to focus on building a social media campaign with your influencer. Creating a campaign brief is the best way to share your vision with any influencer(s) you'll contact.
Here are a few aspects of a compelling influencer campaign:
A story: Develop a narrative and message that deeply resonates with your target audience and can be personalized by your influencers. Communicate a challenge or opportunity your Call to Action (CTA) will support.
A visual goal: Know what types of content (edited videos, selfies, day in the life) you want to bring your story to life.
Creative guidelines: Offer sample text or content ideas that define what needs to be included in the campaign and what you leave open for the influencer to be creative.
A clear call to action: Define the exact links, pages, or interactions you want an audience to take action on after viewing your campaign. On average, posts that include links to a brand’s website or social media achieve a 11.4% higher ROI.
It’s always smart to lead social media campaigns for your nonprofit website to make a strong first impression and give visitors everything they need to learn and take action.
Measuring the Success of Your Influencer Marketing Efforts
Key metrics to measure influencer marketing performance
Engagement metrics: Likes, comments, and shares
Reach: The number of individuals who view the campaign
Impressions: The number of times total that your content was viewed
Click-through rate: The number of people who click a link or take action compared to the total reach of the post
Conversions: The number of actions people took as a result of the campaign in comparison to all people who've viewed it
Follower growth: An increase in followers across all social media campaigns following a campaign
Cost per engagement: The cost of a campaign divided by the total number of engagements it produces
5 Ways to Raise More with Influencers
Influencers can support many causes, from awareness to fundraising. Let's discuss best practices for influencer marketing in the nonprofit sector.
Create a collaborative social media challenge like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to invite influencers to participate and attract a larger participation rate.
Host events with influencers online through live streams or in person, encouraging participants to learn about your cause and donate.
Show behind-the-scenes content with influencers who can give prospective donors a glimpse of why your organization and cause are so important and the change that's happening with each donation.
Sell co-branded merchandise that influencers can design with your nonprofit. Encourage followers to purchase from your e-commerce store to support a greater cause.
Launch a personal storytelling campaign that starts with influencers sharing their testimonies and stories about your cause and encourages others to do the same.
How 4 Brands Are Achieving Real Results With Nonprofit Influencer Marketing
Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA)
Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) launched an influencer marketing campaign to support its mission of working toward food equity. The campaign employed nutritionists and healthy food micro-influencersto share their best tips for encouraging kids and parents alike to eat more vegetables.
The campaign aimed to increase awareness of the Veggies Early and Often Initiative. each influencer's unique spin created multiple collaborative Instagram posts that reached new audiences.
Active Minds took its influencer marketing campaign to the next level by partnering with Batiste, a U.K.-based haircare brand. Noting their target audiences were similar, they created a collaborative campaign that sought the help of influencers in the self-care niche.
The campaign's mission was to reach Gen Z and Millennial supporters and spread awareness. Dr. Courtney Tracy, an influencer with 1.8 million TikTok followers, led the content creation and brought an entirely new generation into Active Minds' community.
Palestine Children's Relief Fund gained the partnership and advocacy of a newly formed influencer group, Creators for Palestine. This group of Twitch streamers, YouTubers, and TikTok users actively share about PCRF's mission and ask followers to donate when they can.
The result? Over 1.5 million dollars were raised one weekend for relief efforts in Gaza. These influencers had the creative freedom to share authentic messages with their followers, which paid off.
@beautifultwinsisterspod Creators for Palestine has raised over $250k for PCRF, and are now expanding to charities we have known to be actively on the ground in Gaza and Rafah: MAP, UNRWA, and HEAL Palestine. Link to contribute is in our bio!❤️🇵🇸 @aaashleyk @Amber Alexander ♬ original sound - beautiful twin sisters
FAQ
To start finding the right influencers to work with, you can follow the below steps:
Research influencers in your niche.
Define your social media strategy.
Prep your campaign brief.
Set your goals and determine how they align with your mission.
Look for authenticity and a true alignment with your nonprofit organization.
Nonprofit organizations can do affiliate marketing just like for-profit brands. Influencers and advocates can receive discount codes for merchandise, fundraising event tickets, and educational materials that benefit your cause.
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