Edition #11

Happy December! Hope everyone had some well-deserved time off after all of the important work that went into the November elections (shoutout to the wins in PA, KY, OH, and VA!).

You may be wondering why this email isn’t being sent from your fav CEO, Ashwath, this month… well that’s because I locked Ashwath in a closet so I could chat with you all! JK :P 

If we haven’t met before, heyyyy I’m Ellie💅💋 one of the Co-Founders @ Social Currant and our Chief Creator Officer – my work at SC is focused on supporting the creators in our network and I oversee our work with organizations, leading the client-facing team <3 I also just graduated from GW in May with a degree in International Affairs and recently moved to Tempe, AZ, so if anyone is in the area, come hang with ur girl💋 (please)

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Every month, Ashwath (or me, if he lets me👀) shares more about what we're up to at Social Currant, from campaign learnings to insights from creators.

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Alright, so — let’s dive in to everything else:

1. Our amazing creator coordinator, Abby, has been working to bring our social media back to life! Make sure to give us a follow 💋 (TikTok & Instagram)

2. We launched our creator briefing series and are hosting #2 this week for creators on best practices around PR. Check it out here.

3. Our friends at Center for American Progress Action Fund are hosting a series of discussions with digital experts from across the progressive movement exploring how political organizations have forged effective partnerships with content creators and how we can adapt to a rapidly changing digital media environment in the years ahead. Register here

4. In collaboration with some awesome organizations, we’re building out a toolkit library to share with creators. The toolkits will be used as a resource for creators who want to talk about issues on their page but don’t feel ‘equipped’ enough to do so. We’ll have more on that soon!

5. We’re in BETA! You’ve heard us talk about the platform and tool we’ve been building for a while now. We’re officially launching our beta cohort with 5-10 organizations running a 6 week creator program on the platform. Reply or ping us if you need more information! Sign up to hear more here.

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Now for the extra special stuff — for today’s newsletter I’m going to focus on the power and importance of building out a creator ambassador program for your organization. I’ll also talk through the different logistics that go into it, from the first initial collaboration to engaging them on a monthly basis

High level pros and cons:

• Rapid response moments – by having a team of engaged and bought-in creators already on your roster, you no longer need to spend time finding new creators, confirming interest, and coordinating with them on content. Instead, you can immediately activate your team of ambassadors to spread the word on your chosen issue with content being posted within hours, not days.

• Bonus content – outside of the contracted deliverables, creators will often reshare and uplift an organization’s content through comments and reshares, expanding your organic reach without an additional cost. For example, when Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, Drew Afualo pointed to NextGen America as a resource for action, likely influenced by her partnership with them a few weeks prior.

• Trust with audience – when it comes to an online audience, people are valuing authenticity more than ever. Because of this, it may take a creator talking about an organization a few times for their audience to be fully bought into that organization’s mission. Therefore, by working with the same creators on a consistent basis, you’re more likely to see a larger and more engaged pipeline of supporters coming from their content.

• Echo chamber effect – the main con when it comes to building out an ambassador program is you may be reaching the same audience multiple times, preventing you from reaching a new audience when working with that creator. Luckily, due to the way that the algorithm on TikTok and Instagram work, content is often shown to both followers + nonfollowers, which may help to alleviate this, but it is something to consider.

Quick tips: Here are some tips from our team on what to value when building out your ambassador program

• Communication – consistent communication goes a long way and can be the difference between content going out in 3 days instead of 3 weeks. While creators are rarely going to respond within 5 minutes of you contacting them, you should try to partner with creators that are consistent, and relatively quick, in getting back to you. We define ‘quick’ as a response within 12-24 hours.

• Target audience – the audience you’re trying to reach is often what defines campaigns, so try to prioritize creators with the highest following of your key audience and/or prioritize creators that are a part of that target audience. This helps the content to be engaging to viewers and also authentic to the creator’s page and lived experience.

• Content performance – we try to do at least one content test per creator before deciding whether we want to work with them long-term. Because of this, review their past content in partnership with your organization to decide if the return is there OR if there is an additional message/strategy that you would like to test with that creator.

• Experience outside of social media – creators are more than just content creators – they often come with years of experience in a variety of different fields, so take that expertise and skill sets into consideration when building out your program. 

Where To Start:

• Have an initial collaboration with a handful of creators to ‘sus’ out the working relationship, the mission-alignment, and overall success of the partnership

• Based on this, take a step back and think through the four tips we sent above

• Once you’ve finalized your list, schedule a kick-off call with all creators on the call

  • On this call, the creators can meet some of the organization’s team (to put a pretty face to the name) and also learn more about why your organization is doing this important work

  • You can also give an overview of what the partnership will look like (monthly collabs? Biweekly collabs? Rapid response only? etc.) 

What This Can Look Like: A few ideas around what an ambassador program can look like

• Invite ambassadors to organization events in their area

• Organize events for the ambassadors to participate in

• Bring ambassadors in on digital strategy calls

• When a rapid response moment pops up, reach out as soon as you can with messaging for them to amplify

• Contract each ambassador to X deliverables a month OR X deliverables total to be posted over a set period of time

And If You Don’t Have the Capacity to Build out an Ambassador program (we can help!)… there are still ways that you can keep the creators you’ve worked with in the past engaged in your organization’s work – here are a few things we recommend: 

• Invite them to upcoming events – whether you’re inviting them to participate on a panel, or just inviting them to attend, bringing creators into a room that they may not have had access to before goes a long way.

• Free merch – because who doesn't love free merch? Its an easy way to show your gratitude (and who knows? You might see your organization’s tshirt on the creators next piece of content!)

• Engage with content – like, comment, share a creator’s post! You can help the creators content to perform better and you’ll keep your organization’s name top of mind.

• Share updates and resources – add them to your newsletter list and keep them updated on the different work that your organization is doing. (bonus points if you reach out directly to the creator to share the updates most relevant to them)

• Make intros – if you are talking to someone who could help or  support a creator in some way, whether it be creating content together or sharing resources, make introductions! The more touchpoints a creator has with an organization, the more likely they are to be excited about the work that organization is doing.

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Creator Economy News I’m Reading:

• The Supreme Court is considering giving First Amendment rights to social media posts (yes, you read that correctly)

• Creators are bringing together communities and people are willing to pay to be apart of them

• The 30 under 30 list is out! Did any of your fav creators make the list?

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Anecdotes, observations & what we’re hearing from creators:

• The amount of time you want to use the creator’s content in paid ads matters – creators are extremely hesitant to give paid usage rights in perpetuity, so when chatting with creators, make sure to be specific in terms of how long you will be running ads for + the amount of money you will be putting towards the ads. 

  • And if you don’t know, just let them know you’ll keep them posted – they have the ability to share paid usage after the content has already gone live so if you don’t know in that split second, it is A okay

• Being flexible and compassionate with creators goes a long way – creators are often not nonprofit experts so they may not be educated on all of the different things that go into nonprofit work (such as c3 vs c4). But by being patient and bringing them into the space more, you’re not only making it easier for them to work with your organization in the future, but you’re also helping them to work with other like-minded nonprofits more effectively. (aka we all win! yay!)

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FAQs from the month:

What do we do if creators receive hate or backlash from our collaboration post? When it comes to responding to haters and trolls online, there’s only so much we can do. Here’s a few things we recommend: 

• Warn the creator of potential risks

  • Most creators are aware of the potential risk when talking about any political or ‘controversial’ subject online, but make sure to reiterate that before sending over a contract. You should always be keeping the creator’s safety and wellbeing top of mind.

• Create a “Response Guide” for creators to respond to any hate or backlash in their comments 

  • Most creators choose to ignore the hateful comments, but provide your creators with resources to respond if they are comfortable and want to

• Share tips with the creator on filtering out content 

  • Creators can go to their settings and automatically filter out certain key words from being commented on their post – you can help them to set this up and also provide any specific words/emojis that they may want to flag

• Keep an eye on the content after it’s been posted

  • If you notice any unproductive comments below the video, report them and flag it for the creator – receiving hundreds of hateful comments can be a lot on a creator’s mental health, no matter how passionate they are about an issue, so let them know that your organization is there to support in anyway they need.

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If you’re still here, THANK YOU! I am not typically a newsletter girlie so I appreciate you all taking the time to read through my stream of consciousness. I cannot wait to see how this space will continue to grow in 2024 and I have so much appreciation for you all for being apart of the journey <3 cheers to everyone’s extremely hard work in 2023 and here’s to making 2024 even more fresh, fabulous, and fun! 💋

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