5 Insider Tips to Activate Your Influencers (How We Fell in Love With a City)

Posted: September 24th, 2012

We are so happy to welcome Julia Rocchi, the Managing Editor for the National Trust for Historic Preservation back to the Social Driver blog (see her previous post 5 Essential Tips for a Successful Nonprofit Website Redesign). At our most recent Social Driver’s Ed, Julia shared 5 tips for finding and engaging influencers through social media.

Julia talked at our event about a multimedia documentary project called “Buffalo Unscripted.” They initially wanted to do a documentary of Buffalonians talking candidly about their city, but what started out as a marketing piece just for Buffalo turned into a great marketing piece for the Trust because of the incredible engagement they found with the people of Buffalo. Here are the 5 tips that Julia talked about in her talk:

Find the cool kids and the unofficial mayors. These are your hubs and the people you want to connect with.
Show up in all senses. Connect with people wherever you can.
Let the influencers work their special brand of magic. They now their audiences best and they know unique ways to connect with them that you may not have thought of.
You want to give them a voice and a megaphone. Include them in the project and then give them a way to amplify your message and the messages they are building off of as well.
Share your hearts out. Share what you are doing, what they are doing, and share yourself.