← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
How (and Why) to Work With Creators with Ashwath Narayanan
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- [00:00]
Julia Campbell
This episode is sponsored by my friends at Bloomerang. You already know your donors care. You see it in every gift and every note that comes back with a check. What you might not know is what they're telling us right now in the data. Bloomerang's 2026 Giving Signal report surveyed more than 1,000 active donors. 91% say people need more help than ever and 94% say give more. When they know exactly where their gift goes, the generosity is there. What's changed isn't the impulse to give. It's what donors need from you to say yes. The question is whether your organization is listening. Bloomerang's giving platform is built for purpose. To help you understand your donors, to help you act on the right signals, and most importantly, to help you raise more. Download the free 2026 Giving Signal report@bloomerang.com that's bl o o m E R A N G And now on to the episode.
- [01:08]
Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host Julia Campbell and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confident your voice, definitively grow your audience and effectively build your movement. If you're a non profit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started.
- [01:58]
Hello. Hi and welcome. Welcome back to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host Julia Campbell. Today we are going to talk about how and why to work with creators. So if you don't know what a creator is or if you know what a creator is, if you've been thinking of exploring creator partnerships or creator program, this episode is for you. I'm joined by Ashwath Narayanan, founder and CEO of Social Current C U R R A N T. A platform that helps nonprofits, advocacy organizations and social impact brands connect with creators and influencers to spread awareness, build community and drive action online. And this conversation is incredibly timely because Ashwath and his team, they've always been at the center of the huge shifts happening. But right now there is a gigantic movement happening in communications and fundraising in that people trust creators. Audiences are getting their news information recommendations from creators rather than traditional institutions. So we're going to talk about that and we're going to talk about sort of maybe some of the steps that we can take to ride this wave and to get involved. But welcome to the podcast. Welcome back.
- [03:19]
Ashwath Narayanan
Thanks for having me. And it's good to be back. And thank you for also spelling our name, because people get that confused. The current A. Yes.
- [03:28]
Julia Campbell
So you've been talking about the creator economy in the nonprofit space long before many of us were paying attention to it. What made you realize creators would become such an important force for social impact?
- [03:42]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, I think when I think about it, we've been doing this work for about six years now. And finally, organizations are starting to sort of think about how to incorporate creators into their work. But a lot of why we started doing this work was a mix of, like, we just happened to do it, and a mix of, like, we were consuming from creators. And so know and understand how, you know, creators can play a role in our own sort of consumption habits as a team. And then a little bit of, like, also looking at the brand space and understanding, like, what is happening. So, you know, brands have been investing in creators for over a decade now. They've been investing in creator partnerships. And it's a real industry. The creator economy is a real industry, and sort of all. All parts of our economy. And so I do think, like, some of this was, like, looking at brands and trying to why nonprofits were trying to do the same thing, why nonprofits weren't investing in the same way. Because nonprofits still need to do awareness. Nonprofits still need to build relationships with their audiences. Nonprofits still need to reach new audiences. They might not be selling a product, or they might not be, like, necessarily having a conversion action, but that could be a fundraising ask or a petition or something else. And so a lot of it came from, like, why aren't nonprofits doing the work that brands are also doing? And then a lot of it was also, like, our team is fully Gen Z and we were consuming from creators. And so we also had sort of a lived experience around the tactic that we tried to incorporate and bring into our work. So a number of those reasons.
- [05:11]
Julia Campbell
So why do you think nonprofits have historically been slower to embrace creators and influencer partnerships?
- [05:20]
Ashwath Narayanan
I mean, I think a lot of it comes down to a couple factors. I think one is, I think many times the decision makers on nonprofits are not sort of, like I said, consuming from the same tactics. They might not be on TikTok. They might not be watching an influencer. And so they're sort of defaulting to tactics they know and understand and have tested for years. And so I think some of it is that. Some of it is. I think traditionally nonprofits generally do not spend as much money on awareness, persuasion, narrative change. Right. Like most of the spend is either direct services or it is fundraising. Most of the marketing spend and digital spend is around fundraising for most nonprofits. And so some of it's also from a tactics standpoint, it's harder to sort of like invest $10 into a creator partnership and get $20. It's easier to do that with some other tactics. And so I think some of it's also the long tail impact of creators. It's not like working with most creators is not a I do X and get Y. It's I do X and then I get Y and Z eventually. But that's how sort of investment in the space works. Is that some of it's also like a ROI question that I think more people are starting to understand, like what part of the marketing funnel this fits into.
- [06:34]
Julia Campbell
Now, I completely agree and I see in my work, you know, teaching digital fundraising and social media to nonprofits that a lot of the time they'll say their board members are not even on any social media platform. And so it's to me, it's like, how can you make it make decisions about platforms that you have never experienced and just decide, oh, we're going to do it this way. And the other thing that I see is nonprofits, like you said, they're very, you know, they're stuck in their ways. They're like, we have a Facebook page, we maybe have an Instagram account, we have an email list. And they come to me and they're like, how can we get younger, more diverse audiences on those platforms where we want to be? And I'm always saying, well, you can't force them to be on Facebook. You need to go where they are. So when we talk about creators and influencers, for people that might not know, is this the same term? Are we saying creator now? And what does that really mean?
- [07:33]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, typically for us, you know, over the years, influencers has gotten a bad connotation. You sort of think of this, you know, celebrity esque person who has the perfect life and is showing that on Instagram. I think when we think about creators, we're thinking more about like everyday people because over the last like 10 years, we've seen anyone really become a creator. And so I think it's more of a creators prefer the term creators now over influencers. But really it's like folks that are creating content on a regular basis to an audience that is following them for that content specifically, not following them necessarily for something else. So I think we can still define celebrities and athletes as influencers, but most folks are not necessarily following them because of the social content they create. They're following them for something external versus creators are more like you're following them for the content they create. So I would say that's a distinction here. But creators just feels like a friendlier term for most people now than influencers.
- [08:34]
Julia Campbell
And how are creators changing the way people consume information and engage with causes
- [08:41]
Ashwath Narayanan
that they care about? Yeah, I mean, I think there's been a couple things over the last decade really that have resulted in how information consumption changes. I think one, trust in general institutions is at an all time low. People do not trust institutions. They've been hurt by the, they've been broken by these institutions. And so we're seeing people move away from sort of trusting institutions, brands, to trusting people. So that's one factor. I think the second is, I think how information is distributed has changed. We used to have sort of, we've gone from proximity based algorithms to recommendation based algorithms. So Instagram feed used to be you get content from who you follow whoever posted last. Like if you go on at 5pm, you're seeing content from 4:45, 4:50, it was a chronological feed. And now with TikTok, with the algorithms, you're more likely to see content that is recommended to you from people that the algorithm thinks you will like and less from your friends, less from people you know. And so I think we've also gone from a proximity to sort of a recommendation feed that has also changed consumption patterns. And all of this is sort of coming together into like what makes creators good because they're creating good content that the algorithm's recommending. And people want to follow people. People don't want to follow brands necessarily. They want to follow nonprofits. And so creators are really shaping consumption patterns at a scale that we've never seen. 1 in 5Americans gets their news from social media influencers. 2 in 5 Gen Zers, 1 in 2Americans gets their health information online. And so we're generally seeing social platforms creators at the center of how audiences get information. And we've seen the shift away from sort of traditional media platforms into social platforms and creators over the last decade, but really over the last five years with COVID as well.
- [10:33]
Julia Campbell
So when this is really interesting and I have completely seen that shift and I think you just nailed it with the way that we have been so conditioned to experience social Media is the chronological, the proximity, the things, you know. And Now Instagram and TikTok and YouTube, I mean, they're all going to that recommendation algorithm. And I do see in the algorithm it's less likely to recommend a brand or a nonprofit, but much more likely to represent like person, breast cancer, creator, talking about breast cancer, a real person actually going through something. So when we are looking for creators, like say we want to dip our toe into this, into this world, I think it might be a little intimidating for a lot of my listeners. You emphasize values alignment over follower count. Can you talk about that and why that's important?
- [11:34]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times what's really important with any marketing effort is like, the audiences you're trying to reach, right? Like, who are you trying to reach and what sort of information are they consuming? And so when we're recommending nonprofits reach creators, it's not necessarily helpful to reach a million people if those million people don't care about your cause, and maybe it is because you want to persuade them to care about your cost, and that's a different question. But if you're trying to get an audience that might already be primed for your nonprofit, then you might want to work with someone who has a targeted audience and is already talking about your issue. And so I think a lot of times that's where value alignment is really important. Whether they're already talking about the issue or not, it's really important to find creators that align with their values because they'll be able to represent those values in, in their content and then drive people. And so I think whenever we're recommending people work with creators, it's always about, like, who you're trying to reach. If you're trying to reach the large audience and get them a little bit of information, work with the large creator. If you're trying to reach a smaller audience, but a more primed audience that is probably more likely to take action, then work with an audience that's already knows information about your cause, because then that's not the first time they're hearing about it. That's not the first time they're engaging with it. So a lot of it comes down to like, audience. But value alignment is really important, important because then it comes to, in the content. And also for the creator, it's not like a little random, like, why are they suddenly talking about this thing when they've never talked about it before? Why are they suddenly talking about the thing? But they have no connection, even if they haven't talked about it before. They have to have some sort of tie in. And so that's really important as well.
- [13:11]
Julia Campbell
No, I totally agree. So, well, this leads me to ask you about your company, Social Current, because that kind of fills the gap here, matching creators with nonprofits. Can you talk about the work that you do and the gap that you're filling that I have not seen filled in the sector I think is very unique to your company.
- [13:33]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, for sure. I mean, Social Current, we're basically a platform and an agency. So we've got a self serve platform where nonprofits can sort of sign up and run their own creator campaign, going through a vetted list of creators. And then we've got an agency that's doing this at scale for a lot of organizations, thinking through how to build a creator program and sort of all the different parts of a creator program and building a creator community. And then we're also investing a lot in just bringing creators into this space. We host dinners, we host events, really thinking through like how we can get creators to talk about causes they care about. And we do briefings to then give them access to resources to talk about them. So really trying to, you know, create as much of an environment and build infrastructure to help creators navigate what it means to talk about causes they care about while also making sure they get compensated for their time?
- [14:23]
Julia Campbell
No, I think that's great. And a lot of organizations have like social media ambassadors or they have volunteers or they have board members posting. How should nonprofits think about creators differently than maybe a social media ambassador where you kind of send a graphic and they post it?
- [14:43]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, I think so. There's like two sort of things you want to do. You want to have a lot of people posting about you, right? Then that's where the ambassadors, the volunteers, the grassroots supporters come in, where you get them all to post a graphic. I think with creators, these are folks that are known for a specific type of content. And so if you give them the graphic, their audience is sort of going to be like, what are you doing? Because you never posted a graphic before. And so when thinking about creators, it's really about like you have this person who's incredibly creative, knows a format and has an audience. You just need to let them do what they do best in creating content for their audience because that graphic is not going to perform well. And no one is going to care about that graphic because they're used to like higher production, higher quality, higher sort of different type of content with these audiences. And so I Think that's really important. And this is sort of a side tangent, but Pew recently posted some really interesting stats about how even though audiences don't like audiences that don't actively consume news, they come across news through like random comedy content or like other formats. And even though sort of you would think, oh, they're probably just watching that, Pew actually found that they then go and dive deeper into the news in other places. And so when we think about nonprofit communication, it's like we want this creator to create content in a format that would then make this audience member go look into the cause more, look into the nonprofit more. Right. And so it's not just like direct a camera that's going to work. The skit might not necessarily result in someone donating immediately, but it might mean that like, someone's like, oh wait, this is an interesting cause or interesting nonprofit. Let me go look into that more. Because people are doing that with news. And so I do think it's like letting the creator in their format do their own thing is really important for
- [16:35]
Julia Campbell
them to actually drive impact peaking curiosity. That's really what marketing is all about. And I know you talked earlier about the issues that nonprofits have with roi, right? We can't draw necessarily a straight line saying, this creator posted this video and it resulted in this many donations. Sometimes you can, but most often I think we're just not seeing the forest for the tree. It's like, we're not. We want more awareness, we want to reach a younger audience, we want to continue to stay relevant, and we want to reach new audiences. But we're so stuck on our message, our branding, and having complete control over our message and branding. So one thing that you talk about in your blog and your newsletter is that overly branded content almost never performs well. So how can nonprofits get away from that overly branded content and give creators messaging guidance, but still allow authenticity and creative freedom?
- [17:43]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, I think before I answer that question to your earlier point, a little bit about like, the ROI and thinking about creators as a tactic. I think what we're seeing in this space is like, people are. You're sort of like thinking about creators as like the singular tactic that will save like a lot of times when we're talking about, you know, investing in creators or investing in new tactics or like, that tactic is going to change everything about the. And we need to like, stop doing that and start thinking about, like, creators as part of a larger ecosystem. Like, we're not saying, like, let's take all our digital budget and Then invest it in creators. What we're saying is, like, creators should be able part of it, but you should also be investing in organic social talent. You should be investing in, you know, digital ads, fund, like, all of it. It should be like, creators are a part of a larger program. And I think where we see those sort of, that's where the ROI question gets a little easier. Because creators will then help all your other tactics, and they, those other tactics will help creators. Like, if you have a social program, then when a creator creates content, people might then learn about your, you know, Instagram, and then more likely to follow if there's actual actually good content there, you know. And so I think, like, it's to stop, like, thinking about, like, this creator thing is like, oh, in a silo. Separate program. Exactly. And more of, like, how is this fitting into, like, everything we're doing so that it amplifies those tactics, because it doesn't need to be that complicated. And you don't need to like, you know, like, you need to start somewhere and like, that might just mean one creator working with you and not like a hundred of full programs. So I just want to say that before I sort of talk through branded content, but I think on the branded content piece, I think like we said, people don't want to follow institutions, people don't follow brands. People also don't want to follow accounts that are just asking for things all the time. Right. Like, people want value, people want to be entertained. People want something first before you ask for something. And so when it comes to like, a branded piece of content with, like a logo, a really nice design, I think more audiences are like, like prime to understand that when something like that comes across their feed, they're being asked for something, they're not given something. And so I think that's why generally there's a lack of interest in branded content. And then the other thing is a creator is known for their specific content. And so if suddenly one of those videos is different, it'll stand out and audiences are less likely to consume. So it's really important for nonprofits to think about how to work with creators in the way that they already create content that way. It's not like this creator does skits and then suddenly they' doing a, you know, video director camera with like a logo at the top and all this stuff. So I think branded content typically doesn't perform because it just feels like it's not a fit that is coming out of nowhere.
- [20:34]
Julia Campbell
Exactly. And I, I consider myself a creator. And you Know, I, I, when I have like a sponsor for this podcast, Boomerang, send me a pre roll or send me an ad to record, they know that I'm going to put it in my own spin, or I'm going to put it in my own way, or I'm going to put my own touches on it. Because it's like you said, if all of a sudden I'm just like robotic, reading corporate language into the camera, people would say, what's wrong with Julia? Like, and it would be very suspect and it wouldn't perform well. And I think that's what we need to understand as nonprofits, like, what kind. We really need to understand what kind of content performs well because we're so focused on creating our content and then somehow getting people to like it or getting people to comment or getting people to share. But the key here is we have to mold our content for the platform. We have to mold our content that, you know, in ways that is going to get the most traction and engagement. Rather than posting a flyer and saying, why is this, this, why is no one commenting on this? Because no one wants to see a flyer on Instagram.
- [21:45]
Ashwath Narayanan
Exactly.
- [21:46]
Julia Campbell
So what you talk about creator briefs, like having some kind of instruction or some kind of agreement. What does a good creator brief look like? What goes into it?
- [21:57]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, I think the best creator briefs really are like a resource for people, for creators. That way they're, they have all the information in one place, but not too much information. You want to make it digestible, you want to make it clean, easy to understand, but you don't want to make it prescriptive. You don't want to say, say exactly this. What you want to say is, here's more about our issue, here's more about our organization. Here's some ideas for how we think this issue resonates with audiences when we say this, it resonates more when we say this. It doesn't. A good brief also has a what not to say in terms of legal guidelines. If you're C3, you want to make sure you have specific guidelines for creators on what to say. But a brief is really a starting point for creators to have access to information. One place to help reduce the time needed to do research, but then allow them to go dive into a specific article that they might get more information from that's helpful for them. But a good brief doesn't tell creators exactly what to do. It just sort of shares information without the what to do.
- [23:02]
Julia Campbell
Okay, some guidelines. It's always helpful to have Exactly. And let's talk about compensation. And I know that Social Current is really big on encouraging nonprofits to properly pay creators for their work. Why is that so important? And like, how do we convince nonprofits that it's important?
- [23:22]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple different things I think one is, you know, the creator work is still labor, and labor should be compensated. They're doing you. They're doing work for you the same way you would compensate any contractor that works. You're a nonprofit. Like, you know, and so I think that's. That's important. I think the second is, I think generally, I think when we think about the nonprofit space, like, you like, there, it's hard. It's not as accessible. You need to, like, you need to know someone or you need to, like, go through college to get it, get access to these nonprofit tables and things. And so working with creators can be a way to opening up access to nonprofits to people that might not traditionally have access. And then the final thing I'd say is, I think to the creators typically who are talking about issues, brands are not typically working with them. Right. Like, their brands are like, we don't work with people that talk about specific issues. Right. And so for nonprofits, there's like a bunch of creators that are, like, doing good work, but then aren't getting compensated by the brands, aren't getting compensated by platforms. Usually their content is getting deprioritized. And so I think there's a role for nonprofits to support them so that they continue to talk about the issues they care about, and they continue, continue to create space in an environment where nonprofit policy can get passed or nonprofit issues can, you know, get moved on. And so I do think a lot of this is, like, brands are not playing a role here. And I think nonprofits should, to support these folks that are creating an enabling environment for nonprofits, for their supporters, for donors, all of that as well.
- [24:58]
Julia Campbell
I completely agree. It is labor. And some organizations, they have, have, you know, they have like, digital directors, social media directors creating content. And we know how hard it is to constantly come up with interesting, catchy, provocative, compelling content for ourselves. So if you think about the creator working on our behalf also, the creator is like really kind of putting themselves out there. Like, hopefully there's going to be values, alignment. They're not going to talk about something that they don't believe in. But. But they are, you know, putting themselves out there and, you know, showcasing something brand new to their audience, which is of value. So I completely agree with that. So what platforms are you most excited about right now? For nonprofits?
- [25:47]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean a lot of our work still continues to be on short form platforms. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and then we do a fair amount on like long form YouTube. I think there's been a lot of conversation on like newsletter platforms, like a beehive substack and like creators, you know, launching newsletters. And I think I'm excited about sort of creators building their own communities and working with nonprofits to get information to those targeted communities. But I think one of the sort of platforms that continue, like YouTube continues to be the place where people get their education, their news, their information and go to be entertained. And I think generally folks are not investing enough in YouTube just because I think it is a higher barrier to entry, especially for long form content. So I think working with creators that do education content, that do history content, that do whatever type of content to integrate into their efforts, I think is a really great way for nonprofits to show up. I also think, you know, YouTube as a platform helps creators monetize better than any other platforms. There's like a little bit of like creators on YouTube are also compensated through ad revenue and things. So I do think YouTube is a platform that I think we under invest in as nonprofits and should be doing more of, whether that's the creators or our own channels or whatever.
- [27:07]
Julia Campbell
I know YouTube shorts. That's the only thing my kids watch. I don't think they watch TV anymore. They just watch YouTube shorts and they're all just served to them. Right. So we have to actually be careful, you know, about what they get served. But most of the time, you know, my son is just watching people play video games and.
- [27:26]
Ashwath Narayanan
Exactly.
- [27:27]
Julia Campbell
It's totally fine. But it's interesting to hear my kids talk about YouTube creators and like, like I would talk, you know, in the 90s about my favorite bands. Like they talk about. Yeah, in that way.
- [27:41]
Ashwath Narayanan
A hundred percent. 100.
- [27:43]
Julia Campbell
That's pretty cool. So you're one of your most recent newsletters talked about like misinformation, algorithm changes and content suppression. I mean those are all huge, huge things that nonprofits deal with. But how are creators navigating that landscape? Like, do you have any tips for how to navigate all the craziness?
- [28:04]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I mean I think on the sort of like misinformation disinfo. I think creators, like the good creators I know, are thinking through how they can find reputable sources of information to use in their content. Some creators I know have contract researchers for Example that are helpful, helping them think through how they present information, how they source it, all of that. So I think a lot of creators are thinking through, building out their teams to, in many ways, look more like newsrooms to think about how to produce information. I also think on the suppression piece, a lot of what I see creators do from a tactical standpoint is collaborate with each other. So we'll see a lot of creators that will post content and then add each other as collaborators on the Instagram post to then drive to another audience. And so I do think there's something here in terms of not working with other nonprofits to create content, instead of working solo to create content, like creators typically are collaborating with each other to produce content, amplifying each other's work, resharing it, reposting it. Because I think there's a little bit of a community aspect here, especially for creators that talk about issues, because the algorithm might suppress those issues or things like that. So I do think, like, leaning into community is something that nonprofits should do more often, are already doing a lot of as well.
- [29:21]
Julia Campbell
I know. I think that the. The issue that a lot of organizations have is that if they try to do, like, a digital ad campaign or post, even organically, if it's seen as, you know, a social issue or political, it can sometimes get suppressed. If it gets a lot of comments and traction, it won't. But the. The platforms go back and forth on this, I think, and it's just so hard to. To navigate for anyone because we don't know the secret sauce of the. Of the algorithms. So for a nonprofit that has never worked with creators before, what would you recommend as the first step?
- [30:02]
Ashwath Narayanan
I mean, I think the first step is really identification. It's understanding, like, what are creators in your network that you might have access to? Whether that's like going through your Instagram followers and seeing if anyone follows you that has, like, more of an audience, whether that's just serving your members, your staff, and saying, like, hey, do we know any creators that might be passionate about this issue? And so they think this first step really is identification. Because I think that's where a lot of people get stuck, is like, okay, I want to work with creators, but I don't know any. And so it's like just building a list, even if it's just someone you may not know, but, like, you think would be a good fit. It's like making that list. And that list can happen anytime, even if you don't necessarily have a budget to start working with. Creators, you could still start work building that list, you could start engaging with their content. That way when you, you do get the budget and you reach out to these people, they've seen you engage with their content, they know to some respect what your organization does. And then when you reach out, they're more likely to respond, you're more likely to engage, that sort of thing. So I would start with building the list and then engaging with that list and then reaching out after you engage.
- [31:07]
Julia Campbell
And I would encourage organizations to really think about this as a long term strategy. Like you said, it fits in to the ecosystem of everything else that you're doing. Your marketing, your holistic marketing plan and fundraising plan. This isn't just like a tactic that you use on Giving Tuesday and then never talk to this creator again. Hopefully you're building relationships that are, you know, that are mutual. Win wins for, for everybody involved, the audience and the creator and the organization. And I think that's the way to think about it. Not think about it as hiring, hiring a spokesperson and creating an ad. Because I feel like a lot of fundraisers might be thinking of it that way, but it's really building that long term partnership and that earning the trust of the creator and their audience. And I love what you said, going through your Instagram followers, like just seeing who's on there. You don't have to have thousands of followers to have a lot of engagement and a lot of trust. Can you talk about things?
- [32:10]
Ashwath Narayanan
Exactly. I mean, I think like, like audiences show up in different ways online. And I think we've seen really strong communities with creators that don't have, you know, the hundred tens or hundreds there. They, they might have a few thousand followers, but they have a really engaged community. Because at the end of the day, you don't need a million people necessarily to come donate. You need the right people. That obviously, yes, it would be great if you got a million people to donate, but someone with a million followers doesn't mean they're going to get a million people to donate. And so I think when you're thinking about the kinds of creators you're working with, you want to think about like how to understand the relationship they might have with their audience. You want to go to their comment section, see if they're responding. You want to see if they have a substack or a beehive newsletter. You want to see if they have a Patreon. You want to see if they have a discord, like how are they, how are they thinking about organizing their community? Can be an important way, because if they're thinking about organizing their community already, it's going to be easier for them to organize them to do something for you because they're already doing something for the creator. And so I think like really understanding, like how can you measure the trust that a creator has with their audience or what are proxies for that? Trust is really important because you can't obviously get a 80% metric number, but you can see if they're engaging in the comments, you can see that community. And so like trying to do that because at the end of the day, the follow up doesn't matter. The community size matters. And that might be a different number.
- [33:36]
Julia Campbell
What kinds of calls to action work? Well, so is it more advocacy? Is it more? Or maybe there's just not a call to action? It just might be awareness. Awareness. What kind of content tends to work best for nonprofit social causes?
- [33:52]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, I really think it depends on the creators. And so a lot of our work is more in the advocacy persuasion space. And so our calls to action are either to go vote or learn more about something or go to the nonprofit's website, that sort of thing. But I think what we see is when you're working with creators that don't talk about issues, call to actions are harder because typically their audiences are coming to them for entertainment or specific content. And so suddenly a call to action comes out of nowhere. And so you want those audiences to be more top of funnel awareness or narrative change. And then the creators are regularly talking about issues that are driving their audience to do petitions and all of this stuff. They are typically better because then they are more likely to drive to a call to action then their audiences are primed for that. Typically these platforms don't want you to leave the platform. And so call to actions are naturally tougher. And so what we've also seen work effectively is like partnering with the creators and then also incorporating their content into paid ads. That way you get the click button because otherwise you have to click on their profile, go to their link in bio, click find the link, then go there. At some point it'll say, are you sure it is five or six clicks to get to the end place versus with an ad, it's a lot easier. It's like you get the organic content that's really strong and then you boost it and you get the targeting. And that can be an effective way to drive more of the conversion up actions.
- [35:19]
Julia Campbell
I love that. I think that's so smart because just like you said, we have to remember the Platforms are in control of the algorithm and the content that they surface to people. So they, you know, links are. Don't work and they haven't worked for years. Posting a link, I mean, it just. They want you to stay on the platform. They don't want people clicking off the platform. But I love the idea of that with ads. It's a little bit different and people are used to that sort of conversion. Ask with an ad. So I just. Incorporating all of this into your strategy of what you're already doing is I think is just incredibly important. So what I always ask my guests this question. What gives you hope? What gives you hope right now? Because it's feeling pretty hopeless out there.
- [36:14]
Ashwath Narayanan
Yeah, there's a lot happening. But I do think we're seeing more like, I think for me, from my vantage point, I think we're seeing more creators lean in. I think we're seeing more creators, like really sort of help and think through how the role they play with their platforms more than we've ever seen. We're seeing more creators speak about, speak about, speak up about specific harms our communities are facing. And so that. That is giving me hope right now. It's the fact that, like, yes, there's a lot happening and I think one response is to be overwhelmed. And I think everyone is overwhelmed. But I think the other response is I think people are like leaning in to help their friends, their communities, their neighbors. And I think that's definitely giving me hope in this moment and will for a long time, I think.
- [36:59]
Julia Campbell
Oh, I love that. Where can people connect with you and find out more about social current?
- [37:04]
Ashwath Narayanan
You can go to our website SocialCurrent with an A co or come find us on Instagram or link.
- [37:11]
Julia Campbell
Okay, great. I'll put those in the show notes. Thanks, Ashwath. This was really informative and I just think it's such an important topic, even if for my listeners, you know, you're not really willing to dive into this yet, just to explore it, to look at what other organizations are doing, to look at creators that you like and see what they're talking about. It's just an. It's such an interesting and I think really effective form of getting in front of new audiences. So just thinking about how it could maybe work, but not getting stressed about, you know, kind of doing all the things right now. So thanks so much for being here.
- [37:52]
Ashwath Narayanan
Of course. Thanks for having me on.
- [38:02]
Julia Campbell
Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening
- [38:07]
all all the way to the end.
- [38:08]
If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on Instagram @JuliaCampbell77. Keep changing the world, you non profit unicorn.