Meta and Google are discontinuing paid political ads from October. That is a disaster for the democratic project. The populists have spent the last ten years growing massive organic followings which they will capitalise on now.

Most democrats and rights activists, on the other hand, never really got a sophisticated grasp of the tech. And because they were incentivised by fundraising targets and easy access to supporters, they’ve inadvertently shrunk their organic reach with content that works for their biggest fans (but few others besides).

So this is a semi deep dive into how political orgs and NGOs can get the most out of their organic social media, and drive real social impact and revenue, after October.

1. Use brand ambassadors from within your organisation 

Humans like to interact with humans, not faceless organisations. Platforms know this. They employ armies of behavioural scientists and psychologists, and they monitor every click to keep track of what we want. So they downgrade organisations’ organic reach. 

Individuals have a much better chance of getting traction. So after October, organisations that understand digital media will increasingly leverage their own staff as brand ambassadors, using their voices to grow awareness and strengthen affinity with their organisational brands.

People judge other people by the company they keep. It’s the same for organisations. If you’re an NGO or political party and you have sparky, dynamic, interesting people working for you – that will brand you as a smart, dynamic organisation with ideas worth listening to.

This is a good example with Dr. Aqsa Durrani for Doctors without Borders. 

It’s harrowing. But it works on social media for several reasons. It’s a story about her work - not a direct appeal. It’s personal, it’s extremely emotional and her charisma stems from her authenticity, compassion and expertise. 

But of course, choosing the people within your organisation who have a chance of getting traction is the key challenge. So how do you do that? Look at their own social media. Listen to how they communicate in real life - Are they clear? Do they avoid jargon? Are they humble? Do people enjoy their company in real life? 

You may have to negotiate new contracts - and potentially pay raises - with them, but if executed well, it will be worth it.

Then, use your comms team to develop content ideas for them, as well as executing the creative, posting and do the data analysis, so that their new social media responsibilities are manageable on top of their actual job. 

2. Build followings by giving value

The work of humanitarians is so much more interesting than what most people do with their 9 to 5. But the comms of most humanitarian agencies just doesn’t reflect that.

And a big part of the reason why NGO comms tends not to get much organic traction is that a lot of it looks the same. People have seen similar content before. They assume they know what it's going to say, so there's no need for them to engage.

Let’s get back to the brand ambassador idea. 

Try looking at this from the perspective of a mostly apolitical person on the train on their way to work. As she scrolls, she sees a serious-looking UN worker in Chad telling her there’s a famine. Yup, the world is a mess. She still has to go to the office and put in 8 hours. That’s where he mind is right now. That’s stressful enough already, without having to think about Chad, so she scrolls on past. 

But if she sees the same person talking about what made them give up the kind of daily grind she’s on her way to, and why they started doing something they really believed in - maybe that would grab her attention. And then maybe she’ll pay attention when they’re talking about an issue that really counts.

Rutger Bregman talks about this in his book Moral Ambition – about energising bright young things to choose meaningful jobs instead of bullshit jobs. If that’s going to happen at scale, we need to make those jobs something that these bright young things aspire to. That happens by changing the conversation and building popular interest in interesting things.

3. Think User eXperience – You can’t get it wrong but you can get it dull

Most people don’t use social media to access information. They use it for entertainment. It’s a little dopamine vacation from the stresses and boredom of their everyday lives. We’re all too aware of the horrors of the world, and most people want to forget them.

So the challenge - as always - is how do we present these harsh issues in ways that motivate people to want people to engage?

People don’t want to watch things they’ve seen before. They’re allergic to boredom. They gravitate to freshness, to new experiences, to new emotions, to new things, to new ideas, to secrets, to inside access, to wonder, to hope, to ingenuity.

Tell stories. Use process. Use emotion.

This gets some people working in the sector down. They think this stuff is gimmicks. They think people should care. And yes they probably should, but this is also just human nature - people naturally focus on their local area more than on the wider world, and they shy away from sadness. 

We believe that working within the parameters of the tech - using it as effectively as we can - is the best way we can stand up for our values, and prevent truth and democracy from sliding even further. 

4. Do the stuff that the algorithm likes

Algorithms turn up organic reach when they see people engaging. And you can boost the potential for that by increasing the ways that people are going to see it. 

• Encourage other people in your organisation to repost (obvs).  

• Tag people who have relevant followings, and engage with their ideas in your content. Give them a reason to engage with you on more than a surface level, and their audiences will see that interaction and learn about you through it.

• Build partnerships with organisations that have the audiences that you need (for example, the podcast that Dr Durrani is featured on in the instagram post above.)

• Organic sharing - remind people to share if they liked your content. At the very least, give them a nudge to follow. 

That’s the tactics. But for the strategy, “Contagious” by Jonah Berger is a good place to start on how to optimise your content’s shareability. 

5.  Get on top of the data

AB testing is a tool that is standard in the private sector. It’s standard in our opponents messaging too. But most people working in politics and NGOs have never heard of it. That’s a real problem.

It’s the reason Trump won and Brexit happened. 

And we’ve used it to grow support for climate and human rights orgs by up to 42%, and grow audiences by up to 100k.

So what is it? In a nutshell, it’s this: We have two different ideas. We think both of them could be good, but we’re not sure which one is best. So we show version A to half our audience and version B to the other half, and we get concrete data on which one gets the most engagement. 

If done with skill, iterating based on this data almost guarantees that you will optimise your engagement and ability to influence the conversation. 

AB testing is about to be taken away on political ads - the platforms in-built AB testing tools don’t work on organic content. 

But we can use the methodology on our organic posts if we’re smart and methodical. Here’s how to do it.

Start by thinking about what would motivate people to engage with your organisation, and develop then hypotheses. For example, “people want to see impact. If we can show that we are actually driving impact, and helping solve a challenge they care about, then we will get an X% lift in average engagement.” 

Or, “People worry about the future of the world for their own kids. If we can connect global instability to their own families’ well being, we will get an X% lift in average engagement.”

Build content based on your hypotheses, put it out there, and keep track of the engagement data (how people respond) in a spreadsheet.  

Use that data to underpin constant small strategic shifts. 

6. Leverage influencers

Influencers are the next best thing to paid ads. They’ve already done the hard work of building a following – an audience that trusts them, engages with them, and pays attention to what they say. When you collaborate with them, you’re not renting access to that audience, and you’re the trust and affinity they’ve cultivated.

This can take two forms. The first is sponsored content – paid partnerships where you brief the influencer, co-create content, and pay them to post. Done well, this gives you predictable access to their audience. 

The second is authentic collabs – working with influencers who already have a natural interest in your cause. Maybe they’ve spoken out on climate, migration, or human rights before. Maybe their personal story overlaps with the values you want to promote. 

The challenge is to match your issue with the right messengers. Influencers come with their own communities and cultures – gaming, lifestyle, activism, even parenting – and your job is to figure out which of those communities could be mobilised around your cause: If the influencer doesn’t genuinely care about your issue, their followers will smell the disconnect.

Interested in media solutions to big social challenges?

Follow us on LinkedIn if you want more on how to build real support in a post-ads world. Share our content if you think it could help others. And if you want to talk about partnerships - whether that’s audience building, fundraising, social impact, training, strategy or full-stack comms - just reach out.