For Good’s Sake: Strategic Social Media Influencer Communication in Non-Profit Organisations

ABSTRACT

Strategic social media influencer communication has become increasingly professionalised in recent years, as evidenced by the emergence of established processes and routines. The continued success and opportunities associated with social media influencer communication are also relevant for non-profit organisations. Theory suggests that both credibility and the social relationship with their followers – two central aspects of the success of social media influencers – are also mission-critical for non-profit organisations. However, the impact of these requirements on the processes of strategic social media influencer communication in non-profit organisations is almost unexplored so far. Therefore, this study uses expert interviews with non-profit organisations, agencies and social media influencers to investigate how the processes in non-profit organisations differ from those encountered in for-profit entities. The results show that the main process steps (planning, organisation and evaluation) are organised similarly to for-profit campaigns, e.g. with brands. Differences emerge with regard to the special communicative requirements of non-profit organisations, which necessitate specific changes in the design and weighing of the individual steps. These must already be taken into account in the conceptualisation stage of strategic social media influencer communication of non-profit organisations. The study also indicates that the social media influencers’ perspective as independent strategic actors (and businesses) in strategic communications deserve attention in further research.

In recent years, strategic social media influencer (SMI) communication has firmly established itself as part of the marketing mix in for-profit firms (Borchers & Enke, 2021). Companies and organisations worldwide are estimated to have spent $22.1 billion in 2023 on SMI communication campaigns (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2023).

The ongoing success of strategic SMI communication, which is mainly attributed to the credibility of “digital opinion leaders” (Casero-Ripollés, 2020, p. 131) and their social relationship with their followers (Aw & Chuah, 2021; Sundermann & Raabe, 2019; Yuan & Lou, 2020), is also attracting the attention of non-profit organisations (NPO). They hope to generate awareness for their topics, reach new target groups and retain existing supporters by cooperating with SMIs. We follow the definition of NPOs as private, self-governing organisations with non-profit distributing to its owners and a voluntary membership (Salamon & Anheier, 1999). They are often called the “third sector” between state and enterprises, as they work with governments and private sector institutions to provide social and humanitarian services to the public (Kearns, 1994).

Although NPOs use similar marketing tools to companies (Bruhn & Herbst, 2016), they differ significantly from their for-profit peers with regard to their goals and conduct, with an even greater focus on credibility and authenticity, but also social proximity (Fröhlich & Peters, 2015). This poses – in addition to factors every organisation has to consider when using SMI communication in their own strategic communication (Borchers & Enke, 2021) – specific challenges for planning and executing the collaboration between SMIs and NPOs.

The growing interest of NPOs in strategic SMI communication is matched by a development described in the media as “sensefluencing”, or “post with purpose” (Rum, 2018). Some influencers perceive a responsibility associated with their reach and influencing potential and engage in political or social causes. Protecting the climate, advocating against racism and for LGBTQ+ rights are among frequent topics (Baake et al., 2022). SMIs have also been employed to convey health information during the COVID-19 pandemic (Pöyry et al., 2022; Reinikainen et al., 2022). While some see this primarily as an opportunity for increased political participation, others criticise political engagement as merely a means to an end in order to sell more (Nymoen & Schmitt, 2021) or classify it as “slacktivism”, a practice to support a social cause, but with very low involvement (Baringhorst, 2019: 42ff.). Influencers themselves, on the other hand, risk scaring off their own community – which is primarily looking for inspiration, escapism and entertainment – or otherwise unpleasantly interrupting their followers’ flow of content consumption (Meier & Schäfer, 2018).

Therefore, NPOs and SMIs face specific challenges when organising and executing these collaborations. While for-profit influencer marketing has received substantial attention in research over the last years (Ye et al., 2021), the field of strategic SMI communication in NPOs is still virtually unexplored. In his literature review on cooperation forms and business models in influencer marketing, Zabel (2021) identified just two out of 137 articles explicitly focusing on NPOs. Given the high importance of both influencer marketing as a marketing discipline and non-profit organisations in marketing, this article explores the specific factors differentiating the collaboration between NPOs and SMIs from for-profit cooperation models.

This study focuses on NPOs in Germany. This is a particularly suitable case since Germans count among the most prolific donors worldwide (European Fundraising Association, 2021). The size of the German NPO sector facilitates the development of professionalised management structures and processes. In Germany, different non-profit actors already collaborate with influencers, such as ministries for health education during the COVID-19 pandemic or in preventing HIV, as do large and small (charitable) aid organisations. Germany can thus be considered a large and relevant market which allows NPOs to muster munificent resources to develop or execute relevant best practices.

The study is based on the conceptual foundation of Borchers and Enke (2021) strategic SMI communication framework. It applies the management functions of strategic communication – planning, organising and controlling (Nothhaft, 2010) to non-profit organisation strategic SMI communication activities, thus highlighting the specific challenges NPOs face when engaging in strategic SMI communication. We consequently propose the following research question:

RQ:

What are the management specificities of non-profit organisations’ strategic influencer communication in contrast to ‘normal’ for-profit strategic SMI communication processes?

We start with a brief overview of the state of research on the management of influencer marketing collaborations and its success factors. We then present the specifics and particular challenges of NPO communication in general as found in the literature. Through a series of exploratory expert interviews covering different stakeholders in SMI communication (NPOs, agencies and influencers), we identify and analyse the specifics of non-profit SMI collaborations. Finally, we develop recommendations for practice.

State of research: Influencer communication in NPO campaigns

SMIs are understood as ‘digital opinion leaders’ (Casero-Ripollés, 2020; Sundermann & Raabe, 2019) who have built a reach through their user profiles in social media via followers with whom they communicate regularly and whom they can influence in their knowledge, attitudes and behaviour (Borchers & Enke, 2021, p. 495; Zhou et al., 2021). In this perspective, SMIs can be defined as “third-party actors that have established a significant number of relevant relationships with a specific quality to and influence on organizational stakeholders through content production, content distribution, interaction, and personal appearance on the social web” (Enke & Borchers, 2019, p. 268). SMIs see themselves as independent content creators who usually finance themselves by being paid for product recommendations based on their audience reach, even though topical interest remains an important motivation for content creation, and the importance of these two kinds of motives may evolve over the course of an SMI’s career (Erz & Heeris Christensen, 2018; Nascimento et al., 2020).

To be an effective conduit for organisations, SMIs must possess “relevance for audience’s behaviour, significant social capital, regular content production and willingness to monetize” (Farouq & Schögel, 2018, p. 42). Their effectiveness is thus “mainly based on credibility, attractiveness, parasocial interaction and congruity” (Hudders et al., 2021). The former two can be considered personal qualities, whereas the latter two refer to customer relationship and interaction. Through their communication, SMIs establish a long-term parasocial relationship with their followers by involving them in their lives. SMIs are thus seen as more relatable and approachable than celebrities (Gannon & Prothero, 2016; Sundermann & Raabe, 2019; Yesiloglu & Costello, 2021). They may represent the personal ideal of their followers (Morais et al., 2021) or have a high congruity with their target group (Hudders et al., 2021). Parasocial interaction may evolve with the professionalisation of SMIs (Van Driel & Dumitrica, 2021). Reach and impact with their audiences are other important factors, since they allow SMIs to execute opinion leadership (Hudders et al., 2020). Apart from celebrity and mega-influencers with several million followers, there is a confusingly large number of macro-, micro- and nano-influencers on the market who compete for advertising and collaboration with companies (Backaler, 2019; Hudders et al., 2020).

Given its economic relevance, strategic SMI communication has sparked considerable academic interest internationally in recent years. Ye et al. (2021) point to an increasing number of studies in this field, which reached its (preliminary) peak in 2019 with 100 publications. The authors identify five research themes: the persuasiveness of influencer marketing (IM); IM in specific industries and product categories; ethical issues and disclosure effects; the identification, selection and activation of SMIs; and finally, stakeholder perspectives (such as brands, audiences and the SMIs themselves) on IM (Ye et al., 2021). In the last research group, the management of influencer campaigns has attracted significant interest. In his literature review on business models and collaboration forms, Zabel (2023) identifies a set of key activities regarding the management of IM. These include the initiation of collaborations with SMIs, i.e. the planning and briefing stage; the activities of quality control and collaboration monitoring as part of value delivery and finally measurement as an element of value capture.

Borchers and Enke (2021) proposed a conceptual model for the emerging planning, organisation and controlling routines in strategic SMI communications. They define strategic influencer communication as “the purposeful use of communication by organisations or social media influencers in which social media influencers are addressed or perform activities with strategic significance to organizational goals” (Enke & Borchers, 2019, p. 271). SMIs thus provide several services that were previously carried out by specialised agents, including content production and content distribution. From an organisational perspective, the strategic SMI communication can be conceptualised as a ‘classic’ management process in the form of a cascading, iterative circle of planning, execution and controlling phases (see Figure 1). These processes may vary in their duration, intensity and scope. Different actors may be involved in the process, too, ranging from technical service providers and classic advertising intermediaries to agencies that take over the interests/communication of clients, as well as clients and SMIs.

Figure 1. Strategic influencer communication management process.

Source: Borchers and Enke (2021), p. 7; grey circles are phases within the organisation function; white circles stand for other management functions.

Firstly, the planning phase includes the definition of the strategic SMI communication objectives. These can be operationalised on the input level (e.g. provision of the aforementioned expertise, relationship quality, brand/audience fit (Bakker, 2018), but more crucially on the output level (e.g. content produced, reach/interaction generated) and the outcome and impact level (e.g. sales, awareness, customer loyalty). Secondly, the services provided by the SMIs (i.e. content production and distribution, appearance and use of the SMI’s online persona (Zhou et al., 2021), interaction, reporting and campaign consulting/co-creation) and the respective compensation have to be envisioned. The latter may be divided into fixed or flexible monetary and non-monetary compensations (Zabel, 2021), such as product samples. Image or reputational gain, as well as personal interest, are seen as relevant non-financial motives (Borchers & Enke, 2021). Thirdly, influencers can be distinguished based on different roles and types in terms of reach, topic, platform, origin of popularity or geographic focus, guiding the selection of SMIs with regard to the organisation’s communication goals.

The organisation stage can be broken down in four sub-phases (Borchers & Enke, 2021). Firstly, the influencer selection and contacting phase takes (brand/organisational) fit and the SMI’s profile, qualifications, indices (e.g. indication reach, interaction rates) and exclusion criteria into account. Cooperations may be initiated by SMIs or by advertisers/brands (Audrezet et al., 2020, p. 563). While nano-influencers may be pro-active in approaching brands (Campbell & Farrell, 2020), contacts with more professional SMIs are mostly established through agencies (Woodcock & Johnson, 2019). Firms follow specific strategies and processes to address SMIs (Navarro et al., 2020). Personalisation is considered especially important, even if it requires additional human resources, as is the display of mutual respect (Audrezet et al., 2020).

The second sub-phase includes production-specific and distribution-specific agreements. Elaborating the briefing document is considered the key activity here (Borchers & Enke, 2021), including product information (Lin et al., 2018), messaging guidelines (Herrmann, 2018; Kunath et al., 2018), legal requirements (Haenlein et al., 2020) and endorsement guidelines (Audrezet et al., 2020; Filipa Couto & Quelhas de Brito, 2020). This time-consuming process, which includes several persons on the brand/organisation side (C. Davies & Hobbs, 2020, p. 6) should immerse the SMI in the brand universe (Haenlein et al., 2020). Briefings should be clear, brief and transparent (Kristensen, 2021) and not overly limit the creative freedom (Audrezet et al., 2020; Childers et al., 2019). There should be a co-creative, iterative process of briefing, idea generation and idea discussion, which is carried out under negotiation (trade-offs) and sometimes conflict (Backaler, 2019; Sette & Brito, 2020).

The third sub-phase of content production can be driven either by the SMI or by the organisation (with the SMI taking on a distributor role). There are also hybrid approaches, where both partners supply content or co-create it together (Sundermann & Raabe, 2019). These interactions are often carried out through specialised agencies, both from the buyer side, by ad, PR, and media agencies, and from the supplier/SMI side by influencer agencies and multi-channel networks (Hudders et al., 2020). They act as intermediaries, both production-wise (i.e. selection of and negotiation with advertisers, advice on content production and ensuring style consistency) and distribution-wise (i.e. selecting forms of display and repetition – through adaptation of contents, multi-platform display and cross-promotions in larger accounts). Communicative risk is considered inherent in SMI communications, since it is not entirely controlled by the brand/organisation (Childers et al., 2019; Zhou et al., 2021). Furthermore, SMIs, followers, and brands/organisation are sensitive to perceived deceptive and unethical behaviours (Abidin & Ots, 2016), which emphasises the importance of advertising disclosure (Audrezet et al., 2020). Monitoring activities help to control the content produced by the SMI (Hudders et al., 2020). Sponsors also analyse how the audience reacts during the collaboration (Farouq & Schögel, 2018). This may also include a troubleshooting/interaction capacity, since it allows flexible reactions to negative communicative developments, such as reacting to a negative eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth) campaign (‘shitstorm’) (Lawson, 2021; Zabel & Pagel, 2018).

This holds true for the fourth sub-phase of content distribution as well, which may also be primarily driven by the SMI or the organisation (e.g. through own channels or paid media) or by hybrid approaches. Here, SMIs need to select the platforms and adapt their content according to their respective standards, regulations and policies (Gaenssle & Budzinski, 2021). This phase also includes the scheduling of content distribution. SMIs have to update social media profiles frequently in order to stay visible (Abidin, 2016), but posting above a certain threshold leads to decreasing returns, information overload and decreasing content quality (Gaenssle & Budzinski, 2021).

The last phase in Borchers and Enke’s (2021) model is the controlling of the collaboration. Here, key performance indicators (KPIs) can be monitored, which can operationalise either input, output or outcome criteria. Measurement can be done using less (e.g. content documentations, media clippings) and more standardised methods (e.g. traffic analysis via tracking links, social media platform indexes (views, comments, interactions, etc.)). In addition to quantifiable parameters such as engagement clicks, views, reach, and impressions (Santiago & Moreira Castelo, 2020), practitioners use perceptual indicators that provide a holistic view (Jiménez-Castillo & Sánchez-Fernández, 2019).

Literature emphasises that this process may play out on different levels of collaboration intensity, yielding varying levels of control and marketing potential. These may span from spontaneous encouragement by an SMI and multi-stakeholder co-creation to long-term collaborations (Zhou et al., 2021). These influencer relations (Smith et al., 2023) are seen as advantageous since they reduce uncertainty (Reinikainen et al., 2021), although their effectiveness, while critical for marketing communication, is not yet well studied (Borchers & Enke, 2021).

Stakeholderships may also vary from the SMI perspective (Rundin & Colliander, 2021). This may range from more standardised collaborations resembling celebrity endorsements of brand messages (Backaler, 2019; Nascimento et al., 2020) to co-creative interchanges between SMI and brand/advertiser, where each side provides creative output/advice that is not entirely defined by the other side. Finally, in the more long-term co-owner collaboration, the SMI is part or sole owner of the value proposition.

Strategic SMI communication in NPOs

Based on diverse and pluralistic values and motivations, “the nonprofit sector provides the organizational infrastructure of civil society” (Anheier & Toepler, 2023, p. 9). Although the term has gained international acceptance, the term non-profit is misleading, since NPOs can in fact generate profits in order to pursue their respective goals and expand their activities. NPOs fulfil different societal roles, including service delivery, political advocacy, community building and civic engagement and may display different levels of market-oriented business practices (Moulton & Eckerd, 2012; Suykens et al., 2023). Defining the goals and their respective importance therefore seems more apt to identify NPOs. Their primary goal orientation is qualitative in nature and oriented towards the common good and social change, e.g. goals are to strengthen human and equality rights, mitigate climate change, humanitarian aid, democratic education or disease prevention (Sorce, 2022). Accordingly, funding also varies widely: in addition to public funds, most NPOs rely on donations from companies and individuals, as well as membership fees (Anheier & Toepler, 2023, p. 358ff.).

The NPO sector is characterised by its high heterogeneity, which may affect access to resources available for strategic SMI communication, but also strategic communication goals, which may be political, charitable, economic or socio-cultural and often overlap (Anheier & Toepler, 2023). NPOs may differ greatly with respect to their legal form, number of members, organisational structure and degree of formalisation, turnover and donations. What they do have in common is a minimum level of formal self-governance, decision-making autonomy and voluntariness (Salamon & Anheier, 1999). They can be classified according to their legal status (private, mixed-economy and public organisation). The distinction between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and NPOs is often not clear-cut when reduced to the objective of advocacy or pursuing predominantly political interests, since NGOs also provide humanitarian aid and services (Schwarz & Fritsch, 2018). Therefore, NPOs that are not directly supported by governments and do not have a parliamentary mandate are usually referred to as NGOs. Additionally, several authors come to the conclusion that there are no differences either in the theoretical conception or in the empirical findings of the communication of NPOs or NGOs (Bürker, 2018). In the following, the broader term NPO is hence used.

The legitimacy and success of NPOs do not primarily depend on their economic performance on the market; instead NPOs can be evaluated by the credibility and trust they are able to generate vis-à-vis their stakeholders, which depends on how successfully they represent and advance the stakeholders’ interests (Brömmling, 2007; Pleil, 2005). Typically, NPOs have to cater to different stakeholder groups, including service providers, beneficiaries, members, donors, public funders and the wider public (Bruhn & Herbst, 2016). Also, decision-making structures in NPOs are participatory in accordance with the orientation towards value goals, the common good and consideration of stakeholders (Gahrmann, 2020).

This suggests that they have to pursue an integrated communication strategy (Henke, 2015), conveying a consistent (brand) image in internal and external communication. Communication activities therefore encompass much more than the solicitation of donors (fundraising), as they continuously serve to legitimise the NPO. The goals of the NPO must be communicated continuously and comprehensibly to members within the organisation, as well as outside of it (Fröhlich & Peters, 2015). Crucially, communication activities are also aimed at cultivating the NPO’s credibility (T. R. Davies, 2019). To do so, trust in the effectiveness and efficiency of the services provided is key, as well as a high degree of transparency. NPOs enjoy goodwill not only among journalists, but also among the public and their supporters because they are classified as non-profit and are perceived as contributing to the common good. This goodwill must also be met by increased transparency in communication (Ting Lee & Hemant Desai, 2014).

Regarding communication and marketing activities, since the aim is often to alleviate social ills, there is a “moral charging” (translated from Fröhlich & Peters, 2015, p. 645) to the issues, which is embodied by spokespersons intended to serve as value models and to gain additional media attention (Könecke, 2018). NPOs’ public relations activities also aim to win over journalists as supporters of the “good cause” (Vowe, 2009), further increasing attention and reach.

Digital communication activities have increased in importance, for NPOs as well as the public sector (Reinikainen & Valentini, 2023). In addition to activities aimed at classic mass media, social media platforms offer NPOs new opportunities to communicate openly and continuously about their work and also to address the various stakeholders through a more comprehensive media presence. Digitalisation can also simplify and amplify the all-important fundraising processes, e.g. through online fundraisers or micro-donations (Seo & Vu, 2020). At the same time, these new media lead to an increasingly competitive environment for NPOs that has to be reflected in strategic communication: competition between NPOs is becoming more globalised and is further complicated by for-profit companies engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, often in order to build their brands. On the consumption side, users and prospective donors are inundated with media offerings, leading to short-term attention spans (Marell, 2018). Brand differentiation and donor retention thus become significant challenges for many NPOs (Naskrent, 2020). Catastrophic situations such as the floods in Germany in 2021 or the war in Ukraine in 2022 show that the willingness to donate and help remains high, but as events unfold over time, they reduce the devotion to a specific NPO.

Finally, these digital communication channels put additional strain on the human and financial resources of NPOs. Continuously communicating on a multitude of digital channels requires people, expertise and a certain degree of professionalisation. Here, NPOs are not able to muster the level of resources for PR and marketing that companies can. They also face resource rigidities, which are amplified by the fact that organisation members and donors do not accept increasing expenses for PR and marketing at the expense of achieving the NPO’s primary goals (Bruhn & Herbst, 2016).

Whereas ‘for-profit’ strategic SMI communication has received substantial academic attention, the collaboration between NPOs and influencers has only been studied sporadically. Gunawan (2021) and Lewis (2020) for example analyse the motives with regard to political influencers. Salte (2022) found, based on two case studies on non-profit SMIs, that their rhetoric is shaped by the public; and Suuronen et al. (2022) found that larger SMIs eschew formal political topics and prefer lifestyle-oriented ones. In their literature review, Lou et al. (2022) identify potentials of non-profit SMIs in the areas of health communication by reaching minorities or young audiences, by breaking stereotypes and by creating safe spaces for audiences to express themselves. Borchers and Enke’s (2021) study included non-profit cases, although these constitute a minority in their explorative sample and the specificities in contrast to for-profit firms are not further analysed. The use of social media by NPOs (albeit not intermediated by SMIs) has also been studied (Albanna et al., 2022; Foronda-Robles & Galindo-Pérez de Azpillaga, 2021). On a comparative basis, SMI communication may be even more expensive than other forms of digital communication (Shikovets et al., 2022).

With regard to SMI-NPO collaboration, it has to be said that SMIs have varying motivations that may evolve individually over time. This applies not only to personal views on products, values and priorities (Lin et al., 2018), it may also relate to stages in the SMI’s career (Nascimento et al., 2020). SMIs may want to champion “good causes”, such as benefiting the disadvantaged (Pang et al., 2016) or promoting transgender rights (Raun, 2018). In these cases, they may also be willing to (partially) forgo monetary compensation. Altruism can be a powerful motive: Reimer and Benkenstein (2018) show in their experimental study that appealing to altruistic motives may increase the propensity to write a product review in the same way as monetary incentives do.

Literature points to several characteristics of the management of strategic influencer communication that may be specifically important for NPOs. Firstly, NPOs can profit from strategic SMI communication by being able to reach new target groups, especially younger ones. They can also target campaigns more specifically by addressing different stakeholders with different content (Lou et al., 2022). An NPO – as any other organisation (Childers et al., 2019) – can also profit from the credibility of an SMI, since the SMI’s social relationship and role model function can motivate followers to engage with the NPO’s goals (Hudders et al., 2020). As a corollary, selecting influencers who fit the NPO’s goals and values – a process that is already considered crucial in for-profit collaborations (Childers et al., 2019) – seems to be particularly important, e.g. by displaying thematic proximity, personal experience and content fit. The scarcity of NPO resources highlights the need for collaboration models based on pro bono or non-monetary forms of compensation (Enke & Borchers, 2019). Consistent, participatory collaboration between the SMI and the NPO becomes additionally relevant. This collaboration “as equals” may require active outreach, exchange and support in each phase of the strategic communication process, including SMI selection, briefing, contracting, content co-creation and community engagement (Borchers & Enke, 2021; Smith et al., 2023). Here, NPOs may face substantial limitations. For example, if the SMI is participating pro bono, the briefing cannot be as extensive in order to avoid putting off collaboration partners (Kunath et al., 2018). Finally, given this wide range of tasks and the capability gap in most NPOs (based on resource scarcity and rigidity), it can be assumed that NPOs need the external expertise of specialised actors such as IM agencies, which also need to be managed (Hudders et al., 2020).

Method

To date, there has been no empirical investigation of how the specific challenges of NPOs affect collaboration and strategic communication with SMIs. Therefore, we conduct an exploratory study based on expert interviews to uncover these specificities. The expert interview is particularly suitable as an instrument for gaining insights into the topic beyond the results of the literature analysis (Bogner & Menz, 2009; Pfadenhauer, 2007, p. 460). It helps to identify the logic of actions in organisations and to explore emerging structures (Blöbaum et al., 2016, p. 182). We interview experts in their role as functionaries, standing for a certain perspective (Meuser & Nagel, 2009). They not only possess “expert knowledge” in their respective field, they also have insider knowledge, as they are part of the object of investigation researched and have the possibility to implement their expertise in a practical way (Döringer, 2021; Werner, 2013).

Our study focuses on the German NPO sector, which is substantial in size. In 2021, around 30 million Germans gave around 5.8 billion euros (Cocoran, 2022). The number of NPOs in Germany is estimated to be around 615,000 (Hallmann, 2016) and the non-profit sector contributed 4.1% of the total GDP in 2020 (Edinger-Schons et al., 2020). This presumably allows NPOs to professionalise communication activities such as influencer marketing, which play an increasingly significant role for German NPOs. At the same time, half of German internet users say they follow SMIs, and more than a quarter have already purchased a product promoted by SMIs (Bitkom, 2022). In addition, according to representative surveys, 64% of users aged between 16 and 29 years, who tend to use social media more intensively, have donated money to a good cause in the past 12 months. 26% of respondents said they followed appeals for donations via social media, and 9% were encouraged to donate by SMIs (Bitkom Research, 2022). As one of the first humanitarian aid organisations in Germany, Kindernothilfe e.V. began its collaboration with micro- and macro- influencers in 2016 (Brecht, 2017), which continues until today. In 2019, Unicef collaborated with one of the most successful SMIs in Germany, Julien Bam, and travelled with him to Bangladesh (Unicef, 2019). WWF took five SMIs to Vietnam (Gömmel, 2019). Several well-known German SMIs, including the German winner of the TV show “Germany’s Next Topmodel”, Stefanie Giesinger, faced accusations of white saviourism (Cole, 2012) when they posted their involvement in Malawi on Instagram (Sand, 2019).

To reach theoretical saturation, we design a theoretical sample based on the main structuring dimension (Bowen, 2008). We use actor groups as a structuring element in the selection of interviewees (cf. Table 1), since it is known from the literature review that the market for strategic SMI communication is significantly shaped by three groups of actors: the SMIs themselves, the clients of (brand) communication and, as intermediaries, IM agencies that accompany the implementation of the projects (Enke & Borchers, 2019). We focus on NPOs with a minimum of 40 employees, a private legal status, which are mainly funded by donations and membership fees, and pursue primary societal goals and services (human rights, humanitarian aid, public health and political education). Data collection occurs in two phases: the first phase was carried out in the end of 2022, a second phase in September and October 2023. In this second phase, additional cases are analysed in order to assure that established categories of SMI communication are fully accounted for and the variability between the cases (and in comparison to for-profit SMI communication) are explained (Aldiabat & Le Navenec, 2018). Overall, we interview 20 experts from all relevant stakeholder groups: communications managers from NPOs (NPO), experts from influencer marketing agencies with experience in campaigns with NPOs of the above-mentioned type (AGY) and SMIs who collaborate with that kind of NPO (SMI, see Table 1).We base our expert interviews on a structured guide that uses open-ended and semi-open-ended questions to give the interview partners the opportunity to answer the questions based on their expert knowledge with sufficient freedom (Gioia et al., 2013). We structure the interview guide – which is the same for all three stakeholder groups – along the elements of the management process (planning, organisation and controlling) examined by Borchers and Enke (2021).

Table 1. Interviewees.

Interviewee/Phase	Actor Group	Function	Topical Focus
1 (1)	NPO	Policy & External Relations, Head of Project Climate	Humanitarian aid
2 (1)	NPO	Head of Social Media Management	Humanitarian aid, children’s rights
3 (1)	NPO	Head of Media Relations	Public health
4 (2)	NPO	Online Fundraising & PR	Humanitarian aid
5 (2)	NPO	PR Manager	Humanitarian aid
6 (2)	NPO	Influencer & Celebrity Relations	Humanitarian aid
7 (2)	NPO	Head of Public Relations	Humanitarian aid
8 (1)	AGY	Head of Creation and Content	Humanitarian aid
9 (1)	AGY	Managing Director	Climate change & humanitarian aid
10 (1)	AGY	Executive Assistant, Head of Influencer Academy	Public health
11 (2)	AGY	Managing Director	Political education, humanitarian aid
12 (2)	AGY	Political Communications Manager	Political education & human rights
13 (2)	AGY	Project Manager	Human rights
14 (1)	SMI	Content Creator (Technology, TikTok, 250k followers)	Political education
15 (1)	SMI	Content Creator (Health, Instagram, 220k)	Humanitarian aid
16 (1)	SMI	Content Creator (Entertainment, YouTube, 1.3m)	Public health
17 (2)	SMI	Content Creator (Beauty, Instagram, 7K)	Humanitarian aid
18 (2)	SMI	Content Creator (Firefighter, Instagram, 3.6k)	Disaster service
19 (2)	SMI	Content Creator (Paramedic, Instagram, 7k)	Rescue service
20 (2)	SMI	Content Creator (Beauty, Instagram, 22k)	Public health

We then analyse the transcribed data from the expert interviews through a qualitative content analysis using the software MaxQDA. The management process (Borchers & Enke, 2021) serves as the general structure for the coding frame, as well as the specific challenges of NPO communication we identify through the literature review. We then also develop subcategories in a data-driven, inductive way (Mayring, 2022). During this process, which is carried out by all authors, we stop regularly to discuss, define and re-organise the derived codes to arrive at valid results.

Results

Our primary research interest is to explore the specificities of the management process of strategic SMI communication in NPOs, more specifically during the planning, organisation and controlling stages. The analysis and presentation of results follow the conceptual foundation of Enke and Borchers’ (2021) strategic SMI communication framework and focus on the similarities and differences observed compared to processes aimed at for-profit collaborations.

Planning

First of all, it should be noted that the responses of all interviewees indicate an increasing professionalisation of collaborations between NPOs and SMIs. The NPOs surveyed have created positions specifically tasked at strategic SMI communication, or have expanded their celebrity marketing to SMIs. Furthermore, several interviewees report that collaboration with SMIs has been strategically anchored within the NPO (e.g. with dedicated personnel resources). NPOs, agencies and SMIs report increasing competitive pressure in the field.

Objectives

On the input level, for-profit and non-profit firms collaborate with influencers to leverage their ability to affect the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of their followers. SMIs bring expertise in creating, content production, distribution and interaction with certain communities. Contrary to collaborations with for-profit firms, in NPO cases the “good cause” might entirely dominate the SMI’s decision to cooperate.

It has been incredibly valuable for us that the topics we work on are very important for some and that they were also very impressed by them. (NPO, 2)

Therefore, the engagement of the SMI’s community with products or a brand which is crucial in for-profit collaborations is less important than interaction with and involvement in the cause. Here, NPOs are challenged to meet the mindset of the young target groups.

For example, we had ‘menstruation day’, and so we addressed menstrual injustice worldwide, and we noticed that there was a high level of popularity simply because people felt somehow connected, while the topic of ‘hunger’ is much more difficult, one they just don’t want to identify with. (NPO, 7)

At the output level, too, there are substantial commonalities regarding content produced, reach of interest groups and interaction generated. In our interviews, NPOs perceived stakeholder-oriented outcomes (e.g. community building, influencing political decisions and developing organisational social media competencies) as more important than marketing-oriented KPIs such as reach, conversion rates or generated donations. Whereas the latter may also be useful as quantifiable arguments for strategic SMI communication within the organisation, the focus really lies on establishing contact with relevant stakeholders:

It is really a possibility to communicate with people as equals, in other words, not to scatter our content somewhere and say that’s what we’re doing; instead, we really talk to the target groups and get feedback from them. (NPO, 2)

According to the interviewees, a fundamental advantage of SMI collaboration is that NPOs can approach passive target groups before these begin to actively search for information. This is particularly important during crises and disasters, but also in the field of public health (NPO, 3, 4). This also applies to fundraising for acute events such as natural disasters, where SMI appeals are particularly successful in their community (NPO, 7).

From the SMI perspective, an important outcome is related to the relatively new phenomenon of “sensefluencing”, which can be beneficial to both the SMIs and their followers: “to make sure that followers are engaged in something meaningful”. (SMI, 17)

However, whereas brands employ influencers as a means to outsource authenticity and credibility (Borchers & Enke, 2021) and NPOs may also benefit from the credibility of the SMIs in their community, they themselves must in turn seem credible and authentic to the SMIs:

It is just hard to accept all of the requests from NPOs, ultimately it always has to fit the content creator. Followers have to have the feeling, ok, the cause is real, not just a link because they were asked to do it. You have to stand behind it there as well, you have to examine what the NGO stands for, you need to understand that. (SMI, 15)

This means that, on the one hand, SMIs must feel responsible for the collaboration, especially for ensuring that donations are dedicated to the communicated goal (transparency). On the other hand, they are also afraid of negative feedback if they support a certain, possibly controversial cause. Consequently, the credibility of the NPO is a relevant, if not decisive factor for SMIs’ decision to participate in the collaboration:

[…] whereas many [SMIs] are also just afraid they’ll end up being exposed to a shitstorm and they’ll actually write something wrong. And that’s why I can imagine that many [SMIs] are more likely to say no before they support something wrong, even though the thought behind it would actually be a positive one. (SMI, 15)

One major difference to for-profit communication is the NPO’s option of attracting other SMIs as potential collaboration partners through the SMI network. Previous collaborations reassure other SMIs that the NPO in question is trustworthy; whereas for-profit organisations are mainly defined by their brand or market conduct.

There is of course a bit of a snowball effect when influencers have already seen other influencers and know OK, then I can cooperate with them and I’m less worried. (NPO, 7)

Strategic SMI communication also may be leveraged by NPOs to attract corporate sponsors: companies working with the same SMIs may include the NPO in their CSR strategy, an area that is becoming increasingly important:

You can think even bigger about collaborations, influencers can bring together companies and NPOs. This is a very exciting topic for us, there is the potential for new, creative ideas for the development of collaborations. (NPO, 1)

The services that influencers perform for NPOs are almost congruent to for-profits. Content production and distribution are major services that SMIs provide, which includes setting links, mentions and hashtags. Usually, they appear in self-produced content as the protagonist. SMIs steer the conversation with their followers and report data, e.g. social media indicators which are only available to the channel owner. While SMIs are invited to participate in creating the campaign strategy in for-profit collaborations, co-creation seems to be a mandatory requirement in non-profit-collaborations. Professional support from IM agencies is as important for NPOs as it is for for-profit organisations, because both the SMI and the agency take on tasks that NPOs cannot perform themselves.

Significant differences to for-profit strategic SMI communication are found with regard to monetary compensation. Whereas IM agencies are paid for their services by NPOs (like for-profit organisations do), there are various other forms of compensation for SMIs. Two key challenges are apparent in the interviews: firstly, there are opportunity costs at a minimum, which SMIs have to be compensated for (like they would in the for-profit sector). These include the overhead of content creation, distribution or community management. This places a pro bono collaboration in a resource conflict with paid collaborations, even if the SMI is inclined to forgo direct payment, and can result in NPO communication content being deprioritised. Here, payment can not only significantly increase commitment, but also compensate for the SMI’s effort.

Secondly, competition is increasing in the non-profit sector, since NPOs no longer compete ‘only’ with for-profits when it comes to strategic SMI communication collaborations, but increasingly with other NPOs as well:

The interest of content creators in such pro bono engagement is decreasing (…) They are getting more and more inquiries, especially from the NGO sector, so we are no longer as exotic as we were in the beginning. (…) They can choose what they want, which makes it much more difficult for us, of course. (NPO, 2)

Long-term, binding collaborations (influencer relations) is in the interest of all parties involved, as it reaffirms the credibility and authenticity of NPOs, but above all of the influencer, who is committed to a specific topic in the long term and becomes an ambassador or spokesperson for the NPOs. A relationship of trust “as equals” can then develop between the NPO, agency and SMI.

In general, the interview partners emphasise the importance of influencers being perceived as professional partners on equal footing. Participation and co-creation are thus considered equally important for both collaboration partners. This also applies to possible outcomes of collaboration: for the influencers, the gain in reputation and the display of their commitment to a social cause is an important argument for entering into a collaboration.

Given the scarcity of monetary resources and the importance of SMIs being closely involved, thematic incentives are particularly relevant. One incentive frequently used is trips to crisis areas: not only is the trip paid for, SMIs may also travel to a country that is often off the beaten tourist track, to make intercultural contacts and gain insights that would not be possible without the support of the NPO. Furthermore, events that connect different players around social issues can offer an added value aspect for the participating SMIs, by giving them the opportunity to network and build personal relationships with other SMIs (SMI, 14; AGY 5):

We have always thought about what added value we can offer them [SMIs], and I think our only chance is to not only offer them this personal reputational gain, but also the chance to play a role in a community, perhaps an opinion-leading role in a community, a prominent role as an ambassador for a cause, independent of an organisation … I think that could be an added value if it is recognized that the people who work with us from the creative scene are far-sighted enough to recognize that something is developing and I can get in on it early and can make my mark early on. (NPO, 2)

Interview partners from all topical focus areas agree that non-monetary compensation could be attractive in the case of large-scale campaigns that generate substantial attention and thus reach and reputation, be it through the involvement of numerous SMIs or via classic campaign channels. Interviewees point out that such an approach could also attract the mega- and macro-influencers with large communities – a particularly important segment – where NPOs usually can’t keep up with the pay. Here, a broad campaign awareness can ensure that SMIs use their influence in a self-effective and responsible way:

Something that can give the influencers the feeling that they really have the opportunity to change something. (AGY, 10)

Planning also has to consider the types and roles of the SMIs. Interview partners point out that, in addition to the size and fit with the SMI’s target group, topical expertise plays a particularly important role when selecting SMIs. This aspect may even be more pronounced than in for-profit collaborations, given the crucial role of credibility in NPO communication. Consequently, finding SMIs who have a personal connection to the topic presents a particularly tough challenge. The same is true for the SMIs themselves, since authenticity is perceived to be of greater importance “than telling a good story” (SMI, 19). The issues the NPO focusses on must fit in with their expertise or own experience:

If the topic is not my core topic, then I have to find a way to connect it to my area of expertise. If I have don’t have any expertise to present when I’m in front of my people, I would not do that anyway. (SMI, 14)

With regard to the platform, which is a more target-group-related selection criteria in the for-profit sector, the interviewees draw attention to the opportunity to address new, and also young, communities via Twitch and TikTok, as Instagram and YouTube are considered too commercial and too expensive.

Organisation

As the first step in the organisation process, influencer selection is considered one of the mission-critical activities for NPOs when engaging in strategic SMI communication. The selection criteria differ substantially from for-profit collaborations: qualification, such as specific skills or competences of the SMI, and indices (as a main selection criterion in for-profit communication) play a subordinate role for NPOs. The interviewees report that the interaction with specific communities is more important than reach or other numeric measures. Also, it has to be determined whether the values of the NPO match the values of the influencer and if the SMI has a thematic reference, expertise or involvement in the topic to be communicated.

What makes the work totally different is the effort involved in the level of research because we are much more focused on finding influencers that fit thematically when working for NPOs. There is often much more need for discussion on the topics […]. So the biggest difference is that we as an agency simply have a higher effort until we even get to the point of saying OK, the contract is now signed and the collaboration can start. (AGY, 10)

This means that a resource-intensive, non-scalable editorial search has to be carried out: “Selection of influencers is always individual.” (AGY, 8). Even though this step is very costly, the players agree that the effort pays off. Exclusion factors primarily concern the values represented by the influencer, which can only be found out through careful editorial research as well.

Preparation and coordination

NPOs have to put in substantial resources when working with SMIs, even if they are able to outsource part of it to agencies. This is due to the specifics of NPO communication. Not only does acquisition require more effort than in a for-profit communication setting, the “translation work” resulting from the strict credibility requirements is also more onerous. The topics that NPOs “sell” usually require explanation and a high level of contextual knowledge. Conveying this information is also necessary to minimise possible communicative risks for the SMI. Thus, the NPO managers interviewed state that they communicate a great deal overall. One communication requirement in pro bono collaborations is to stay “in touch”, maintaining awareness. Financial compensation can help reduce at least this communication effort and free up internal resources.

Like in for-profit collaborations, the briefing is considered a key instrument and, depending on its structure, it can derail the collaboration before it begins. The NPO must manage the balancing act of communicating its goals and concerns in a comprehensible way, while at the same time establishing a relationship with the influencer. “You have to try to grab them emotionally.” (AGY, 9). It is important for SMIs to be addressed personally at this stage and to be perceived as a professional partner and an equal.

The subsequent communication – as already described above – can be understood as a kind of “translation job”, which is often elaborated:

We are often in the role of mediator, because we operate in different worlds. We come from one world and want to understand the other, and the others should understand our world. I would say we do the job of a translator. (NPO, 2)

Good preparation by the NPO and agency, especially with regard to the legal and ethical framework, is perceived as particularly helpful:

Clarify in advance everything that needs to be accomplished. Don’t deal with very many people, make the responsibilities of client, of agency clear. (AGY, 9)

Content production

A consequence of the NPO’s participatory approach is that collaborating SMIs are given a great deal of creative leeway. The authenticity of the SMI is the leading concept for a campaign:

It was built around the person, for what they usually do. Influencers talk the way they talk. (AGY, 8)

Quality assurance remains an important issue, however, as the NPO’s values are essential. With pro bono collaboration and great creative freedom, the NPO often has to rely on the goodwill of the SMI, while the production- and distribution-specific agreements of for-profit collaboration can more easily set certain parameters (Audrezet et al., 2020; Childers et al., 2019; Haenlein et al., 2020).

Content distribution is often additionally executed through many of the NPO’s own channels to get as much out of the collaboration as possible. During content distribution, it is considered important to avoid negative comments through comprehensive communication in advance and quality assurance of the content. However, risks cannot be completely avoided. Here, the phenomenon of ‘whataboutism’ was mentioned in particular, where the influencer is not blamed for being committed to a particular cause, but is blamed for not doing so for many others. This is where the interviewees mention that NPOs and agencies can provide support in community management. Members of all stakeholder groups emphasise that organisational and strategic anchoring of influencer collaboration as part of the NPO’s communication is a prerequisite for being able to deal with potential risks.

It’s really important as an NPO that you have a very clear strategy where the board is also behind it, because the pitfalls or sources of danger are simply huge. […] We already had a shitstorm with an influencer during a campaign, and you simply have to deal with it in crisis communication, and that only works well if really everyone, yes everyone, pulls together. (NPO, 7)

This also helps to deal with the ambivalence that can arise between briefing and creative implementation of the SMI (AGY, 12). As in for-profit companies, concerns about brand safety are widespread in NPOs (AGY, 12; NPO, 6,7).

Evaluation

As in the planning dimension, performance measurement can be categorised in input, output and outcome parameters. In the case of paid collaborations, the same KPIs are used for measuring input and output. On the input level, cost per thousand (CPM, or cost per mille) is the relevant standardised measure. On the output level, metrics that social media platforms provide (i.e. reach, engagement, conversion rates to websites) are the most important KPIs. Other measures depend on the specific campaign objectives. In the case of NPOs, the measurement of donations is often a controlling procedure, and, in relation to public relations, media and social media monitoring.

At the outcome level, typical public relations success measures such as media coverage and agenda setting effects are more important for NPOs than marketing-related KPIs. Effects like the growth in follower numbers for organisational social media channels or the number of event participants are important measures of success for both for- and non-profit organisations.

As described above, generating issue awareness (e.g. for human rights or climate change) is essential for NPOs. Here, agenda setting in communities that have not yet been reached by classic communication tools is of particularly high significance:

We have gained a great deal from this collaboration with influencers, because we had not previously addressed and reached them, or had hardly reached them at all, which means that influencers have enabled us to tap into a completely new target group, in the area of young people and young adults, young people, schoolchildren and young women starting out in their careers, students, which is actually the main win. (NPO, 2)

Additionally, the access to communities and the insights into the topics that move these communities are seen as an important supplemental value. This may even include recruiting new ambassadors or volunteer supporters for the NPO. As already described for the for-profit collaborations, these qualitative outcomes largely defy measurement using standardised methods. Agencies see it as their responsibility to make the qualitative added values of a campaign visible and measurable (AGY, 12). On the upside, the qualitative assessment may generate valuable insights for future communication activities:

With that we get to know and accept different perspectives, completely different points of view from the outside, from people who belong to the target groups, we get more direct engagement with this target group by collaborating with prominent representatives. That is a very, very important aspect. (NPO, 2)

Discussion

Our exploratory study found that the increasing professionalisation of strategic SMI communication can also be observed in the non-profit sector. The emerging management practices in the planning, organisation and controlling stages identified by Borchers and Enke (2021) can generally be applied to strategic SMI communication by NPOs. The overall collaboration process is increasingly standardised and includes process steps in the form of best practices that can be expected by clients, agencies and SMIs – in the non-profit as well as in the for-profit sector. In any case, there are several central issues – credibility/authenticity, SMI-follower relationship, resource demands, collaboration as equals, compensation, influencer relations and outcomes – where both similarities with but also differences to for-profit campaigns can be observed, resulting in specific challenges for the management of strategic SMI communication in NPOs.

Credibility and authenticity

During the planning stage, due to the non-economic nature of the primary goals of NPOs (Sorce, 2022) and the importance of trust for their legitimacy (Brömmling, 2007), the credibility of the NPO and relevance of the “good cause” for the SMI’s community is the decisive factor for a collaboration. Credibility is not only expected from SMIs on the NPO’s part, but also vice versa. Goals like agenda setting and community building are more important than marketing-oriented KPIs. From an organisational perspective, while the services that SMIs provide are similar to for-profits, the process of selection and initiation requires much more effort and a great deal of communicating from non-profits. The agency-based selection based on industry standards such as reach and target group fit is followed by (cost-)intensive research of the SMI’s thematic and content fit, expertise or involvement. Whereas there is extensive research on congruence between SMIs and their audience (Masuda et al., 2022; Piehler et al., 2021; Schouten et al., 2020), as well as the importance of brand fit (Audrezet et al., 2020; Nascimento et al., 2020), congruence between the values of the SMI and the organisation seem to be of particular importance. For the SMI, the topic has to be relevant to the community and consistent with the SMI’s profile and their self-justification for engaging in commercial (and non-commercial) activities (Arriagada & Bishop, 2021; Wellman et al., 2020). Disclosure (De Jans et al., 2020; Han et al., 2020; Jung & Im, 2021) and troubleshooting capacity (Zabel & Pagel, 2018) are also becoming particularly important aspects.

SMI-follower relationship

Results emphasise that the relationship between an SMI and their followers (Gannon & Prothero, 2016; Sundermann & Raabe, 2019; Yesiloglu & Costello, 2021) is one of the most important reasons for the NPO to cooperate with them, as they hope that the SMI will act as a role model in their community (Morais et al., 2021). However, it also becomes clear that it is very important for SMIs to provide content that is relevant for the followers and consistent with their profile (Hudders et al., 2021). Contrary to for-profit collaborations, SMIs fear – when communicating social and political topics – a polarisation of the community, negative comments and criticism to which they may not be able to respond adequately. NPOs are required to address these issues in advance when proposing SMI collaborations. In this sense, NPOs have a special responsibility of “protecting” SMI partners from entering into over-demanding collaborations that are detrimental to the SMIs and their follower relationships (Reinikainen et al., 2021). These might be even more pronounced than in for-profit collaborations, where standard industry practices, e.g. regarding disclosure, have formed audience expectations and may thus provide some sort of protection for the SMI.

High resource demands

Given the sensitive nature and particularly demanding communication set-up, intensive communication efforts are required throughout the entire collaboration process. The NPO needs to adequately brief SMIs on their goals and values, clarify the context and minimise communicative risks. Our explorative interviews indicate that these investments pay off for NPOs, even if few of them possess adequate resources to carry out these tasks. Agencies can help reduce these transaction costs, e.g. by supporting the design of collaboration agreements and legal frameworks (Childers et al., 2019; Enke & Borchers, 2019), which of course generates additional expenditures. Therefore, the resource demands may limit the scalability of SMI communication for NPOs even more strongly than for for-profit organisations, especially when the investments for influencer selection are taken into account.

Collaboration”as equals”

In both for-profit and NPO settings, the communication between organisation and SMI has to be between equals (Audrezet et al., 2020), displaying mutual respect and reflecting the organisation’s values (Lee et al., 2021). Whereas participatory content creation can also be found in for-profit collaborations (Nascimento et al., 2020; Sette & Brito, 2020), it is often restricted to “higher”, more intensive forms of partnerships (Farouq & Schögel, 2018). In contrast, this intensive co-creational exchange seems to be a constituent part in NPO contexts. In (partial) pro bono campaigns NPOs are dependent on the goodwill of the SMI. This limits enforceability (e.g. of quality assurance measures). At the same time, NPO collaboration carries significant communicative risks for SMIs as well. Therefore, good preparation and support by NPOs (and agencies, if involved) is necessary not only in the conception phase, but also with regard to community management to mediate NPO-specific risks like whataboutism or communicative dynamics that arise from complex crisis backgrounds.

Importance of non-monetary compensation

Resource scarcity in NPOs leads to alternative, non-monetary compensation models focusing on SMI motivation, reputation and self-efficacy, especially for large SMIs that are unaffordable for NPOs. However, pro bono engagements generate opportunity costs for SMIs in the form of foregone earnings as well as potentially direct supplemental costs (e.g. for content moderation or production by a professional team; Gaenssle & Budzinski, 2021). In addition, in monetary compensation the organisation can set and enforce parameters more bindingly, thereby assuring the commitment and reliability of the SMI and reducing internal resource expenditures. Our interviews indicate that with growing competition, the role of (at least partially) monetary compensation models will increase in the NPO sector. In this regard, the non-profit seems to converge towards the for-profit SMIC practices.

Discovery as relevant collaboration outcome

Influencers grant NPOs direct access to and insight into communities that they were previously unable to reach. This may allow them to set/influence the agenda in specific communities and generate attention for their causes. It may also provide a valuable back-channel, through which NPOs can better understand the needs and interests of their target groups. As with for-profit collaborations (cf. product development for startups; Kulkov et al., 2020), SMIs can thus provide valuable insights not only for the communication strategy, but also for the NPO’s focus of activities as a whole, e.g. new ways of winning supporters for the NPO, which goes beyond short-term donations. In the evaluation stage, NPOs and agencies try to find indicators for qualitative outcomes that go beyond the usual for-profit KPIs.

Influencer relations

As with for-profit collaborations (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2021) all three sides, NPOs, agencies and SMI, prefer long-term commitments. Isolated SMI campaigns may also be a valuable communication tool for NPOs, but ongoing social and political support for their causes is the basis for their legitimacy (Fröhlich & Peters, 2015) and for the credibility of the influencer’s involvement (Hudders et al., 2021). Long-term collaborations help to free up internal and external resources, strengthen the mutual trust and minimise risks. Agencies can use their acquired knowledge as professional intermediaries to alleviate the challenges of both sides. The comparison of for- and non-profit collaborations also sheds light on the co-creative, coopetitive environment of strategic SMI communication. While SMIs normally act as competitors in for-profit collaborations, e.g. for lucrative brand deals, in NPO collaborations they see themselves as a networked community for a good cause. For NPOs, influencer relations can also be a door-opener for a collaboration with for-profits as part of their CSR activities.

Conclusion and further research

Our results indicate that strategic SMI communication is used as a professionalised form of communication in the field of NPOs. Based on the literature review and the exploratory interviews, we were able to identify a number of specifics that arise when NPOs collaborate with influencers. We found that while the basic process of collaboration is similar to corporate communication, there are differences in the design of the individual process steps, which reflect the specific needs of strategic communication in NPOs. Furthermore, the results show that the perspectives of the SMIs themselves should be included in the research of influencer communication.

Regarding limitations, the study only references NPOs, agencies and SMIs in Germany and might overly reflect the peculiarities of the NPO communication challenges in Germany and the state of the German influencer industry. The findings may be transferable to countries with comparable NPO and media systems, but may differ for other “NPO systems”. Secondly, our research relies on theoretical sampling using differentiating dimensions from the literature to ensure theoretical saturation. However, it is important to acknowledge that there might be unobserved organisation-specific factors that may influence strategic SMI communication. These might include the NPOs’ institutional age and experience/reputation in their respective field or the extent of digital marketing competency.

There also is no external validation of the interviewees’ statements or of the performance of the NPO SMI campaigns. The comments of the interviewees may contain personal biases. We tried to limit the effect of potential biases by checking secondary data, where applicable. Also, from a practical perspective it might be argued that the perception of decision-makers is decisive for steering action. Since our study was based on a synchronic research design (despite two data collection phases), it does not allow for a diachronic exploration of strategic SMI communication in NPOs.

Our study yields several promising avenues for further research. A first direction would be to further develop taxonomic differentiation regarding the actors, e.g. by looking at other organisational criteria, such as digital competency, age, organisational size and topical focus of the NPO (e.g. on culture, education, religion, politics). Future studies could also analyse the field of NPO in strategic SMI communication in other media systems (e.g. the United States or Latin American countries), where environmental factors and the maturity of the influencer and NPO ecosystem may affect the management practices observed. Also, the analysis conducted in this paper, identifying similarities and differences in NPO and for-profit strategic SMI communication, could be further expanded to a comparison of NPO and public sector organisations. For further understanding of strategic SMI communication in NPOs, the operational design and specificities of NPO SMI communications could be validated through a quantitative survey of NPOs’ communication activities. This would shed light on the extent to which this form of communication is used. At the same time, it would allow an analysis of how organisational implementation is structured (e.g. with regard to resources, expertise, responsibilities, internal coordination). Secondly, a larger sample of SMIs could be surveyed in order to statistically evaluate motivation, requirements and incentives for SMIs to cooperate with NPOs. Finally, in a third approach, it would be useful to investigate how NPOs’ objective-oriented messages in SMI communication can best be designed in selected communities and target groups. Given the high social and economic importance of NPOs and the opportunities for them in strategic influencer communication, the field is worth further exploration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).