Meet the 4 Types of People Who Make Up Your Online Community [Infographic]

Nonprofits tend to lump all of their constituents into just a few boxes – staff, volunteers, donors and clients.

Within that box, these groups of constituents often get lumped further into just one category. “Our donors aren’t online!” “Our clients don’t want to receive text messages.” “Our staff is not tech-savvy.”

Does that sound familiar?

Get rid of all the stereotypes that you have about these groups and start thinking of them as your online community. And yes, from the 89-year-old loyal donor to the 24-year-old volunteer, they are all online, or getting there.

Increased connectivity and immediate access to information make most of us trust brands and organizations less, but we trust our social networks MORE.

The challenge for your nonprofit is to leverage the trust and affinity that people have for their social media connections (and real-life connections). But how to identify who can help and who will make the most impact?

Blackbaud and Small Act created a great infographic all about the 4 types of social influencers to which your nonprofit needs to pay attention:

First group –Key Influencers. Key Influencers can be big celebrities or people who have a lot of clout within your niche. Think Beth Kanter and Chris Brogan. Key Influencers are directly influencing discussions on certain topics, and can often mobilize their loyal online communities to action with just a simple tweet or post.

They are frequently very generous with their influence and willing to help others. The problem is that marketers engage these generous souls only when they want something!

Your task: Create genuine, authentic connections with just a few Key Influencers in your space. Alltop.com is a good place to look for popular bloggers, and using search.Twitter.com is guaranteed to find you worthy connections.

Second group – Engagers. This group is opinionated. They are looked at as informed and trustworthy and they generate a ton of posts and tweets. Engagers like connecting people with other people or causes and brands that they may be interested in, and they love sharing and disseminating information.

Your task: Identify who in your database is a top Engager. You can find them by their social network activity, number of tweets and posts and number of connections.

Third group – Multichannel Consumers. Multichannel Consumers engage online but also like offline touch points such as phone calls, mailings and events. They require a bit more attention from your organization, because they are not online as much as Engagers and Key Influencers.

Your task: Do not ignore this group! I see too many nonprofits rush into social media without a plan to incorporate the other channels and donor touchpoints. Think about ways you can use social media to augment what you are already doing offline and draw even more people into the fold.

Fourth group – Standard Consumers. The majority of people who participate online are Standard Consumers. They are quietly going about their business, looking at funny cat videos, liking photos of their grandchildren, perhaps sharing something they find interesting or entertaining. They are usually committed to one social network and don’t spread themselves too thin.

Your task: Get this group comfortable with your nonprofit and your message. If most of the Standard Consumers who support your nonprofit are on Facebook, then start there. Entertaining and soft information works best for this group, so it is ideal to have a mix of types of posts and content.

There are more tips on how to connect with each group in the infographic.

How does your nonprofit engage with these 4 groups?