It's Okay to Say "I" (Even If You're a Nonprofit)

I never thought I'd say this, but the data doesn't lie.

For my entire career, I've been telling nonprofits they need to centre their audience. Make the donor the hero of the story. Start with “you”. 

So I've been surprised lately to notice more and more content creators using the word “I”.

Over the last year or two, there's been a notable uptick in creators centring themselves in their content: "How I budget my $XXX paycheque every month as a type B mom of 3" or "Hills I will die on as someone who visited 20 countries in one year"*

As a rule, I keep an eye on what the influencers are doing. This is strategic: their job is to get views. They're not selling a product (brand deals aside) or promoting a cause. Their success is rooted in their ability to get eyes on content. 

Lots of eyes. 

Unburdened by shackles of a pre-defined message, they are free to chase those views in any way they see fit, and the ones who are good at it have gotten VERY good at it

So when we, as non-profits, want to get more eyes on OUR messages--the very much pre-defined messages that actually matter and make the world a better place--looking at the techniques creators use is a good place to start. 

All this to say, when I see something trending across the influencer space, I take notice. I consider how it can be adapted, how we can borrow the tricks and techniques of influencers to get more attention to our important messages.

But the rise of "I" posting didn't feel like it made any sense for non-profit organizations. None of us are "I"s. We're groups of people working together, and proud of it, so for a good while I threw this in a pile of "interesting, but not for us."

But those "I"s just wouldn't go away. Part of what seemed to be working with the creator posts was that they felt relatable and approachable - like advice you were receiving from a friend. So how could we, as nonprofits, follow that lead? I wondered if the organization, as a whole, recommending something could work in the same way.

I played with this for a bit with a few clients - turning the "I"s of creator hooks into "we"s to make sense in an organizational setting.

The results were middling at best. A lot of the phrasing just didn't end up making sense, and even if they did lines like "Hills we will die on as an organization that believes every kid deserves the right to a safe place to sleep" just didn't have the same sticking power as the creator originals. They were too organization-centric, too obvious, too try-hard. And worse, they didn't perform.

But you can't prove a theory if you only try it half-way. So I had to see: what would happen if I told my inner copy-editor to shove it, and just called a nonprofit an "I" anyway?

Immediately, I started seeing results.

Want receipts? You bet.

Pretty standard "you" framing. These have 1.2K and 1.3K views - above the baseline for most nonprofits I see in Winnipeg, but nothing particularly impressive.

Both of these came in at 4K veiws.

Now, 4000 views isn't much in a creator context, but it's a heck of a lot for most local nonprofits. And being able to elevate the same base content to 3-4x the views just by changing the hook language is definitely something worth paying attention to.

Plus, unlike a lot of tricks and tactics, this one seemed to have legs. During one week of posting for this organization I shared 3 different posts all using "I" framing in slightly different ways. Every one outperformed their averages, and together those 3 posts provided more than 10K views in just 4 days.

This isn't a formal A/B test situation - more is happening in the examples above than just switching "you" to "I". In the "events im going to this week as someone in their 30s..." post, for example the audience is getting actual context clues. Not just a random list of events, but self-selecting info about who this is for: people, maybe in their 30s, who feel like things aren't going well at the moment. That's a powerful difference, and doing heavy lifting beyond just a switch from "you" to "I".

But the difference in the second example post is less clear. "8 things I'm actually going to in Winnipeg this week" is more catchy than "5 things you shouldn't miss," (that "actually" is quietly doing a lot) but unlike the other example, the hook isn't giving the audience much explicit self-selection info.

So is "I" just a social media hack? Has the universally accepted marketing truth that your audience should always be the hero been unseated?

Never. The real truth here is that the creators that succeed are the ones that make us feel connected. That we think 'get' us. Social media is meant to be SOCIAL, first and foremost, and content that makes us feel connected wins.

And the truth is, it's hard to feel connected to an organization. This is why brands hire spokespeople, or raise up their founders. We are hard-wired to connect with individuals, not faceless groups.

Turning your organization into an "I" isn't about de-centralizing the audience--it's about creating a personality your audience can actually connect with.

When a creator says "hey, this is me. This is who I am. Does that click with who you are?" it's inviting a relationship. When we reach out to our audience as people, not a faceless institution, we can invite the same--real connection (which is what most of our audience are craving anyway).

So, no matter how much it may hurt your inner grammar nerd, it might be time to lean in and start calling your organziation an "I".

*shoutout to Shannon McKinstrie for some of these examples - she's an Instagram hook queen and well worth a follow at @shannonmckinstrie