While gaining a social media following is vital to spreading the message of your campaign, getting followers to volunteer to work for your campaign is crucial to its ultimate success.

Here are three ways to combat ‘slacktivism’ and convince your followers to volunteer their time, effort and presence your campaign.

1. Name your volunteer squad to give it a unique team status in your campaign.

In digital culture, squads give a sense of belonging and identity. Fanbases of famous singers now have collective names: Beyoncé fans are The Beyhive; Lady Gaga’s are the Little Monsters.

Give campaign supporters who serve as volunteers a special name and status, to mark their contribution with that unique identifier. Relate the squad name creatively to the cause: For a WaterAid campaign, name your volunteer squad The Source; for a Green Party campaign, call your team of volunteers The Roots.

If funding permits, distribute branded merchandise to volunteers and post fun group pictures of serving volunteers on social media to attract new ones.

2. Provide a meet-and-greet with a high-level operator at your next campaign event.

Volunteers don’t just want to represent a campaign—volunteers want the chance to meet an important person in that campaign. Ideally, they would want to meet the face of the campaign, but if you can’t provide a meet-and-greet with the running candidate or CEO of the organisation, then arrange to have a high-level official—or several—attend your next event with the specific purpose of meeting and greeting volunteers.

Plan for each volunteer to have their name spoken and hand shaken by a key figure who works directly with the top brass, to ensure those volunteers are seen and feel appreciated for contributing their presence and their time. In emails and on social media, tell potential volunteers about this opportunity: ‘As a Root volunteer you will have the chance to meet a key figure in the Green Party campaign.’

3. Outline opportunities for training, connection and promotion through volunteering for your campaign.

A willing campaign volunteer has an ambition of some kind—a personal, a social or a professional one. They may want to gain new knowledge, skills or experience; to meet and connect with like-minded people; or to work their way up to higher levels in the campaign, or even to paid positions in the organisation.

Incentivise volunteering by outlining, in emails and on social media, how volunteers can gain training, contacts and promotions through the campaign’s volunteer programme. Use actions words to communicate these incentives to your followers: ‘Learn’, ‘Train’, ‘Gain’, ‘Meet’, ‘Connect’, ‘Link’, ‘Discover,’ ‘Grow’, ‘Achieve’.

Are you doing good work in the world? Want more tips for campaign communications? Contact me here.