The Future is Social Entrepreneurship

Social media can be used by social entrepreneurs to make change and build quickly. As a resource that allows them to connect and communicate at an affordable price, it creates opportunity for any type of organization to succeed as long as they are able to develop a loyal following. Through compelling story-telling, organizations can both spread awareness and gain popular support online in simple ways unaccessible to them before the popularity of networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

Social entrepreneurship is defined as an approach by entrepreneurs and start-ups where they develop, fund, and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. These entrepreneurs will blend profit metrics like revenue, stock price change, and gross profit with the actual impact on society that the company can control. This demonstrates a fundamental change in how companies measure and track progress. When social progress is added into the equation, it not only gives companies a moral responsibility, but also tends to actually have a huge impact. 

Social entrepreneurship ventures are primarily driven by the Internet, chiefly social media and social networking sites. These new platforms give founders the opportunity to directly interact with new audiences across the world. They use social platforms to mobilize communities, collaborate, and distribute valuable information. Not only does it allow entrepreneurs to reach a wider audience, but it allows them to do so in a much more affordable way. 

Communication

Social media at its core is an incredibly powerful tool for collaborating and communicating with like-minded people. It allows people, businesses, and brands to target individuals in meaningful, customized, and creative ways. These methods make it possible to establish a deeper level of connection between entrepreneurs and the communities they influence. Consumers become loyal fans of brands in a way that was previously impossible without a physical meeting or in person conversation. Today's most successful organizations use social media to raise awareness, motivate behavior change through funding or action, and empower people associated with a given cause. The consistent and direct communication that social media offers brands in a driving factor for the increase in social entrepreneurship in 2019. 

StoryTelling

When communicating with your audience it is important to remember to tell a story that your consumers can relate to. Effective storytelling is an essential part of using social media to build awareness, and most brands tend to do so through video content. More companies have turned to video content in their social media strategies because it allows them to tell a complete story in a matter of seconds, while keeping a consumer engaged with their content for longer. These videos don’t have to have thousand dollar budgets, instead audiences prefer to interact with authentic video content that feels real, and directly from the source. 

Cost-Effective

Social Entrepreneurship has become more cost-effective than ever! Social Media networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter do not charge users anything when setting up or creating accounts. High quality content that includes compelling narratives will spread organically, naturally distributing itself across multiple channels and networks. Content is meant to be shared, and often times shared throughout different platforms, extending the content's reach. You can find Twitter posts that are reposted on Instagram feeds, and visa versa. Organic social sharing allows for a cost effective advertising and marketing approach for your brands message.

More companies are turning to written content to shine light on issues that are important to them. Blogs are a free and powerful tool for spreading information about an organization, values, coming updates, and stories of success. It can be used for social validation of a brand's efforts as well as content for users who prefer more detailed and insightful content. 

Balance

It is important to remember that in order to maximize your efforts as a social entrepreneur on social media, you must have a balance of entertaining and educational content for your consumers. Information about the cause needs to be spread for efforts to have proper context, and information about actions taken needs to be spread for context to be relevant and appreciated. Because social media is a tool for broadcasting all types of content, each piece must be selected and carefully introduced to your audience to accurately relay the message.