At Special Olympics Belgium, we’ve been striving for years to prove that our athletes are equal to any other athlete. Combined with our persistent need for extra funds, we launched our own Instagram channel: The Special Influencers, featuring four of our athletes. That way, we didn’t have to ask people for funds. We just needed them to follow our channel so we could generate advertising revenue. Making our athletes real influencers. Just like any other sports star.

Being an athlete doesn’t stop after the final whistle. So, we did what every top athlete does nowadays:

We created an Instagram account: @thespecialinfluencers. A Special Instagram account where four of our athletes could show the world what it’s like to be a Special Olympian. And do what other influencers do. TikTok dances, meeting famous athletes, show up at VIP parties, appear in tv shows and of course bringing in sponsorships with big brands.

Sports is a universal language, bringing together people from all backgrounds. Following Kofi Annan’s philosophy, we targeted a broad audience of Flemish citizens to maximise our cultural relevance.

We prepared a professional account on Instagram for our team of influencers, including a set of posts describing the purpose of the channel. We chose to focus on Instagram as it allowed us to reach a broad audience in a cost-effective way. Next, we launched a full-scale follower campaign through our media partner Ads & Data and our Flemish ambassadors. While our audience was building rapidly, we assisted the influencers in developing and executing a long-term content plan combining professional behind the scenes content with paid brand collabs.

In monthly reports, we closely monitored the reach and engagement rate of our posts along with our audience demographics. These metrics were essential to convince brands to engage in high value collaborations.

Our campaign started when we introduced our Instagram account. To find followers and explain the idea, we launched an online video. This video was shared by numerous top athletes and famous Belgians such as Tom Waes, Celine Van Ouytsel, Emma Meesseman and Nina Derwael.

We simultaneously ran bannering and print ads in several Belgian newspapers asking people to follow our account.

In the first week after we launched, we became an item in various news and talk shows resulting in a spectacular 32 000 followers. But that was just the beginning. Because our actual goal was to generate sponsor deals. Within a few weeks big brands, like McCain, Aquarius and Hubo contacted us for a collaboration. And now our Special Influencers are listed as an official bookable medium. That way we didn’t only generate awareness, but also a lot of funds.

Total reach: 2.610.873

Engagement: 3 times more than the average Belgian influencer

And our Special Influencers are now listed as an official bookable medium.