What is a Virtual Street Team? And 5 Benefits to Organizing One

Social media has great potential to connect people, build relationships, discuss ideas, and advance movements.

But it is also much more challenging than it was 10-15 years ago when social media was just Facebook and Twitter, and you could reach just about everyone with those two platforms.

Social Media Challenges of Today

Some of the challenges we face with social media now include:

• An overwhelming number of platforms – including Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat and many more.
• Changing algorithms – platforms have changed their algorithms to favor paid ads and “suggested content” by people we’re not connected with, making it increasingly difficult to reach the people who actually like/subscribe to our channels.
• Low engagement – Because there are so many platforms and those platforms are prioritizing ads and suggested content, fewer people engage with the content we do post
• Trolls and spam – Then there are the people who post comments just to be divisive, to try to scam other, or promote their products or services.
• Limited Time and Resources – Who has time to create content for all these platforms and deal with all these issues?

One of the best ways to address these challenges is with a social media street team or virtual street team.

What’s a Street Team?

To quote Wikipedia:

A street team is a term used in marketing to describe a group of people who ‘hit the streets’ promoting an event or a product. ‘Street Teams’ are a powerful promotional tool that has been adopted industry wide as a standard line item in marketing budgets by entertainment companies, record labels, the tech industry, corporate brand marketers, new media companies and direct marketers worldwide. Street team members that are highly trained are now called Brand Ambassadors.

Street teams started with bands and musical artists that weren’t getting radio air play and didn’t have a big label to get their album in stores or promote their concerts through mass media.  Since they were shut out of the mass distribution and media channels, they enlisted small groups of passionate fans to get the word out by:

• Posting bumper stickers and posters all over town
• Calling into radio stations to request the band’s songs be played
• Bringing their friends to shows

Street teams were the original social media.

Street teamers usually don’t get paid, but they’re often given free tickets & merchandise.  Sometimes they info about the band before it’s released publicly and access to hang out with the band.  They often feel like an insider and like they’re helping to make one of their favorite artists successful.

Essentially, it’s an organized grass roots campaign.

What’s a Virtual Street Team?

A virtual street team is an organized small group of passionate fans of your organization, who are enlisted to get the word out online about who you are and what you’re doing.

The tools are already there – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, text messaging, WhatsApp, and more.

The people are probably already there.  Whether you’re organization is a church, business, school, ministry, or movement for social good, you’ve probably already got at least some people who are really excited about what you’re doing and want you to be successful.

All you really need to do is organize the team and give those people some direction.

5 Benefits to Organizing a Virtual Street Team

You might be thinking, “I don’t have time to organize a virtual street team.” but the truth is, once you understand how a virtual street team works, you’ll see that it will actually save you time and money.

Plus science behind the success of virtual street teams – data analytics, psychology, and sociology – is striking!

1. Stoked Algorithms

Here’s out social media algorithms work: When your organization posts something to a social platform, the platform shows it to a small number of your closest friends.  If those friends don’t engage with it, that’s as far as it goes.

But if those friends engage with it, the platform will show it to more friends. If those friends engage with it it will show it to more friends, and so on and so forth.

A virtual street team basically “primes the pump” of the social media algorithms to get them to share it with a larger and larger audience.

2. Social proof

Social proof is to humans what engagement is to algorithms.

People are usually hesitant to be the first person to like, comment or share something online. But, when we see friends and acquaintances have already liked, commented and shared something, we instinctively want to join in.

A virtual street team helps overcome the psychological and sociological barriers to engaging with your content and makes the psychologically and sociologically enticing!

3. Peer-to-peer credibility

We live in an era in which people inherently distrust organizations.  We all know trust in government and big corporations are already at an all-time low, but people are also skeptical of churches, nonprofits, and small business. Everyone seems to have an “angle” and we are wary of what they are trying to get from us.

Think about it… are you more likely to want to go to a restaurant if the restaurant posts something about itself or if a friend posts to social media saying their food is delicious and the atmosphere is great?

Obviously, a post from a friend matters more.

When members of a virtual street team share an organization’s content, it has much more impact than when the organization itself shares that content.

4. Your biggest fans are empowered

People are bored with being passive consumers. They want to be part of a movement, part of a cause!

By involving your biggest fans in your virtual street team, you are empowering them to actively make a difference!  You are making your biggest fans even bigger fans!

By engaging your biggest fans, they will also share their feedback and ideas with you, helping you to make your current and future content even better.

5. Budget-friendly

Virtual street teams are grass roots not AstroTurf. It is naturally budget-friendly.

People engaged in virtual street teams don’t do it for the money.  In fact, paying people to be a part of a virtual street team would make the relationship more transactional and decrease their enthusiasm. It would be counterproductive

People participate in a virtual street team because they believe in the organization, what it’s doing, what it stands for.

Instead of money, what they want are input into what and how things are done, access to private information, people and events, and sometimes (but not always) recognition.

So, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on your virtual street team, but it is important to show them love in creative ways.

Bottom line…

A virtual street team is a fun, cost-effective way to dramatically increase engagement with your social media and your organization!

Partner with the pros

While OurChurch.com can’t build your virtual street team for you, we can help you develop your brand, build a DIY website, get a custom website, and get more people to your website and its content with search marketing.

Complete the consultation request form below (mobile) or the right (desktop) to schedule a discovery call!

Comment and discuss

• Do you have a virtual street team? Are you going to form one? Why or why not?

Share your thoughts on social media in this month’s Listening Post survey.