How to amplify an ECI campaign: lessons from experts and successful campaigners

Judith Bellmunt is a European politics student and aspiring international journalist. She became interested in the European Citizens’ Initiative after an introduction by the ECI Forum team during her studies, and later engaged with the topic through the ECI Discussion Forum, where her contribution on influencers in campaigns was recognised as the most meaningful. This led to the Forum’s invitation to attend an ECI networking event in Brussels in April 2026 — a chance to meet organisers, see campaigns up close, and test her ideas in practice. Here, she shares what she learned.

Judith Bellmunt:  If you want your campaign to get 1 million signatures it is clear that you need your campaign to go viral. But how can you do that? Here is some practical advice from the ECI networking event “European Citizens’ Initiative – Building Bridges, Connecting Ideas” which took place in Brussels, the 16-17 of April and specifically from the skills-building workshop ECI Campaign Lab: “Role of Influencers on Social Media strategy” run by the ECI Forum team.

It was truly inspiring and motivating to meet so many people advocating for change. Speaking to ECI organisers I've realised the key is to persevere, work hard and think outside the box, says Judith Bellmunt. 

Choosing your platform

First, you need to choose your platform, for which you need to consider the demographics of your audience. If your intended audience is young you might want to use TikTok and Instagram, whereas if they’re older you might want to use Facebook instead. You also need to take into consideration where your audience is from, for example, Snapchat is very popular in Nordic countries. Lastly, you want to consider which platforms your niche uses more often, for instance gamers tend to use Reddit and Discord the most. 

Get your timing right

Another important thing to consider is the timing of your campaign, i.e. if you are making a campaign related to travel, such as the recently registered ECI “Fast, convenient, affordable, and above all climate-friendly transportation for all Europeans”, you may want to wait for summer and Erasmus season, if it’s related to sustainability you could launch it on World’s Earth Day, if it’s about LGTBQ+ rights you might to wait until pride month, for women’s rights you could launch it on women’s day, and so on. The right timing will make your campaign gain more traction on social media. 

Authenticity over perfection: why frequent posting works

For content making itself you don’t need any higher technology than simply a phone. The most important thing is consistency; the more you post the better. This is because of two reasons. One, people typically need to see your content repeatedly to take actions and two, the algorithm will reward you the more you post. This includes posting multiple times a day if you can, even if it means your posts are imperfect; in fact, authenticity is preferred. 

To make your content engaging and beat the attention span the biggest recommendation is to start or join a trend. An example of a highly successful social media campaign is Zohran Mamdani’s one to become mayor of New York. You could check out his Tiktok and Instagram for ideas and to see what works. You can see for instance, how he took advantage of negative marketing responding in creative and humorous ways. For example, when someone took a video of him being yelled “communist” whilst he’s getting on his bike, to which he replies “it’s pronounced cyclist”, Mamdani posted it on his own social media. It went viral, showing how you can use criticism and negative marketing and turn it in your favour. 

You can also come up with your own marketing strategies. For example, you can start a hashtag campaign. For instance, the ECI organisers for “Fast, convenient, affordable, and above all climate-friendly transportation for all Europeans” mentioned wanting to encourage people to post humorous videos of how bad public transportation in the Netherlands is, under a hashtag they would create, to attract an audience to their campaign. 

Beat the scroll: using Instagram automation to increase click-through

A big challenge is getting people to actually click the link instead of scrolling past. Getting high click-through rates is hard for a lot of ECI organisers. One thing you can use to combat this is to set up an automated chat box on Instagram; asking people to comment a specific phrase or word in the comment section such as “link” and set it up so they get an automatic “dm” with the link to sign your ECI initiative. This makes it more likely for them to actually click on the link in their own time later. 

To do this you just need to pick a third-party automatic website such as Linktree, LinkDM, Manychat or CreatorFlow. They will typically just ask for you to sign into your Instagram account, choose the reel, select when it sends the link, i.e. any comment or comments with a specific word or phrase, and then put the link you want to send, as well as write a personalised message to go with it if you want. You might want to compare different platforms before you choose one, because they each have different costs, although most of them will allow you to do a free trial.

Boost visibility with Instagram’s collaboration feature

On to the topic of special functions on Instagram. A tip to amplify reach with posts on Instagram is the new collaboration function where you can invite other accounts to upload your post on their Instagram page too. This pushes it into both your followers’ feeds and doubles engagement. To do this, you need to go onto “tag people” before posting your post, and then “invite collaborators”, where you can search and add any accounts you want to repost your post.

Working with influencers

Finally, aside from making your own content, you might want to work with influencers too. It’s always a good idea to reach out to smaller accounts as they are more likely to get back to you. One way to discover these is looking at the suggested and similar accounts of bigger influencers you think fit your campaign. Think thoroughly of the range of influencers you could contact, the ECI Forum team suggested mapping them out if you need. 

Most of the time more people than you think can speak about your cause. 

For example, if your campaign is about animal rights, you can contact vets and farmers that have social media platforms, as well as activists for animal rights. 

Don’t be discouraged from contacting larger influencers either. Always think outside the box and be ambitious. The ECI Forum team suggested for example creating a competition for influencers where whoever creates the best post for your campaign wins a money prize. They also discussed using the follow lists of NGOs' social media, see which influencers follow them and ask the NGOs to contact them on your behalf, which will make it more likely that they will respond. You can also always go through an agency, although they might make you pay. 

Finally, you can also try contacting influencers who have worked with ECI in the past as they are likely to agree to work with you too. Two big examples are the Croatian pop star Severina who joined in the “My Voice – My Choice” and Belgian singer, Angèle who joined in on the “Ban on conversion practices”.

Read also:

• Why influencers and opinion leaders can make or break your ECI
• One million signatures in ten days: how the ECI Ban on conversion practices did it

In regards to paid advertising, it is important to note that the new EU Regulation on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) legally requires you to make it clear if you paid an influencer to make content. As a campaigner and ECI organiser, you must ensure that any content used in paid promotion is clearly disclosed as political advertising, including who is behind it and any financial support involved. If you use content created by influencers or third parties, you should inform them and ensure they agree to its use in paid campaigns, so that transparency and disclosure requirements are properly met. It is also worth noting that some users might be more sceptical of paid content, as opposed to organic (unpaid) content.

Lastly but not least, you can make use of all the ECI free resources including writing a blog post as well as use their webinars, guides, etc. You can also contact successful organisers such as the ones for the ‘Stop Destroying Videogames’ or ‘My Voice My Choice’, for tips and advice on how they made their initiatives go viral and how they collected the 1 000 000 signatures. One of the things I learnt from attending the ECI networking conference was how ready people are to help. 

Read also:

• How the ‘Stop Destroying Videogames’ ECI went viral — and what you can learn from it
• Patience, Engagement, Action, Courage, Errors: The Formula that Leads to a Winning European Citizens’ Initiative Campaign

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