Good Influence: How influencers are helping charities to make a difference

During the past few years, we have witnessed a drastic growth in influencer marketing. And the most established influencers have settled into the power that comes with having huge influence over a large and engaged audience. However, there are a few that stand out and are leading the way, using their influence for the benefit of others, not just themselves. 

A few days back, Adeela (2.1M Followers), stepped into the beauty world for the first time, launching her lipstick brand under the name of Adeela Glam. For some of you who are not familiar with Adeela, she is a fictional character. No, we’re not kidding. An award-winning singer and performer, daughter of Umm Kulthum, activist, fashion police, and an important social figure in Lebanon. Made solely for entertainment purposes, the main goal behind Adeela’s pages on Instagram and Twitter are to create funny posts where the humour is based on a juxtaposition of local (Middle Eastern/Arabic) and global content (mostly centred around Adele (as the admin of the page is a big fan) or other celebrities). 

Boasting almost 2.1M followers on Instagram and 313K followers on Twitter, Adeela turned her beauty project into charitable work aiming to support Sesobel, a Lebanese organisation that supports children with disabilities. Via an announcement post on her Instagram page, Adeela said, “we worked on this project for almost an entire year, and it was meant to launch two months ago. However, with all that we’re facing here in Lebanon, we postponed it. We could have postponed it even more, but we decided that this will be our way to resist and survive, we will launch the lipstick now before Christmas, and will share our profits with SESOBEL”. Aiming to help the organisation overcome its financial difficulties, with each ‘Love Yourself’ lipstick bought on www.adeelaglam.com, 40% of the profit is donated to children with disabilities.

To promote the project, Adeela worked with a number of successful Lebanese stars including Sarah Abi Kanaan, Cynthia Samuel, Zeina Makki, Laila Fathallah, Sandy Farah and Perla El Helou who promoted the product on their pages for a cause. To date, orders on the Adeela Glam website are non-stop, with people from different countries asking for international shipping to be able to support the welfare of children with disabilities.

In the realm of influencers flooding Instagram, a new ‘breed’ is emerging that stands out from the crowd. Those influencers take responsibility for their elevated position to promote meaningful change in needed times. Guessing that’s what ‘influencing’ is all about?

Written By:  Hanine El Massri, Senior Account Executive at Atteline