Raising Profiles: Rebuild the Route to a Known Customer

Read the campaign story

Raising Profiles brought The Big Issue and LinkedIn together during the pandemic, with public campaign material dated February 2021. Vendors received coaching on profiles, connections and posting, alongside support for getting online. A LinkedIn participant’s contemporary account explains that customers could find vendors and buy through a digital route. The One Show credits FCB Inferno and describes vendor-specific subscription links, making the commercial mechanism more concrete than a general appeal to follow a social account.

The campaign responded to disrupted street trading rather than treating digital presence as an end in itself. It sought to reconnect vendors with people who might previously have passed their usual selling locations. Published sources differ in pilot counts and describe different stages, so this study does not present a single participant total or adopt promotional growth figures as independently established income gains. It also does not assume that every vendor had the same needs or wanted public exposure.

Editorial interpretation: the familiar relationship is the starting asset. Customers may recognise a person from their commute even when the original place of exchange is no longer accessible. The digital channel can help preserve that connection, but only if the seller remains visible as the person conducting the business. A generic central donation page would have a different role from a route connected to an individual vendor’s sales.

The change also illustrates why access involves more than opening an account. Devices, confidence, time, understandable instructions and practical support determine whether a new channel is usable. A platform can create an opportunity without guaranteeing income or ending exclusion. An adaptation should let participants decide what they want to publish and provide alternatives for those who cannot or do not wish to become active social-media creators.

Preserve the valuable relationship while changing the channel

Identify what people value about the existing exchange before moving it online. Recognition, trust and a familiar conversation may matter as much as payment convenience. Design the new route so customers understand whom they are supporting and what they are buying. Test whether the seller can explain the process clearly, including how proceeds are allocated, rather than assuming that a technically functional checkout preserves the original relationship.

Include the support that makes participation practical

Ask participants where they need help and provide it without requiring a public story of hardship. Training should match the actual tasks they choose to perform, with a dependable way to ask questions later. Account setup is an intermediate step, not proof of confidence or independence. Budget for devices, accessibility and continuing assistance when those are needed, and let people decline elements that do not suit them.

Evaluate seller benefit beyond platform activity

Connections, impressions and posts can show that the channel is being used, but they are not the same as reliable net earnings. Review completed transactions, payout understanding, support costs and the time participants spend maintaining their presence. Ask whether the arrangement feels sustainable and under their control. A successful communications story should not obscure a channel that creates substantial unpaid work or leaves participants uncertain about what they receive.

A small test for another brief

A market association pilots a shared directory and clear purchase links with a small group of consenting adult traders whose usual selling channel is disrupted.

Measure understood purchases, net proceeds, seller time and support needs. Report social engagement separately from income and wellbeing.

Pause if sellers cannot control their information, understand payouts or use the channel without unreasonable burden.

• Document the existing customer relationship and the trader’s preferred public information.
• Provide practical onboarding and transparent payment explanations.
• Test completed purchases and continuing support before promoting the directory widely.