Working With Influencers and Experts to Ensure Credibility

The strategic communications messages that you produce and distribute must be credible. It does not matter how well written your message is, or how much supporting material you provide—if a message is not seen as credible by the target publics,  they will not believe it and will not act on it. 

Ideally, your organization will have a certain amount of credibility, and thus messages that come from the organization will benefit accordingly. This is one of the reasons why organizations seek to maintain a strong and positive reputation among critical stakeholders. Still, there are times when strategic communications messages require support in terms of increased credibility that goes beyond what can be generated internally. In these instances, you will look for third-party validation, in the form of influencers and/or experts (Wilcox, 2015).

By having a respected third party deliver, or at least validate, your organization's message, you increase the message's believability. The same dynamic is at play when popular actors, athletes, or other celebrities are used to promote brands in sponsorship and advertising campaigns. In the Resources box, see how a celebrity endorsement helped Young Living Essential Oils expand outside its direct marketing roots to compete in the broader New York City retail market.

Note that an influencer and an expert are not necessarily the same thing, though both can be opinion leaders.

An expert is someone with deep knowledge of the issue in question who can speak authoritatively about it. Traditionally, experts have tended to be physicians, scientists, policy specialists, lawyers, engineers, and other credentialed or highly experienced people. These experts have knowledge and experience, which gives them a degree of credibility beyond that of a regular person.

The concept of an influencer, or informal opinion leader, is relatively new. An influencer is different from an expert, primarily because these individuals do not necessarily have to be experts on an issue in order to influence key stakeholders. In addition to true experts who happen to be influencers, this group can include popular bloggers and social media personalities associated with the issue as well as celebrities, and activists.

You will need to identify appropriate experts and/or influencers and engage them on behalf of your organization. In order to maintain their credibility, you need to maintain an arm's-length relationship with them. They should never be on the payroll of the organization, as their statements will be considered biased. The oil and smoking industries, for instance, have both come under fire for attempting to use paid experts to further an agenda. Evidence shows that even in the 1950s and 1960s the oil and smoking industries were using some of the same scientists to deny the health risks of smoking and the role of human activity as it relates to climate change (Belluz, 2015 & Hulac, 2016).

One of the challenges is to establish long-term trust-based relationships with key experts and influencers so that they will help communicate messages that are supportive of your organization's position without compensation. Your interpersonal communications and relationship-building skills will be critical in this aspect of the work. The resource in the Resources box offers some guidance on making sure you use the right influencers, and use them ethically, so as to maintain your reputation and achieve organizational goals.

References

Belluz, J. (2015, March 21). How big oil and big tobacco get respected scientists to lie for them. Vox. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2015/3/21/8267049/merchants-of-doubt

Hulac, B. (2016, July 20). Tobacco and oil industries used same researchers to sway public. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-industries-used-same-researchers-to-sway-public1/

Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). (2019). About the Silver Anvil. Retrieved from http://anvils.prsa.org/silver-anvil-awards/overview

Wilcox, D., Cameron, G., & Reber, B. (2015) Public relations: Strategies and tactics (pp. 221–224). Boston, MA: Pearson

Resources

The PRSA Silver Anvil Awards recognize outstanding public relations strategy (PRSA, 2019). Here, read about an essential oils campaign that made brilliant use of an influencer who (1) was relatable to target publics, and (2) addressed the interests of a variety of media outlets.

Just as influencers can be well chosen and well used, they can be poorly chosen and/or improperly used. Take caution and adhere to legal and ethical standards.