Influencers Invested with Governmental Endorsements in Crisis

Brands are not the only ones turning to social media influencers in times of crisis. Governments have gone down the same path.

What’s happening is that a vast majority of national audiences are resorting to the Internet for their daily intake of news. On the one hand, this modern habit allows them to filter through their flow of information.

On the other hand, this direction makes them vulnerable to misinformation and urban tales. On top of that, the official communication channel between the government and its people is cut off.

So far, we’ve seen two governments so far reaching out to influencers. Finnish and British authorities included top local creators in their plans of combating the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this case, popular social account owners are expected to render correct news directly to their audiences. Moreover, it is up to influencers to select the words and imageries that they know would draw the most attention.

This is not the first time politicians recognize influencers’ impactful role in society. Recent runnings for various offices found candidates resorting to social media creators to spread their message across audiences. These collaborations can only strengthen influencers’ positioning as authentic channels of communication.

The official stream of news flows stronger than its toxic counterpart

Back in the day, inaugurating an extra newspaper in your hometown was an entrepreneurial endeavor destined for failure. People already had a local source of information. Why should they subscribe to two dailies?

But then diversity kicked in. Some are interested only in the business sector. Thus a dedicated magazine made its way from the printing press. Others want to know what a certain personality thinks of current sports events. And there you have a Twitter account with 100k+ followers.

Thus, the range of interests expanded incrementally and so did something else. A fear mongering trend launched for the sole purpose of getting high ratings.

It’s difficult to get exclusivity when the hottest news is coming from public statements. But when a new theory is made up, it sounds credible, and there’s only one online page talking about it, someone will see their ratings spike in the blink of an eye.

Eventually, news has become a numbers game. If one rumor gets viral over social media, it takes an equal or greater effort to take it down in the name of truth.

Influencers play an instrumental role in this. Their amplified voices can counteract the damages of fake news. The better people are informed, the better they act as a society taking down the pandemic faster and with fewer losses.

Open for Q&A

There’s never going to be a statement capable of answering all people’s concerns. In fact, the ideal announcement should be open to questions for a couple of days only to answer them thereafter. But that’s something that hinders authorities from their main job of making decisions for the benefit of a country.

“Wash your hands!” health specialists advised. A simple indication that anybody can follow. Yet from that one remark sprang a host of social media posts, Instagram stories, YouTube tutorials, tweets, memes, and so on.

Numerous straightforward recommendations ended up reverberating into millions of concerned questions. Why? Because the public has gotten used to personalized recommendations.

Influencers made it their mission to get a sense of their communities. They know what their followers are expecting from them and they deliver.

So, maybe some weren’t that keen on facing the real consequences of a pandemic. Yet having a familiar voice breaking it out to them might have made the awareness process a lot easier.

For instance, food influencer Alton Brown filmed a handwashing video that mixes entertainment and scientific data. After an introductory passage, Alton moves on to exemplify a proper 30-second handwash including the best type of soap to kill bacteria and viruses.

Add a touch of sweetener

There are so many ways journalists can communicate a story. Their condition of staying impartial is limiting their range of expressiveness.

With influencers, things are different. While their governmental pact is impeding them from going sideways with announcements, they are free to embellish the presentation however they see fit.

A lot of influencers had a lot of heart to heart conversations with their online communities through live sessions since the pandemic onset. Instagram Stories were abundant in pleas for people to stay home, wash their hands, and listen to official authorities only.

What sets their discourse apart from that of the government is their tone of voice and approach. Aside from being endorsed by officials as accurate sources of information, these selected influencers are also spreading good humor across communities that are currently dealing with quarantine.

Why this matters

The UK government was the first to get influencers on board with their plans of curbing COVID-19 misinformation in Southeast Asia and Africa. Their goal is to keep younger generations safe from the injury fake news can inflict.

Finland supported a program that includes 1,500 social media influencers constantly transmitting the latest facts to their audiences. This program sets popular social accounts as gears in a greater mechanism built for crisis management. Their scope is to combat the panic that can make social media users victims of false claims. To Finnish authorities, influencers are “critical operators.”

Such a formal endorsement is only going to earn influencers a distinguished reputation and greater credibility. They might have self-imposed their status as inspirational guides for followers, yet the positive social impact caught up with them. We are yet to see where this alliance leads in the future and what further benefits will the community reap out of this.