Meeting people where they are: leveraging influencers’ social capital and trust to promote safer behaviours

Abstract

The newfound authority of social media ‘Content Creators’ or ‘Influencers’ (hereon referred to as influencers) have changed the media landscape in a short space of time. Undoubtedly, ‘trendsetters’ have existed for eons, as have people that commanded a following and influenced those around them; leaders, patricians, socialites, and more recently celebrities have held influence over people’s behaviour. Nevertheless, influencers are a unique modern phenomenon with a reach that is different to anything that came before–a reach that is personal, parasocial and potentially unlimited in scale. Given influencers command significant followings, their impact on public opinion and social trends is undeniable. The social media space has given rise to potential public health challenges, e.g., in travel and tourism where risk taking behaviours are shared widely and often promulgated by influencers. Nevertheless, it is at this intersection that we posit influencers as a useful avenue for communicating risks, including to self and the environment. Social media influencers have a level of relatability and perceived authenticity that traditional forms of tourism content found in brochures, magazines and guidebooks do not possess. These characteristics award them credibility that they use to influence their followers; providing a unique conduit for messaging about health risks, hazards in the natural environment, and safety practices. Therefore, this commentary explores the potential of leveraging influencers for risk communication rather than risk propagation, and the evolving challenges in digital health and safety dissemination.

PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY

Social media influencers, with their large followings, can impact public opinion. They can pose public health risks, like promoting unsafe behaviours when travelling such as taking photos in risky locations. However, influencers’ relatability and authenticity grant them considerable influence, and they can also influence positively to improve health and safety behaviours. This commentary suggests that influencers could be key in spreading messages about health and safety risks in a way that their audience is more likely to accept.

Keywords:

• Social media
• risk communication
• digital literacy
• young people
• travel
• influencers

Comment

The emergence of the social media influencer delineated a new chapter in media and fame–a phenomenon of the modern age, with no true analogous comparisons in history. ‘Trendsetters’ have existed for eons, as have people that commanded a following and influenced those around them; leaders, patricians, socialites, and more recently celebrities have held influence over people’s behaviour-the “Oprah Effect”. Nevertheless, influencers are a unique modern phenomenon with a reach that is different to anything that came before–a reach that is personal, parasocial and potentially unlimited in scale. Part entrepreneur and part trendsetter, influencers command attention across the digital landscape, sometimes growing into bona fide media brands themselves (such as Joe Rogan (Sienkiewicz & Marx, 2022) or The Liver King (Liver King (Brian Johnson)), among many others). In the realm of health and safety, the shift in attention from traditional media (television, radio, print news) to digital platforms has complicated risk communication, highlighting the need to adapt messaging to fit the digital habits of diverse demographics (Taba et al., 2023). With the power to affect purchasing decisions, public opinion, and even personal health decisions, influencers are the personification of the democratisation of fame and media power in the digital era (Luhtakallio & Meriluoto, 2023). Consequently, influencers of all sizes often find themselves at the intersection of public discourse on what is culturally and societally à la mode and appropriate. Influencers can be catalysts for change, promoting social causes and driving awareness, while also facing scrutiny for their role in consumer culture, viral trends, and the impact of their endorsements (Feijoo et al., 2023; Lou & Yuan, 2019).

Impact of digital platforms on health and safety communication

Accordingly, the days where health and risk communication were restricted to pamphlets, leaflets, the TV, or radio are long gone. Today, policy makers, academics, and government need to navigate the nuances of digital communication, grappling with trends, diverse demographics, limited attention spans, and ever-shifting dynamics of various platforms including social media applications (hereon: apps) and even podcasts. The need to “meet the people where they are” (Mathews et al., 2020)—in the digital spheres they inhabit—has never been greater.

This task, however, is not without challenges. More than ever, people find themselves bombarded by information and many struggle to delineate between what is accurate and what is determined to be “mis-” or “dis-” information–terms that exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic (Pickles et al., 2021), coinciding with a rise in “fake news” and content that was later verified to be out of date, false, or both (Ferreira Caceres et al., 2022). The harms that this type of false information can cause are real, pervasive, and measurable—ranging from levels of trust in society and institutions decreasing, declining social cohesion, anxiety, and stress amongst vast swathes of the populace, and at worst even inciting public disorder, violence, and other criminal activity (often stemming from the promulgation of conspiracies)(Cinelli et al., 2022). The potentially nefarious power of influencers has been seen particularly in the “wellness” space which has been bombarded with a vast number of unqualified influencers who promote health practices that are often based, at best, on personal anecdotes and opinion or, at worst, on pseudoscience or conspiracy theories (Gibbs & Piatkowski, 2023).

The absence of appropriate, yet appealing, voices of authority on social media platforms leaves lacunae where misinformation can proliferate. Whilst producing content on social media has risks for authorities (e.g., content being misconstrued, posts going ‘viral’ for unintended reasons), their absence as a channel for accurate and reliable information on an easily accessible medium is an even greater risk to public health (Taba et al., 2023).

The importance of trust and credibility

Who, and which, people, organisations or institutions determine what is accurate information is another crucial factor to be considered. What is determined to be true in one moment, particularly in a crisis or changing scientific understandings, can turn out to be inaccurate the next due to the dynamic circumstances and interconnectedness of the modern world; a reality that, in turn, can further lead to mistrust of institutions (Ferreira Caceres et al., 2022; Gabarron et al., 2021; Pickles et al., 2021). This notion of mistrust operates on an interpersonal level within the client-healthcare professional relationship and also extends to a broader systemic dimension, including trust in the healthcare system and the various social systems that govern contemporary life (Ward & Coates, 2006). Therefore, in the context of interactions between health institutions and the communities they serve, whether on-or-offline, the concept of trust plays a fundamental and crucial role in nurturing productive therapeutic relationships. Trust has a profound impact on health-related behaviours, which encompass the willingness of clients to engage with health-related information and the capacity for behavioural modifications (Hamilton et al., 2020).

In the contemporary digital sphere, influencers are known to wield a substantial amount of power in shaping public perception (Harrigan et al., 2021). The audiences of these individuals may develop parasocial bonds with the influencer who possess both physical and social advantages and, thus, hold a high degree of sociocultural capital (Wacquant, 1995) that is highly relevant within their community (Piatkowski et al., 2023). The regulations and norms propagated by these influential figures can have a profound impact on individuals within their respective community (Gibbs & Piatkowski, 2023), as they are internalised through a framework known as habitus (Bourdieu & Bourdieu, 2002). Habitual behaviour and attitudes are developed as a result of this internalisation process, illustrating how the social environment (Bourdieu, 1989) can significantly influence and modify the actions and perceptions of individuals within the community. Due to their social capital (Utz & Muscanell, 2015) collaborating with influencers offers a pathway to amplify critical messages to a wider audience while maintaining a semblance of authenticity and accuracy. Authorities can benefit from partnering and collaborating with qualified influencers who have the social influence to reach audiences. This collaborative approach may afford risk communicators an opportunity to convey messages to select and targeted audiences via influencers in specific arenas (Lou & Yuan, 2019).

Strategic communication and engagement through influencers

In a practical sense, communicating messages via influencers requires transparency so that social media users do not feel manipulated by the influencer in which they trust, and the organisation promoting risk communication behind the scenes. Therefore, risk communication strategies on social media platforms require a level of nuanced tailoring, considering the specific audience inclinations to foster engagement and deepen resonance.

The widespread use and appeal of social media means that it may not be appropriate to deliver a single type of message to target all users and, as a result, there is a requirement to understand and carefully target a given demographic. The rapidly changing social media environment also necessitates a constant update of the strategies utilised in conveying critical health information. It is crucial to understand the demographic variances and platform relevance to craft messages that are both informative and engaging. In this regard, collaborating with a content (and context) specific influencer can help—they know their audience, indeed that is both the how and the why that they are influencers. By strategically partnering with a diverse range of influencers, each with their unique audience demographics, it becomes possible to effectively communicate health and risk information to practically anyone, especially considering the high rates of social media usage across different age groups—with 93% of US teens aged 13–17 using YouTube, 63% using TikTok, and 59% using Instagram in 2023 (Gottfried & Teens, 2023). The younger populace–particularly those aged 18–30—might respond more positively to engaging (and short, often 30 seconds or less) TikTok videos (Chan & Allman-Farinelli, 2022) Instagram stories, while older adults might prefer detailed Facebook posts. There is also age disparity between social media platforms with TikTok significantly more popular among those aged 18–24 years and Facebook now much more popular with people aged 25–34 years. Therefore, a deep understanding of the target audience’s preferences is pivotal in leveraging the full potential of social media platforms for risk communication. In this scenario, the influencers knowledge, social capital, and media literacy, can be leveraged by public health professionals and other authorities to convey trustworthy messages that resonate with demographics that are hard to reach via legacy media (sofiamaddalena. We Are Social Australia, 2023).

Previous research has demonstrated success with utilising influencers to promote influenza vaccine uptake in the USA with hard-to-reach groups of people. Using 117 influencers to promote a vaccine uptake communication campaign, researchers found an increase in positive beliefs, and a decrease in negative community sentiment about the influenza vaccine (Bonnevie et al., 2020). Studies such as this demonstrate the large potential of influencers to deliver bottom-up communication of health information in close collaboration with authorities, enabling a tailored and greater reach than traditional methods.

Case study: social media-driven tourism and its risks

The issue of social media-driven tourism (and risky photography) in national parks in Australia provides a case study of how social media influencers can lead to negative consequences, and their potential as an underutilised resource to be partnered with. We have seen the detrimental effects of influencers circulating content of risky behaviour online, such as taking selfies in aquatic locations that in some cases have led to serious injury or death (Cornell et al., 2023), detrimental environmental effects (Cornell et al., 2024), and disruption and damage to cultural sites. This type of content, promoted by travel Influencers, can have the effect of driving visitation to dangerous locations, and lead to “copycat” behaviour for a photo (Siegel et al., 2020). The evident influence exerted by these influencers on their audiences underscores the, yet unrealised, potential for collaborative endeavours to reshape the narrative and disseminate risk messaging effectively among these cohorts.

In the travel and tourism space, land management organisations could partner with influencers to convey risk and safety messages to their large cohorts of followers. Specifically, tactically engaging influencers who specialise in travel photography could enable land management organisations to reach a diverse array of demographics on a scale that traditional messaging measures simply do not reach. As an example, Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service has an Instagram following of approximately 86,000 followers (Queensland National Parks (@qldparks). Instagram Photos and Videos, XXXX); yet there are dozens of travel influencers currently active in Australia with followings larger than this, and they are at the behest of nobody to curate their content. It may be possible for land management organisations to leverage the following that influencers have for the benefit of community health and safety. Selectively partnering in this way with influencers would enable land management organisations to capitalise on all the positive attributes of influencers and their potential to create content with a positive social impact that have been outlined in this piece. Influencers could be utilised to disseminate important information about conservation efforts, park regulations, risk mitigation, and sustainable tourism practices, contributing to the education, safety, and responsible behaviour of visitors.

The future of risk communication

Reassessing and refining communication strategies which fit with the rapidly changing digital landscape is vital for sustaining the effectiveness of risk communication. It is essential to, not only design and implement, but also to rigorously evaluate risk messaging across various formats like posts, videos, and reels on social media platforms. Collaborating with Influencers and leveraging peer networks can significantly amplify efforts to ensure community health and safety. If proven effective, this approach could become a game-changer, offering a clear and impactful voice for authorities in the increasingly congested media landscape. It is not just about keeping pace; it’s about setting the pace for future communications.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Data availability

There is no data associated with this comment.