Head to Head: Are influencers the next phase of political communication?
In this series, Mumbrella invites senior PR professionals to share their opposing views on the industry’s biggest issues. This week, Lewis Shields, head of social at Herd MSL, goes head to head with Quiip’s Amber Robinson on whether influencers are the next frontier of political communication.
Two weeks ago, US Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg invested a chunk of his campaign budget into commissioning micro-influencer-generated content via Tribe, sparking the question ‘Are influencers the next phase of political communication?’
Herd MSL’s Lewis Shields points out that young people are losing trust in politicians, but are turning to influencers and content creators to support important causes in society.
However, Quiip’s Amber Robinso argues that people do not trust influencers enough, and sponsored posts don’t receive the desired engagement.
Lewis Shields, head of social at Herd MSL, argues ‘Yes’:
No
I agree with Amber that it would be a seriously misguided influencer who would hitch their wagon to any particular political party. If they did, they would need to be ready with research to back up policy decisions and to engage their followers in a debate that I expect they would not be interested in moderating. Why would you want to risk alienating much of your audience, diminishing your own appeal to the next client and have a direct influence on your own credibility?
Using social influencers as part of an election campaign would still engage the authorisation requirements of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, so any social media they did would still need to be authorised:
https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/Backgrounders/authorisation.htm
yes