Something happens every time I start a political conversation with my peers.

These conversations rarely begin because of something we read on the news or see on TV. Instead, they’re usually sparked by something someone else said — mostly the social media influencers that we follow.

It’s always “Hey, did you see what Influencer X posted about the election?” or “Whoa Influencer Y supports that politician? Why would they do that?!”

Then I started to wonder: why are social media influencers always the political conversation starters for us instead of the actual politicians? Why do their opinions matter so much to us, given that they’re not exactly working in the line of policymaking?

These questions kickstarted my journey to understand both the popular appeal of social media influencers and how that helps them impact the political sphere — and here’s what I learned.

What’s so great about influencers?

Social media influencers are defined by their ability to attract, engage with and retain audiences. That’s part of what makes them so appealing, and why people watch/listen to them.

Their content is often bite-sized, easily digestible and frequently uploaded — great mental markers for keeping their content engaging and memorable. They also use a variety of formats to engage with their audiences, which contributes to the building of one-way parasocial relationships with them. These involve the audience extending their emotional energy, interest and time to engage with the influencer’s online persona.

Some influencers post personal details about their lives and relationships, giving followers an intimate glimpse into their world. Others take it a step further by addressing audiences directly in their content, such as in video monologues of their thoughts and experiences, and even asking for their feedback in the comment and message sections.

This accessibility and responsiveness make followers feel like the influencers are their real friends and have a genuine connection with them. We know that friends and family are very influential in our decision-making through peer presence — and these social relationships tap into trust, which affects our choices as well.

The unseen power of micro-influencers

The borderless marketability of influencers makes them the ultimate platform to spread information, entertainment and more to millions. I mean, Kylie Jenner averages over 10 million likes in her top Instagram posts — that’s more than the population of some countries!

Influencer content is often bite-sized, easily digestible and frequently uploaded — great mental markers for keeping their content engaging and memorable.

This impressive reach, coupled with tools and algorithms that enable influencers to segment their audiences by demographic, geography and more, further amplifies influencers’ impact on people’s opinions and behaviour.

While we’ve talked about superstar influencers that reach millions of people, I actually find that the most effective influencers (at least for me and my friends) are the micro-influencers.

Why?

We gravitate towards people that are like us. They go to the same places, have the same interests, speak our language and are in similar demographics as us. Micro-influencers tick all these boxes. They could very well be our next-door neighbour or a friend from work.

Because of their lower follower count, micro-influencers also rarely have large sponsors to please. Their content comes across as rawer and more personal, which creates a greater sense of authenticity and makes it more engaging and impactful. When we watch their content, it sometimes feels like we’re huddled around a campfire with them, casually talking about life.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. More studies have noted that there is an increasing perception of micro-influencers being more authentic and credible, due primarily to their personal engagement and reduced need to pander to higher powers.

In my opinion, these are the crucial differentiators for the success of micro-influencers in leading conversations among everyday people.

Micro-influencing in politics

With fake news and misinformation abound, there is higher demand than ever for authenticity in content and personality. Micro-influencers are already positively associated with authenticity and honesty, which gives them more power as thought leaders, even for a smaller audience.

Multiply that effect by the number of micro-influencers, and they can even turn the tide of political thought.

Singapore

In my local Singaporean experience, the impact of micro-influencers on the 2020 General Election was huge. Micro-influencers took it upon themselves to become pseudo-political bloggers or citizen journalists, conducting livestream interviews and public dialogues with various political parties.

They would also subsequently share their own anecdotes on what they truly thought about different candidates, as well as encouraging wider voter turnouts.

The grassroots nature of these efforts, in my opinion, was the main reason for the ability of micro-influencers to raise greater awareness and more diverse political discourse. They seemed more ‘in touch’ with heartland communities overall and the voice lent to the ‘everyday man’ made them more relatable to general audiences and captured their interest.

This, I believe, was instrumental in the year’s election results establishing one of the most diverse party-demographic of parliamentary seats in recorded history.

International

This phenomenon wasn’t isolated to Singapore. In the same year, I witnessed micro-influencers also working their magic on other countries’ elections.

For example, micro-influencers acted much like small-scale broadcasters for the 2020 Biden-Harris presidential campaign, which was aimed at youth voters (those in their early 20s). This was significant because this demographic relied less on syndicated broadcast networks for political news, but did spend a lot of time on social media.

So powerful were these ‘micro-influencer armies’ that President Biden’s political campaign garnered twice the social media impressions and interactions in his top three election season tweets, compared to then-President Trump’s, despite having only an eighth (11 million) of Trump’s 87 million-strong Twitter following.

This also proved instrumental in swaying swing states and ultimately contributed to a Biden victory.

Micro-influencers are already positively associated with authenticity and honesty, which gives them more power as thought leaders, even for a smaller audience.

Protecting ourselves from unchecked influence

There’s no doubt that micro-influencers have been very impactful in the political sphere. At the same time, I can’t help but think if we’re being overly reliant on their views to shape our own. After all, micro-influencers are still people — and people are flawed. So how can we be sure that there are no ulterior motives hidden in their content?

In general, political micro-influencer content can be pretty imperceptible. They usually paint a rosy picture of how the promises of their favoured politician or party can improve their own lives — and, by extension, ours — and frame it as their personal, unbiased opinion.

However, not all micro-influencers are aligned with our own interests. So how do we protect ourselves from being politically exploited?

1. Think critically

We can first recognise that micro-influencers may not have big brand sponsorships or endorsements, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have none. Despite how ‘authentic’ they may seem, they can still have vested interests and hidden agendas, such as spreading certain messages or content to get paid or boost engagement numbers.

In the political sphere, politicians that use political ad targeting to spread geopropaganda, political content disseminated based on location data, are increasingly realising the power of micro-influencers and are employing them as part of their strategy.

Influencers can sometimes be hired to highlight the positives of their sponsored political party to boost voter turnout, and there have also been instances where influencers were hired to slander political opponents.

The resultant overwhelming spread of both political information and misinformation has subsequently led to some authorities requiring that micro-influencers disclose all endorsement deals and include affiliate links on their posts.

Fortunately, with such regulations, we’ll now be able to search for hashtags or endorsement indicators to confirm if a political post we’re seeing is a paid ad, which helps us check for biases.

2. Fact check, fact check, and fact check

Having statistics on a social media post makes it seem more credible, but it’s still the onus of any discerning adult to verify those numbers.

We’re usually sceptical of politicians because even high-profile politicians can make inaccurate claims. Given that most influencers — micro or otherwise — aren’t even working in or are experts in politics, it’s even more crucial that we maintain that same level of scepticism for them.

Read different, reputable news sites to cross-check the political information shared by influencers. Fact-checking sites are also useful resources to verify claims. There is a certain irony in using online sources to verify other online sources, but I would normally quell my scepticism by widening my scope of political research as much as I can.

This habit of reading widely and consuming news from multiple sources can help us catch certain nuances — both in influencer content and content in general — such as biased reporting or patronisation, which may fly under the radar if we stick to the same thought bubbles.

These newfound analytical skills will be instrumental for us in building critically thought opinions, accelerating our journeys to becoming informed citizens.

Embracing independence of political opinion

At the end of the day, we can’t rely on others to dictate the opinions we should or shouldn’t be having. There’s a lot of talk about the responsibility of social media sites to curb fake news or hate speech. While there is some truth to that, the reality is that the responsibility of forming our opinions begins and ends with us.

We must consume content critically from all sides, even when it seems like it’s coming from trusted and reliable sources such as micro-influencers. While they may have charisma and relatability, this doesn’t mean that they also have our best interests at heart.

Despite how ‘authentic’ they may seem, influencers can still have vested interests and hidden agendas, such as spreading certain messages or content to get paid or boost engagement numbers.

To be the most informed and independent thinkers that we can be, we must and should always open ourselves to different informational sources, as well as constantly challenge even our own opinions and biases.

The growing overlap of social media and politics is fascinating, but no matter how many influencers come our way, the choices we make — and the consequences that follow — are ultimately our responsibility.

The post Investigating the political influence of micro-influencers appeared first on Redhill | Global Communications Agency.

A version of this story first appeared in PR Week. Click here to read it.

In May this year, Facebook’s Oversight Board ruled that the company was right to ban Donald Trump from its platform in January 2021 due to the latter’s clear violation of Facebook’s community standards.

However, the Board called out Facebook’s ‘indefinite’ ban and lack of uniform moderation standards, ending with a recommendation for Facebook to review the decision and create a ‘proportionate’ procedure for equal application within six months.

Unsurprisingly, the Oversight Board’s decision has ignited a storm of debate which I have been following closely and with much interest. Among other reasons, it’s fascinating because it demands an answer to an important question that social media companies have so far been trying to skirt around.

Should social media platforms be the arbitrator of truth, and if so, how far should they go?

From social sharing to social influencing

Most social media platforms originated as seemingly harmless tools to keep in touch with others, make new friends and to entertain ourselves. Facebook was built as a social networking service for Harvard students. Twitter was designed to make text messaging work cross-channel and cross-device. Instagram was launched out of a love of photos and wanting to share them with others.

Today, in this hyper-connected and information-rich age, social media has evolved from an innocuous way to keep in touch into a powerful platform to shape thoughts and ideas and break news. With its easy accessibility and the capacity to broadcast messages instantaneously to the world, social media has given everyone a voice and a stage.

But the enduring debate around the right to freedom of speech is not just whether all voices have an equal right to be heard, but also who should be the gatekeeper of that right.

Enabler vs arbitrator

Historically, social media companies have been keen to distance themselves from this debate as it makes them liable for enormous responsibilities and repercussions.

They often frame their reluctance to moderate or shut down problematic content as them taking up a neutral, non-interventionist position to facilitate the continued freedom of speech. Their message is that of enabling and empowering, not being judges of moral decency and factual accuracy.

But the right to freedom of speech is accompanied by the duty of responsible behaviour and respecting the rights of others. When social media has been proven to be a direct accomplice in the occurrence of devastating events — such as the Capitol insurrection — by virtue of amplifying clear hate speech and fake news, then it can no longer throw its hands up and plead ignorance or innocence.

Social media cannot choose to be a champion of free speech and be absolved of their attendant duty to maintain responsible behaviour.

Attempts at accountability

Big Tech platforms are clearly aware of this expectation shift and have, to their credit, taken some steps to shoulder some responsibility.

All popular social media platforms have some form of community engagement rules and channels to report offensive or problematic content. They have teams of moderators and Facebook, as mentioned earlier, even established an external Oversight Board as a sort of ‘Supreme Court’ to ostensibly provide a check and balance. Blue ‘verified’ badges on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages and profiles also declare a user’s authenticity.

But it is not enough. The Oversight Board is fully funded by Facebook, which already suggests an inherent bias. Many have criticised Facebook’s tendency to push the actual decision-making responsibility on difficult issues to the Board — and the Board itself is well aware of this, as shown by its recent judgment which punted the responsibility back to Facebook itself. There are plenty of horror stories about the traumatic conditions under which Facebook’s teams of moderators operate, which at the most basic level means that moderation is inaccurate, inconsistent and ineffective.

Given the record-breaking billion-dollar revenues of these social media platforms, it’s hard to see these non-committal stances and half-hearted efforts as anything other than a business decision. Not taking sides means being open to a wider audience that consumes more content, which translates into more ad revenue. If top decision-makers such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey wanted their companies to do better, those changes would be visible. The fact that they aren’t speaks volumes in itself.

With social media use now prevalent in society, there is little meaningful distinction left between online and offline spaces. Thus, social media companies should now be held accountable to their users in the same way that public utility providers are. They can design better digital spaces by emulating how offline public spaces are built — by having regulations and norms that govern behaviour, which are collectively determined by regulators, stakeholders and users to build healthier digital communities.

Who will fill the void?

In late April this year, major football clubs, sporting bodies, players and athletes joined a four-day social media boycott to draw attention to the constant abuse and discrimination that happens against them on these platforms. The first line of the statement issued by the English Premier League (EPL) said simply: “Social media companies must do more to stop online abuse.”

Vitriol on social media towards sports figures and bodies is nothing new by far. Check any public post by any football club after an EPL match and you’ll see thousands of messages directing abuse towards everyone involved. Clubs have been trying to engage with social media platforms and asking them to moderate this clearly abusive content, but they’ve shown that they’re either unwilling to or not capable of doing so. This boycott is a last-ditch attempt to raise awareness and shame these platforms into taking responsibility. I find it unlikely, though, that it will change over a decade of non-involvement.

If social media companies refuse to step up, then who will? My bet is on governments, and that will come at a cost. We’re already seeing India require social media platforms to appoint local representatives and try to implement new rules that require traceability. Twitter’s offices in India were raided by police after the company put a ‘manipulated media’ label on tweets from members of the ruling party. The government of Belarus diverted a plane to arrest an outspoken dissident who used social media to criticise the government.

The implications are clear: making governments the arbiter of truth can and will have serious ramifications for the neutrality and independence that social media companies so proudly protect.

The legal question

Much of the debate around “who should be the gatekeeper?” boils down to legalities. Are these social media platforms publishers themselves, or does that role belong solely to the person or company posting the content?

These questions are made more difficult by the fact that the digital world is adapting faster than our legal frameworks can cope with. Many issues that we face now with social media use are unprecedented, which is a recipe for heated debate and slow judgments.

It’s fair to say that social media platforms should not necessarily be the sole and ultimate authority on truth. In an ideal world, it would be a collaborative relationship between them and progressive governments, robust legal frameworks and responsible users. While we navigate as a society towards this utopian understanding, what’s clear is that social media companies should — and they have the capacity to — do more right now.

In this high-speed era of information, listening to the wrong voice could be a matter of life and death. Social media has given everyone a voice. Now it must take ownership of the consequences — both good and bad.

The post Should social media platforms be the arbitrator of truth? appeared first on Redhill | Global Communications Agency.