Influencers in GovCon? Redefining Influencer in a Niche Market

The term “Influencer” has become commonplace and has even inserted itself in GovCon. I have been pondering this phenomena as it pertains to our market and here are my thoughts.

If you Google “what is an influencer” you get this:

An influencer is?a person who has a large social media following and can sway the opinions and behaviors of their followers.?Influencers are often seen as trendsetters and authorities in a specific niche or industry, such as beauty, fashion, fitness, travel, or food.?They use their expertise and authority to influence their audience's purchasing decisions.

So the answer is yes, we have them, but it is quite different from the influencers of the Facebook or Instagram world. We don’t have Steph Curry or Caitlin Clark, no Katie Ledecky’s or Roger Federer’s. These influencers influence outside their areas of expertise, and each has a huge audience. Look at Taylor Swift…

To be an influencer in GovCon, we need a direct “why factor,” not simply a ton of followers.

In our market there are hundreds if not thousands of niches and there are influencers for most if not all of those niches. They become influencers because they are part of that community, they have the skills required, they share information and they have visibility- and then they build a following. They offer a direct “why factor”, not a tangential or tertiary relationship with their niche.

In GovCon to be an influencer you need both visibility and credibility. You also need followers, but not necessarily in the tens of thousands, or even thousands. You just need those who share your niche, which may only be in the hundreds. When I was coaching a GovCon think tank on leveraging LinkedIn, some of the niches they were expert in were so specific that they numbered in the low hundreds. Those were the only people they needed to influence.

However there is a two-factor verification requirement for GovCon influencers: trust and transparency.

Trust is built over time and includes a body of work (books, articles, social media engagement, speaking gigs, podcasts, and more) that builds your core audience and feeds your ability to influence. Providing regular information to those followers and interacting with them builds trust.

The transparency factor is your ability to be authentic, have a distinct and consistent point of view. It also requires you to interact with your followers.

Visibility and credibility, trust and transparency. These are earned with consistent work over time. They are not self-bestowed.?

There are no shortcuts.

If all this sounds like qualities of a subject matter expert (SME), that’s because they share many of the same characteristics.?

But…not all SMEs are influencers.?

Thought leaders are influencers, but not all influencers are thought leaders.

It may seem confusing, but I think the hierarchy is accurate.

If you want to become an influencer in GovCon, you need to be embedded in a specific community, share information, and reach out to connect with the members of that community.

Not that I have an opinion.