Beyond learning from content creators, journalists have an opportunity to collaborate with them. 

“These influencers play a key role in bridging the gap between journalism and local communities, offering newsrooms the chance to connect with relevant audiences in ways that traditional — or transactional — engagement can’t,” says the American Press Institute in its research report Mapping your local influencer landscape.

API identifies four types of influencers to consider:

• Niche content creators: They focus on specific topics such as local food, community events, or other hyper-local interests. They often attract followers who share those same passions and interests.

• Community leaders: They include activists, nonprofit leaders, or small business owners and are influential within their communities. They can help disseminate important news with credibility.

• Micro-influencers: These influencers typically have smaller followings (usually 1,000 to 100,000), but their highly engaged audiences often translate to better content interaction and community trust.

• Macro-influencers: Larger influencers with a broader reach, typically over 100,000 followers, who can amplify your message quickly across larger areas or groups.

I recently got a chance to talk to Samantha Ragland, vice president of journalism strategy for API, about their research on influencers. Here’s what she had to say:

Q: What have you learned so far from the research? 

A: Our influencer collaboration experiments have taught us a few key things about success and language: 

Two strategies for success: You’re either a national or international newsroom, or working on a beat with such reach, that these partnerships are almost exclusively an audience reach play ... more eyeballs, more traffic, etc. Or you’re a local news organisation working to connect with the community, making these partnerships about trust and bridging.

I think it’s important to add this nuance to the conversations leaders are having. Acknowledging that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, and that depending on your goal alongside the needs of your org and your community, your approach will be different. 

On language, we’ve found that “influencer” as a catch-all can miss an opportunity for unique messengers to engage with your brand and share it with those who trust them. Take the decades-long youth football coach or barista from the local coffee shop. …  The right language has been a key takeaway for those newsrooms in our learning cohorts: We like trusted messenger and community liaison. And trusted creator has also been deemed more accurate and welcome than “influencer” alone.

Q: Do you think news orgs should be partnering with influencers? What are the advantages and drawbacks?

A: Depends on the newsroom. But if you are a local organisation that sees itself as a community pillar — as an institution that connects its community to one another, to information and to resources — I would absolutely encourage you to think about experimenting with trusted messenger collabs.

You can start with the low-hanging fruit of digital marketing, collaborating on promotion of reporting, live events, and news products. You can then level up by exploring native storytelling, person on the street interviews, co-creation and convening. 

An additional learning point here has been how many of these trusted messengers continue to engage and share the org’s news content after a partnership has ended. And some of our newsrooms have found an increased interest in reporters wanting to incorporate either these collabs or social-first content styles into their reporting and story distribution.  

Of course there are drawbacks. These are new relationships, and cultivating them will take time.

We’ve learned that this work is as helpful for the collaborator as it may be for the newsroom. We’re learning that the partnership is mutually beneficial in a few ways, including that since many locally trusted messengers (and even some larger influencers) are teams of one, true partnership with a news organisation can be incredibly helpful to their own ideation and creation process.

For organisations placing a premium on community engagement, the advantages far outweigh the drawbacks for everyone: the influencer, the newsroom and the community.

Q: What advice would you offer based on your experience?

A: For hold-out newsrooms, my advice is to watch and read. This work is happening, it’s renewing organisational energy and creating new opportunities for community feedback loops, more nuanced storytelling and reporting, and even local funding to catalyse these engagements and connections for community benefit. 

For those orgs ready to get started, I’d suggest you go deep on the research and exploration of these folks before you begin a partnership. You’re not just looking for follower count. You’re looking for engagement, alignment, and style. Then, you work on relationship building and co-creating the partnership.

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