Feature
I
nfluencers are big business and often
play a major role in attracting the
public to exhibitions and festivals alike.
Whether it be a guest speaker slots,
panels workshops or exercise classes,
influencers provide much of the live
content during events.
The wellness industry was dubbed to
be worth $4.3tn (£3.4tn) in 2018, and
in the last 10 years, a whole new crop
of start-ups and influencers have burst
onto the wellness scene. But this health-
adjacent empire wasn’t built by chance
– influencers and the blogging culture
has perhaps played the most critical role
in driving not only awareness of new
brands, but a widespread belief in the
concept of wellness.
While brands and influencers
operating within the wellness industry
have a legitimate right to promote
products or services and also provide
lifestyle information to consumers, we
need to find a balance between sharing
the content we want to share and
ensuring it is credible. There are a few
caveats to this deal: opinions need to be
robustly informed, recommendations
need to be verified by people qualified
in the relevant area and areas of
uncertainty need to be plainly outlined.
Navigating this minefield of credibility
is difficult and there is very little
guidance or direction on how to credibly
manoeuvre in this space. The current
lack of industry-specific legislation
has meant that consumers and other
stakeholders have been active players in
holding wellness brands and influencers
accountable.
The recent launch of The Register
of Health and Wellness Influencers
(ROHWI) seeks to change that. The
register is the first and only independent
register for Influencers creating health
and wellness content worldwide. The
register was founded by WellSpoken
and the Health Bloggers Community, to
proactively manage growing concerns
on the conduct and content produced by
health and wellness influencers.
An influencer is an individual who has
the power to affect purchase decisions
Establishing trust
Sarah Greenidge, founder of WellSpoken, on launching a new influencer
register to combat misinformation in the health and wellness sector
of others because of his/her authority,
knowledge, position or relationship
with their audience. These include,
but are not limited to social media
influencers, health bloggers and health
writers. The main challenges seen with
influencers in the wellness scene are
poor quality information, irresponsible
communications and inappropriate
affiliations - this register aims to combat
those issues head-on.
The research undertaken by the
organisations behind the register found a
growing number of people were dubious
about the information shared online:
• 74 per cent of consumers surveyed
identified that the least trustworthy
health and wellness information was
found on social media
• 76 per cent of both brands and
influencers surveyed indicated that
stronger regulations would make them
feel more secure and confident about
working together on collaborations
The primary objective of the register is
to protect public interest by ensuring
that health and wellness influencers
work to a high standard of practice
when producing consumer content.
Influencers also have a responsibility to
work with brands in an ethical manner
as well as being fully aware of how to
be transparent about their advertising
work.
This register is the first step towards
creating a tailored framework for health
and wellness influencers to work towards
and will provide a new benchmark which
exhibitors and festivals should be aware
of. Moving forward the register aims to
encourage organisations to ensure that
all of their influencer partnerships in
the wellness sector are with registered
health and wellness influencers. EN
July — 15