Influencers or yachting media: the real challenge is authority

There is a mistake that the yachting industry seems to be making with increasing frequency: confusing the ability to generate visibility with the authority required to genuinely influence a market.

The rise of influencers has undoubtedly changed the way companies and products are presented. It would be wrong to dismiss their value altogether. Social media platforms have opened new channels, created different forms of communication and made it possible to reach audiences that traditional media would have struggled to engage.

The problem begins when follower numbers alone become the measure of a communicator’s value.

One million followers do not necessarily mean one million potential customers. And, particularly in the yachting industry, they certainly do not automatically provide access to a community that is genuinely interested, knowledgeable or commercially relevant to the sector.

The difference between audience and authority

Yachting, and even more so the world of superyachting, is a complex industry. Understanding it requires knowledge of its products, technologies, markets, industrial dynamics, distribution networks, regulations, sustainability issues and culture.

Authority is built over time. It is the result of experience, knowledge, relationships and the ability to interpret what is happening within an industry.

A generalist communicator may have an extraordinary ability to entertain and an enormous audience, but that does not necessarily mean they are capable of interpreting a specialist sector or genuinely influencing the decisions made within it.

There is another factor that is often overlooked: who are those followers?

In yachting communication strategies, quantitative data is still too often presented as proof of the effectiveness of an investment. Impressions, views, likes and followers become reassuring KPIs because they are easy to measure.

But do they really measure what matters to the company?

Ten thousand people genuinely involved in the yachting world can have far greater strategic value than one million users gathered through a mix of unrelated content — yachts today, fashion tomorrow, followed by a resort or a car the day after.

The question should therefore change. Not “how many people are we reaching?”, but “who are we reaching, and why should they listen to us?”

And what about specialist media?

This is where the discussion inevitably becomes more uncomfortable, particularly for those who, like the author of this article, also work within specialist media.

Yachting media possess something that is difficult to improvise: knowledge, an understanding of the industry’s history, access to sources and the ability to place a product or a development within a broader context.

That does not mean, however, that they have always done their job well.

Over time, part of the yachting media has become excessively dependent on the industry it is supposed to cover. Press releases reproduced almost in full, products described exclusively through the words of their manufacturers, limited verification of claims and little willingness to introduce critical analysis have progressively weakened the journalistic role of specialist media.

The risk is clear: if a media outlet abandons analysis and becomes merely an amplifier for a company, it loses precisely the authority that should distinguish it from an influencer.

And this is probably where the real issue lies.

From vanity metrics to quality information

The alternative is not a choice between influencers and journalists, or between social media and specialist publications.

The real choice is between visibility and relevance, understanding when the former is useful and when the latter is essential.

A knowledgeable influencer with a coherent and clearly identifiable community can be an extremely effective communication tool. Likewise, a large generalist audience can be valuable when the objective is to take yachting beyond its traditional boundaries.

But using follower numbers as the primary selection criterion means adopting an extremely poor metric to assess a far more complex phenomenon.

At the same time, yachting media need to earn back the space and relevance they claim for themselves.

They need to be less self-referential, less dependent on simply presenting products, and more capable of using data, comparisons, research and independent sources and, when necessary, critical analysis.

The yachting industry is facing major issues: technological transformation, sustainability, new markets, a generational shift among clients, evolving usage models, geopolitics, regulation and access to the sea.

To believe that all of this can be represented through a few spectacular photographs and the number of views they generate is to underestimate the complexity of the industry itself.

Perhaps the time has come to stop asking only: “How many followers do you have?”

A more interesting question would be: “Why should anyone trust what you say?”

A communication strategy should begin with the answer to that question, far more than with the counter displayed on a social media platform.

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