Informational Over Aspirational: Delineating “Influencers With Expertise” and “Experts With Influence” in the Wellness Industry
2026-02-23
The line between “influencers with expertise” and “experts with influence” in the health and wellness industry has blurred and has confused the public on whom they can rely for their health information. Influencers with expertise in the wellness industry are those who have amassed authority through their online content and their ability to reflect an authentic self, often questioning and even outright denying the role of institutional experts and science. Experts with influence, on the contrary, are institutionally credentialed leaders with professional acumen in health and medicine who share credible information while attempting to debunk rampant misinformation. First, I describe the relationship between knowledge, expertise, and credibility, the last of which is considered a central norm of the influencer industry. Then, I offer differentiation between influencers with expertise and experts with influence. Then, through semi-structured interviews, I ask how influencers understand their perceived expertise and how they navigate and communicate their role to their audiences. The findings explicate the utilization of embodied knowledge in the wellness influencer industry, the use of disclaimers and claims to knowledgeability as protection from critique, and how many wellness influencers ultimately see themselves as a “different kind” of expert.