What Makes a Source Credible and Trustworthy?

In a time when trust in traditional advertising is declining, consumers are constantly evaluating the sources from which they get information. With so much fake news and misleading stories, what should people look for in a reliable source?

We’ve found that there are three characteristics that make a source credible and trustworthy. First, they must be knowledgeable on diet and nutrition. Second, they should have interests that are aligned with the consumer—promoting a healthy lifestyle. Finally, this trusted and credible source must be able to provide relevant, actionable advice.

Knowledge and Expertise

Knowledge and expertise are arguably the two most important factors in determining the credibility of a source. Consumers are constantly looking for answers to complicated health & wellness questions—and often these answers vary depending on the person. A quick Google search seeking a solution to nutrition advice can yield “answers” from scores of so-called “experts.” But who are these people? Do they have a nutritional background? Do they know the consumer and their dietary needs? The internet is cluttered with so-called “experts,” making it extremely difficult to understand whose opinions matter, and what advice to act on.

With the media creating this clutter, where can consumers turn for dietary advice? Their hand-picked health professional. Why? This professional has gone through the extensive education required to obtain a degree and are counseling people everyday! The same cannot be said about the blogger or journalist, whose interests are not always in line with consumers’.

Interests That Align With the Consumer

The evolution of internet marketing has led to an enormous number of conflicting voices in the health & wellness conversation. For bloggers and journalists, it is in their interest to promote products or headlines that will attract attention, drive clicks, and increase advertising revenue. Based on their incentive to create traffic, their credibility should immediately be questioned. Are they truly interested in improving consumers’ health, or in gaining clicks?

The main objective of everyday health influencers is exceptionally clear: to help the people they counsel adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle. These professionals want to share information and findings that are relevant to the people they counsel. Finally, they want to share relevant better-for-you products, because that can lead to change.

Context and Action

How valuable is health advice if it’s not applicable and actionable? Creating relevant and actionable advice is a huge hurdle for online sources. Often times, a problem is highlighted, an argument is made and supported, and the article ends. The reader is left with no actionable advice. Further, that health & wellness monologue might not even apply to them!

Personal healthcare professionals have an advantage that other sources don’t. They have the benefit of a two-way conversation. They can assess the dietary needs, restrictions, or preferences of their patient. These health professionals can then, in turn, make a personal and actionable recommendation.

Personal, everyday, health professionals meet all of these criteria. No other source does. When consumers don’t know where to turn, health professionals can cut through the clutter.

A Battle Cry to My Dietitian Colleagues

I spent the first decade of my professional career working as an advertising executive. People loved giving me suggestions for future ads or asking why pharmaceutical commercials involved people running in fields while a soothing voiceover announced scary side effects. At no time did I ever encounter anyone actively trying to do my job.  When I decided to pursue becoming a dietitian, I noticed one shocking and disturbing fact: I was hustling for years going to school full-time, taking the proper route toward becoming a credentialed Registered Dietitian, yet there were people who had never taken a single nutrition course touting themselves as “Wellness Professionals” doling out nutrition advice all across cyberspace.  The hardest pill to swallow is that people actually listened to them!

These days, the letters after your name don’t seem to matter as much as the followers you have on social media.  Your “influence” now determines your level of expertise—or at least the media has decided this is the case, given the exposure celebrities and bloggers with large followings receive.  However, the recent IFIC Food & Health Survey reveals that 83% of Americans have little or no trust in advice given from celebrities about food and diet, and named Registered Dietitians as the most trusted source of nutrition information.  So why aren’t dietitians getting the exposure commensurate with this level of trust?

This, my dietitian colleagues, is where I ask a favor of all of you.  It is time we SPEAK UP and BE LOUDER about our knowledge and expertise.  From your immediate social circles, to the community, social media channels, and beyond.  It’s time we, the Registered Dietitian Nutritionists, become THE go-to nutrition experts.  Whether you blog, ‘gram, tweet, or counsel patients face-to-face every day, be the voice of sound science among the nonsensical clutter. Use your influence to empower consumers to make smarter choices when it comes to their health, and make sure they mention it was a Registered Dietitian who helped them.  

We must continue seeking allies and endorsements about our expertise from respected medical professionals in the media and elsewhere.  We need to continue partnering with manufactures and marketing companies to become influencers in the food/beverage/health industry and among consumers.  Dietitians are more than just nutritionists with higher education and clinical experience.  We are THE health and wellness experts, and it is time we make our influence known.  

Trust in Health Professionals Continues to Grow

The annual IFIC Food & Health Survey, released this month, is chock full of fascinating data on Americans’ relationship to food. The entire report is worth a read, but one finding that jumps out at us is that Americans trust dietitians/nutritionists and their own personal health professionals more than any other source. The IFIC survey has shown this to be the case for many years—trust in these professionals only continues to grow, while trust in bloggers and digital sources of information is falling. This is why we are so passionate about face-to-face interactions with influencers as a way for healthy brands to engage consumers.