I recently ran a series of posts in which we established that you are an authority (or expert) in something, and that you can share your expert knowledge with others. We then discussed ways in which you could be recognized as an authority by others, including Influencers. One point we didn’t discuss in detail was the aspect of establishing credibility as an expert, so let’s delve into that a bit now.

Anyone can slap up a web page that says, “I am an expert in …”, but saying it doesn’t make it so. And even if it is the truth, the mere fact of stating it won’t make others believe it. Belief is the key component of credibility. Let’s take a look at the definition of credible:

1. capable of being believed; believable: a credible statement.
2. worthy of belief or confidence; trustworthy: a credible witness.

Your assertion that you are an expert or authority in a subject matter should be believable. You can establish much of this trustworthiness by sharing your knowledge on your site. The articles you write on your web site should back up your statement that you are expert in your field. The very act of conveying your knowledge through informative articles, tutorials, and FAQs is often enough to convince others that you are indeed an expert.

In addition to conveying your knowledge, you should be prepared to back up the assertions that you make in the articles you write. Your expertise is deemed more credible when you show proof of what you state. Don’t hesitate to link out to other sites or other experts that help demonstrate that proof. Even something as simple as a link to the definition of a word (as shown above, when I referenced the definition of the word ‘credible’) can help make your case.

In some situations, however, even sharing your knowledge extensively, and backing it up with reference links, isn’t enough to establish your credibility. You may need to have others agree that you are credble. If you are a relative newcomer to the field (and newcomer doesn’t imply that you aren’t an expert), your name may not be well-known amongst the other experts in the field. If they don’t know you, they aren’t likely to acknowledge you publicly as an expert. However, if one expert acknowledges you, your credibility achieves a tremendous boost, so one of your goals should center around establishing name recognition within that circle of expertise, and then to become recognized as a peer of those experts.

Some ideas for achieving that goal include:

• Find the communities in which the experts hang out and hang out there as well
• Participate in discussions with the experts
• Don’t always be a yes-man. Debate the experts, but do so without coming across as a troll or adversary.
• Give the experts knowledge they didn’t already have.

Even the most expert of experts is missing knowledge. Perhaps you’ve run some tests or ran a poll that generated some interesting statistics about either your topic, or the people who are interested in your topic. There’s a good chance that other experts in the field did not run similar tests, and would likely be interested in the statistics you’ve gathered. Or perhaps there is a standard, tried-and-true way of doing something in your field, but you’ve found an alternative way of doing it that has some additional benefits of doing it that way. Sharing that information with other experts, as long as it isn’t detrimental to your business, is another way of being recognized with the community as a member of the “experts class”.

Obviously, you don’t want to give away all your secrets to other experts. Your business may rely upon keeping some of your knowledge to yourself. But there is much that can be mutually gained by leaders sharing knowledge with leaders.

Once you’ve achieved the goal of being recognized by other leaders in the field as someone with expertise as well, you can use that to help establish your credibility within your own site. Reference remarks made by other leaders about yourself. Link to pages on other sites in which you’ve held an intelligent, interesting debate with another expert. Include quotes from recognized authorities that mention you in a positive way. These types of references should also be included in your online press kit as well.

In short, you can establish credibility as an expert by:

1. conveying your knowledge through informative articles, tutorials, and FAQs
2. backing up your knowledge with proof, including links to outside references
3. becoming a peer of other topic authorities, and then referencing that relationship on site

Establishing credibility should be a constant theme running throughout your presence as an online entrepreneur. Whether adding content to your site, participating in social networks, or interacting with users and clients, you should strive to maintain your status as an expert by proving yourself credible.

(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

Posted on May 16th, 2008 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Branding