How influencers are reshaping EU public communication

Young European citizens are increasingly outsourcing trust to individuals they feel they “know”. These are creators, commentators, and community figures who speak in human language.

For younger Europeans, social media is now their primary source of information. According to the Reuters Digital News Report (2024), 40% of 18–23-year-olds in Europe get news mainly from TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. When it comes to digital generations, news isn’t read but streamed, cut, captioned, and served by people they trust and already follow.

Influence has migrated from institutions to people, and the people who are shaping narratives today are not broadcasters or press offices, but creators embedded in digital communities.

Influencers today: From selling lifestyles to shaping public understanding

Not everyone with a large following online is an influencer, especially not in the context of public communication. Many still imagine influencers as luxury-hotel Instagram personas promoting the newest trendy product under palm trees. But influence is no longer just about selling products; it now plays a role in shaping public and civic conversation.

Today’s influencer landscape includes educators, scientists, experts in social and civic engagement, climate and youth activists, healthcare professionals, and many others, who move public opinion and spark discussions. The role of influencers has matured from selling products to shaping understanding—building trust and sustaining conversation around topics that matter to institutions and society.

When it comes to EU communications, policy outreach, and public engagement, understanding this distinction isn’t just a nice-to-know, it’s a strategic advantage.

From reach to relationship: Why influencers matter in institutional communication today

EU institutions communicate in an environment where the institutional voice is no longer the most trusted one. The Global Trust Index in developed countries has fallen into “distrust” territory at 49% and government trust sits at 51%, while trust in “people like me” is higher at 61% (Edelman 2024–25). In parallel, 82% of consumers trust a micro-influencer recommendation more than a celebrity endorsement.

This matters for the EU because the gap between institutions and citizens is no longer a reach problem, it is a trust and relationship problem. Influencers act as the missing interpreters who translate EU policy into human language, enabling institutions to be heard by audiences they currently do not reach directly.

Treating influencers as communication partners, not campaign extras

Knowing that influencers act as trusted intermediaries is just the starting point. What matters for EU institutions is how they apply that insight in practice. To unlock their value, institutions must transition from ad-hoc influencer outreach to a community model of creator engagement where each influencer feels valuable and worthy. That means building a stable portfolio of vetted, values-aligned creators who can repeatedly contextualize EU work rather than creating short term effect around single campaigns. This approach fosters long-term trust, improves message retention, and ensures consistent engagement across diverse communities.

Trust doesn’t come from one-off moments. It builds over time through consistency, transparency, and repetition of the message. In practice, this requires institutional alignment: clear compliance and disclosure rules, criteria for selecting credible and non-polarising voices, adapting frameworks for multi-country and multilingual rollout, and evaluation aligned with EU’s impact rather than empty KPIs. When executed under those conditions, influencer collaborations stop being “risky experiments” and instead become a structured extension of institutional communication towards communities the EU does not organically reach.

Building a dedicated influencer practice

If you're navigating the challenge of building trust with hard-to-reach audiences, you need access to an institutional-grade influencer capability designed specifically for the public sector. This requires:

• Maintaining standing relationships with partner influencer talent agencies, along with experts and analysts who act as trusted interpreters of public policy.
• Staying in continuous dialogue with the creator ecosystem, monitoring sentiment, content shifts and narrative risks in real time, not only during campaigns.
• Using monitoring, reporting, and data analysis capabilities to turn insights into actionable strategies and measurable impact.

ICF Next offers a proven model for integrating influencers into EU institutional communication. Our campaigns that have integrated credible content creators, such as for European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) or European Union Intellectual Property Office’s (EUIPO), have consistently shown higher reach, stronger engagement, and better narrative retention than using institutional channels alone.

Beyond matching briefs to creators, we help shape meaningful stories by connecting institutional messages with creative voices—delivering measurable impact and sustained engagement.