According to Principal of Authority, we are likely to follow, believe in or engage with someone who looks like a authority figure.
For example, when we need to find something we usually believe in those people who we think are authority in their fields without doing our own research.
Like you may have seen in many blog posts or in news headlines that 'Experts says that' or 'Scientists Found this' etc. These keywords are triggers for building up the authority of the content, because according to our psychology if a expert or scientist or head of any institute is saying something, it means its likely going to be true.
This also shows that we humans love dilly-dally and shilly-shally.
So, how to project your authority?
Follow these four tips:
1. Titles
Use relevant title in your bio, about me page or while introducing yourself
2. Dress up
Make your dressing style match your intro, keep your public figure relevant to how you want to project your authority.
Add any accessories to your outfit if needed to give any specific signal like a expensive suits, nice cars, stethoscope like equipment's, uniforms, etc
3. Your Language
Choose your words wisely while talking on your subject.
Try to present more facts than raw knowledge and philosophy.
Try using assertive language to put your point, it makes you sound like you know what you’re talking about.
4. Indirect Signals
People expect that if someone is a authority on something the person must be active on social media, followed by experts in the same field and should have at least some decent following, likes and shares.
Along with that a decent website with clear details on About page, testimonials / reviews etc.
These indirect signals help people understand where a person fall in the queue of authority on a subject.
Taking care of these especially in today's time is a must.
Now, two example of this Authority principal at work:
1. Dr. Robert Cialdini
The same person who gave these principal also used this Authority principal for projecting his personal brand.
The Title says it all, he was a PhD in psychology and he used his title to show his authority in the subject.
Many of you may not hold any specific title like this but still you can easily use any of the informal titles like - Manager, Expert, Specialist, Analyst, Marketer with the expertise you have to create a sense of authority.
2. Neil Patel
He is one of the best examples of how we can use authority principal to our advantage.
When you visit his website you don't have to check a about me page separately, the home page is his about page and you can find his intro with something like this
and this says it all, packed with some powerful words optimized with hypnotic power.
The authority he claims is backed by many influential people and organizations, on top of that his social media profiles and YouTube are loaded with good quality content plus huge numbers of followers / likers.
This foundation is more than enough to convince someone for his authority
