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What Makes Someone an Expert?

A practical guide to identifying expertise across your organization and putting it to work

Co-Founder & CEO

Co-Founder & VP Product

 When you are first introduced to expertise marketing it can be hard to imagine that there are experts hiding within your organization. We tend to think of experts as a small group at the top but in reality that is just the tip of the iceberg. Across teams and departments there are people with the knowledge, skills and experience to contribute to meaningful conversations with your audiences.

These individuals may not always carry the title of expert but their perspectives can help explain complex issues, contribute to research and shape the content your organization produces. When their expertise is recognized and supported it can help build trust with key audiences including media, industry partners and prospective clients.

The challenge many organizations face is knowing how to assess expertise in the first place. To identify these hidden experts and understand the role they can play in an expertise marketing program it helps to start with a simple question.

What actually makes someone an expert?  The 7 Attributes of Expertise  By definition an expert is someone with comprehensive or authoritative knowledge in a particular area of study. While formal education and certifications can be important starting points many fields do not have a clear set of criteria that determines expertise.

In practice expertise develops through a combination of training, research, professional experience and real-world application. It is also shaped by the level of trust and recognition someone has earned within their profession or community.

When evaluating expertise across your organization it is important to consider the different roles people can play. Many individuals have invested years developing deep knowledge in their fields but not everyone is interested in speaking at conferences or appearing in the media. That does not reduce the value of their expertise. Many contribute through research, insights and content development that support broader visibility for the organization.

Here are several attributes that help define expertise and the roles people can play within an expertise marketing strategy.

Authority: Has a reputation with an audience as a trusted source of insight and perspective. Advocate: Demonstrates a commitment to advancing a professional community or area of practice. Educator: Teaches and inspires others through lectures, presentations or classroom instruction. Author: Develops articles, commentary or thought leadership that expands their reach and influence. Researcher: Generates new insights through research, analysis or field work. Practitioner: Applies specialized knowledge in a professional setting by delivering services or solutions. Graduate: Has formal education or professional training that demonstrates proficiency in a subject area.  Understanding these attributes helps organizations see that expertise exists across many roles. Once those individuals are identified the next step is determining how their expertise can contribute to broader visibility and engagement.
 
The 4 Levels of Expertise  Understanding how to promote expertise is an emerging discipline for many organizations. Unlike traditional career paths expertise does not always follow a predictable hierarchy.

When we consider which experts are most visible to audiences it becomes clear that visibility is not always tied to seniority or authority within an organization. Professionals at many stages of their careers are now sharing insights through social networks, industry publications and personal platforms.

This means that a senior researcher with decades of experience and a younger professional actively sharing insights online could have a similar level of visibility.

Because visibility is influenced by personal motivation and interest in public engagement many organizations recognize the need to better identify and support experts across their teams. Doing so helps ensure that valuable knowledge is not overlooked and that more voices can contribute to meaningful conversations.

The framework below can help organizations take inventory of their expertise and develop a path for individuals who are interested in contributing content and building visibility with key audiences.

 Now that we’ve provided a broader picture of what expertise looks like, it’s time for you to ask, “How does my organization stack up?”
 
Bench Strength: Taking Stock of Expertise Across Your Organization  Expertise is in high demand. Audiences are looking for credible voices who can provide context and insight on complex issues.

For organizations, this means it is critical to understand how their collective expertise can be channeled into meaningful conversations with their audiences.

As you review the attributes and levels of expertise outlined above you may begin to recognize individuals within your organization who have valuable knowledge but may not have been considered visible experts before. Identifying these individuals is an important first step but recognition alone is not enough.

Mobilizing expertise marketing requires support and investment from leadership across the organization. Senior leaders will want to understand the value of elevating internal expertise and how it contributes to reputation, visibility and opportunity.

The organizations that succeed are those that recognize expertise as a strategic asset and take deliberate steps to surface it, support it and share it with the audiences who are actively searching for it.
The Complete Guide to Expertise Marketing For a comprehensive look at how expertise marketing benefits the entire organization and drives measurable return on investment, follow the link below to download an industry-focussed copy of ExpertFile’s Complete Guide to Expertise Marketing: The Next Wave in Digital Strategy 

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How to Make Your Experts “AI-Ready"

Why you need an LLMs.txt file to go with your SEO Meta & Schema Data

 AI is changing how people discover expertise. 

Today, journalists, event organizers, researchers, and the public increasingly turn to tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google Search’s AI summaries powered by Gemini. Instead of clicking through pages of links, they expect clear, credible answers—often delivered instantly, with citations.

That shift has major implications for organizations.

It’s no longer enough for your experts to “rank well.”
They need to be understood, trusted, and accurately represented by AI systems. So the real question becomes:

When AI talks about your experts, does it get it right? This is where LLMs.txt plays an important role—especially when paired with an ExpertFile-powered Expert Center.

 What is LLMs.txt (In Plain English)? ...and why is it essential for expert content LLMs.txt is a small, machine-readable file placed on your organization’s website—in the case of your expert content alongside your main Expert Center. Its purpose is simple:
to explain your expertise to AI systems clearly and unambiguously. “AI systems don’t just scan for keywords; they look for clear meaning, consistent context, and clean formatting — precise, structured language makes it easier for AI to classify your content as relevant.”  Microsoft: Optimizing Your Content for Inclusion in AI Search Answers  Rather than forcing AI to infer meaning from scattered pages, LLMs.txt explicitly tells systems:

Who your experts are Which pages represent official, curated content How expert profiles differ from articles, Q&A, or research content How your organization’s expertise should be interpreted as a whole  Think of it as a table of contents and usage guide for AI —helping large language models understand your site the way a communications professional would.

 Why This Matters for Visibility and Trust It Establishes Your Organization as the Source of Truth AI systems routinely synthesize information from multiple places. Without guidance, they may rely on outdated bios, scraped content, or secondary references.

LLMs.txt provides a clear signal:

This is our official expert content. This is what represents us. For ExpertFile clients, this matters because the platform already centralizes and curates expert content—from profiles and directories to Spotlights and Expert Q&A—ensuring that what AI sees is current, governed, and institutionally endorsed.

The result: Greater accuracy, stronger attribution, and reduced risk of misrepresentation when your experts appear in the ever growing AI-generated overviews and answer.

 ahrefs: AI Overviews Have Doubled  How It Improves Discovery Across AI Platforms It Makes Structured Expertise Easier for AI to Use ExpertFile is purpose-built to publish structured expert content at scale—content that goes well beyond static bios. LLMs.txt simply helps AI recognize and use that structure correctly.

It clarifies the role of key ExpertFile content types, including:

Expert Profiles → Canonical identity, credentials, and areas of expertise Spotlight Posts → Timely commentary, thought leadership, and research insights Expert Q&A → Authoritative answers to real-world questions Directories, Research Bureaus, and Speakers Bureaus → Curated collections of expertise by topic or audience  This makes it easier for AI systems to:

Match your experts to breaking news and trending topics Pull accurate summaries for AI-generated responses Identify the right expert for journalists, event organizers, and researchers  Combined with ExpertFile’s extended distribution through expertfile.com and the ExpertFile Mobile App, your expertise is not only published—but actively discoverable across channels used by key audiences .

 How It Builds Organizational Authority It Connects Individual Experts to Institutional Credibility Without context, AI may treat expert pages as isolated profiles. LLMs.txt helps connect the dots.

It tells AI that:

Your experts are curated and endorsed by the organization Their insights are part of a broader expertise ecosystem Your institution has depth across priority subject areas  This aligns closely with how ExpertFile structures content to support E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust)—not just at the individual level, but across the organization .

The outcome: Your organization is recognized not just as a collection of experts, but as an authoritative source of knowledge.

How It Works with Google, Gemini, and AI Search Supports AI Summaries, Citations, and Knowledge Panels  LLMs.txt helps ensure that when Google’s AI:

Summarizes your organization Cites expert commentary Builds “about this topic” panels  …it draws from your official, structured ExpertFile content, rather than fragmented third-party sources.

This complements ExpertFile’s existing SEO and AI-discoverability foundation, which includes clean code, proper meta data, schema markup, and frequent crawling by both search engines and AI bots.

 How LLMS.txt Fits with SEO, Meta Tags, and Schema  LLMS.txt doesn’t replace SEO—it builds on it. Traditional SEO elements such as page titles, meta descriptions, schema.org markup, and internal linking remain essential for helping search engines index and rank your content.

ExpertFile already delivers these fundamentals out of the box, continually testing and evolving SEO and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) standards as search changes .

“Semantic SEO helps search engines understand context... it now helps bridge a critical gap between traditional SEO and newer generative engine optimization (GEO) and AI optimization (AIO) efforts.”  Search Engine Land: Semantic SEO: How to optimize for meaning over keywords  LLMS.txt adds a layer designed specifically for AI systems: Schema explains individual pages LLMs.txt explains your entire expertise ecosystem  In simple terms: SEO helps your content get found LLMs.txt helps AI understand, summarize, and cite it correctly  Together, they ensure your experts are not only visible—but accurately represented wherever AI is shaping discovery.

 Why This Is Especially Powerful on ExpertFile  ExpertFile was designed to future-proof expert visibility—offering structured publishing, governance, distribution, inquiry management, analytics, and professional services as part of a continuously evolving SaaS platform .

LLMS.txt acts as a multiplier on that foundation:

Turning your Expert Center into a machine-readable expertise hub Strengthening AI discovery without adding operational burden Supporting emerging use cases like automated expert matching and AI-assisted research  It’s not about chasing new technology.

It’s about ensuring your expertise is clearly defined, properly attributed, and trusted—now and in the future.

 The Takeaway  An LLMs.txt file on your ExpertFile organization page helps ensure that:

Your experts are found by AI tools, not overlooked Your content is interpreted correctly, not flattened or misrepresented Your organization earns authority and trust in AI summaries, citations, and search results  “AI search isn’t eliminating organic traffic. But it is reducing visits to source websites… Measure presence (citations, mentions) alongside traffic to see real impact.” Semrush: AI Search Trends for 2026 & How You Can Adapt  As AI becomes the front door to information, LLMs.txt helps make sure that when people ask for expertise, your organization is the answer they get. 

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ChatGPT-5.2 Now Achieves “Expert-Level” Performance — Is this the Holiday Gift Research Communications Professionals Needed?

With OpenAI’s latest release, GPT-5.2, AI has crossed an important threshold in performance on professional knowledge-work benchmarks. Peter Evans, Co-Founder & CEO of ExpertFile, outlines how these technologies will fundamentally improve research communications and shares tips and prompts for PR pros.  OpenAI has just launched GPT-5.2, describing it as its most capable AI model  yet for professional knowledge work — with significantly improved accuracy on tasks like creating spreadsheets, building presentations, interpreting images, and handling complex multistep workflows. And based on our internal testing, we're really impressed.

 For communications professionals in higher education, non-profits, and R&D-focused industries, this isn’t just another tech upgrade — it’s a meaningful step forward in addressing the “research translation gap” that can slow storytelling and media outreach.

According to OpenAI, GPT-5.2﻿ represents measurable gains on benchmarks designed to mirror real work tasks.  In many evaluations, it matches or exceeds the performance of human professionals.

Also, before you hit reply with “Actually, the best model is…” — yes, we know. ChatGPT-5.2 isn’t the only game in town, and it’s definitely not the only tool we use. Our ExpertFile platform uses AI throughout, and I personally bounce between Claude 4.5, Gemini, Perplexity, NotebookLM, and more specialized models depending on the job to be done. LLM performance right now is a full-contact horserace — today’s winner can be tomorrow’s “remember when,” so we’re not trying to boil the ocean with endless comparisons. We’re spotlighting GPT-5.2 because it marks a meaningful step forward in the exact areas research comms teams care about: reliability, long-document work, multi-step tasks, and interpreting visuals and data. 

Most importantly, we want this info in your hands because a surprising number of comms pros we meet still carry real fear about AI — and long term, that’s not a good thing. Used responsibly, these tools can help you translate research faster, find stronger story angles, and ship more high-quality work without burning out.

When "Too Much" AI Power Might Be Exactly What You Need  AI expert Allie K. Miller's candid but positive review of an early testing version of ChatGPT 5.2 highlights what she sees as drawbacks for casual users: "outputs that are too long, too structured, and too exhaustive."  She goes on to say that in her tests, she observed that ChatGPT-5,2 "stays with a line of thought longer and pushes into edge cases instead of skating on the surface."

 

 Fair enough.

All good points that Allie Miller makes (see above).  However, for communications professionals, these so-called "downsides" for casual users are precisely the capabilities we need. When you're assessing complex research and developing strategic messaging for a variety of important audiences, you want an AI that fits Miller's observation that GPT-5.2 feels like "AI as a serious analyst" rather than "a friendly companion." 

That's not a critique of our world—it's a job description for comms pros working in sectors like higher education and healthcare. Deep research tools that refuse to take shortcuts are exactly what research communicators need.    So let's talk more specifically about how comms pros can think about these new capabilities:

1. AI is Your New Speed-Reading Superpower for Research That means you can upload an entire NIH grant, a full clinical trial protocol, or a complex environmental impact study and ask the model to highlight where key insights — like an unexpected finding — are discussed. It can do this in a fraction of the time it would take a human reader.

This isn’t about being lazy. It’s about using AI to assemble a lot of tedious  information you need to craft compelling stories while teams still parse dense text manually.  2. The Chart Whisperer You’ve Been Waiting For We’ve all been there — squinting at a graph of scientific data that looks like abstract art, waiting for the lead researcher to clarify what those error bars actually mean.

Recent improvements in how GPT-5.2 handles scientific figures and charts show stronger performance on multimodal reasoning tasks, indicating better ability to interpret and describe visual information like graphs and diagrams. 

With these capabilities, you can unlock the data behind visuals and turn them into narrative elements that resonate with audiences.  3. A Connection Machine That Finds Stories Where Others See Statistics Great science communication isn’t about dumbing things down — it’s about building bridges between technical ideas and the broader public.

GPT-5.2 shows notable improvements in abstract reasoning compared with earlier versions, based on internal evaluations on academic reasoning benchmarks. 

For example, teams working on novel materials science or emerging health technologies can use this reasoning capability to highlight connections between technical results and real-world impact — something that previously required hours of interpretive work.

These gains help the AI spot patterns and relationships that can form the basis of compelling storytelling.  4. Accuracy That Gives You More Peace of Mind...When Coupled With Human Oversight Let’s address the elephant in the room: AI hallucinations.

You’ve probably heard the horror stories — press releases that cited a study that didn’t exist, or a “quote” that was never said by an expert.

GPT-5.2 has meaningfully reduced error rates compared with its predecessor, by a substantial margin, according to OpenAI 

Even with all these improvements, human review with your experts and careful editing remain essential, especially for anything that will be published or shared externally.  5. The Speed Factor: When “Urgent” Actually Means Urgent With the speed of media today, being second often means being irrelevant.  GPT-5.2’s performance on workflow-oriented evaluations suggests it can synthesize information far more quickly than manual review, freeing up a lot more time for strategic work.  

While deeper reasoning and longer contexts — the kinds of tasks that matter most in research translation — require more processing time and costs continue to improve. 

Savvy communications teams will adopt a tiered approach: using faster models of AI for simple tasks such as social posts and routine responses, and using reasoning-optimized settings for deep research.   Your Action Plan: The GPT-5.2 Playbook for Comms Pros  Here’s a tactical checklist to help your team capitalize on these advances.

#1 Select the Right AI Model for the Job: Lowers time and costs • Use fast, general configurations for routine content
• Use reasoning-optimized configurations for complex synthesis and deep document understanding
• Use higher-accuracy configurations for high-stakes projects

#2 Find Hidden Ideas Beyond the Abstract: Deeper Reasoning Models do  the Heavy Work • Upload complete PDFs — not just the 2-page summary you were given
• Use deeper reasoning configurations to let the model work through the material

Try these prompts in ChatGPT5.2 “What exactly did the researchers say about this unexpected discovery that would be of interest to my <target audience>? Provide quotes and page references where possible.”

“Identify and explain the research methodology used in this study, with references to specific sections.”

“Identify where the authors discuss limitations of the study.”

“Explain how this research may lead to further studies or real-world benefits, in terms relatable to a general audience.”


#3 Unlock Your Story  Leverage improvements in pattern recognition and reasoning.

Try these prompts: “Using abstract reasoning, find three unexpected analogies that explain this complex concept to a general audience.”

“What questions could the researchers answer in an interview that would help us develop richer story angles?”


#4 Change the Way You Write Captions Take advantage of the way ChatGPT-5.2 translates processes and reasons about images, charts, diagrams, and other visuals far more effectively.

  
Try these prompts: Clinical Trial Graphs: “Analyze this uploaded trial results graph upload image. Identify key trends, and comparisons to controls, then draft a 150-word donor summary with plain-language explanations and suggested captions suitable for donor communications.”

Medical Diagrams: “Interpret these uploaded images. Extract diagnostic insights, highlight innovations, and generate a patient-friendly explainer: bullet points plus one visual caption.”
	

A Word of Caution: Keep Experts in the Loop to Verify Information Even with improved reliability, outputs should be treated as drafts.  If your team does not yet have formal AI use policies, it's time to get started, because governance will be critical as AI use scales in 2026 and beyond.  

A trust-but-verify policy with experts treats AI as a co-pilot — helpful for heavy lifting — while humans remain accountable for approval and publication.    The Importance of Humans (aka The Good News)  Remember: the future of research communication isn’t about AI taking over — it’s about AI empowering us to do the strategic, human work that machines cannot.

That includes:
	•	Building relationships across your institution
	•	Engaging researchers in storytelling
	•	Discovering narrative opportunities
	•	Turning discoveries into compelling narratives that influence audiences

With improvements in speed, reasoning, and reliability, the question isn’t whether AI can help — it’s what research stories you’ll uncover next to shape public understanding and impact.



FAQ  How is AI changing expectations for accuracy in research and institutional communications?  AI is shifting expectations from “fast output” to defensible accuracy. Better reasoning means fewer errors in research summaries, policy briefs, and expert content—especially when you’re working from long PDFs, complex methods, or dense results. The new baseline is: clear claims, traceable sources, and human review before publishing.
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Why does deeper AI reasoning matter for communications teams working with experts and research content?  Comms teams translate multi-disciplinary research into messaging that must withstand scrutiny. Deeper reasoning helps AI connect findings to real-world relevance, flag uncertainty, and maintain nuance instead of flattening meaning. The result is work that’s easier to defend with media, leadership, donors, and the public—when paired with expert verification.
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When should communications professionals use advanced AI instead of lightweight AI tools?  Use lightweight tools for brainstorming, social drafts, headlines, and quick rewrites. Use advanced, reasoning-optimized AI for high-stakes deliverables: executive briefings, research positioning, policy-sensitive messaging, media statements, and anything where a mistake could create reputational, compliance, or scientific credibility risk. Treat advanced AI as your “analyst,” not your autopilot.
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How can media relations teams use AI to find stronger story angles beyond the abstract?  AI can scan full papers, grants, protocols, and appendices to surface where the real story lives: unexpected findings, practical implications, limitations, and unanswered questions that prompt great interviews. Ask it to map angles by audience (public, policy, donors, clinicians) and to point to the exact sections that support each angle.

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How should higher-ed comms teams use AI without breaking embargoes or media timing?  AI can speed prep work—backgrounders, Q&A, lay summaries, caption drafts—before embargo lifts. The rule is simple: treat embargoed material like any sensitive document. Use approved tools, restrict sharing, and avoid pasting embargoed text into unapproved systems. Use AI to build assets early, then finalize post-approval at release time.

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What’s the best way to keep faculty “in the loop” while still moving fast with AI?  Use AI to produce review-friendly drafts that reduce load on researchers: short summaries, suggested quotes clearly marked as drafts, and a checklist of claims needing verification (numbers, methods, limitations). Then route to the expert with specific questions, not a wall of text. This keeps approvals faster while protecting scientific accuracy and trust.

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How should teams handle charts, figures, and visual data in research communications?  AI can turn “chart confusion” into narrative—if you prompt for precision. Ask it to identify trends, group comparisons, and what the figure does not show (limitations, missing context). Then verify with the researcher, especially anything involving significance, controls, effect size, or causality. Use the output to write captions that are accurate and accessible.
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Do we need an AI Use policy in comms and media relations—and what should it include?  Yes—because adoption scales faster than risk awareness. A practical policy should define: approved tools, what data is restricted, required human review steps, standards for citing sources/page references, rules for drafting quotes, and escalation paths for sensitive topics (health, legal, crisis). Clear guardrails reduce fear and prevent preventable reputational mistakes.


If you’re using AI to move faster on research translation, the next bottleneck is usually the same one for many PR and Comm Pros: making your experts more discoverable in Generative Search, your website, and other media. ExpertFile helps media relations and digital teams organize their expert content by topics, keep detailed profiles current, and respond faster to source requests—so you can boost your AI citations and land more coverage with less work.                                             For more information visit us at www.expertfile.com  

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University Communications Needs a Bigger Role in the Research Conversation

Because the Public Doesn't Care About Your Altmetrics Scores

 While attending the Expert Finder Systems International Forum (EFS), several notable themes emerged for me over the 2-day event. It's clear that many universities are working hard to improve their reputation by demonstrating the real-world impact of their research to the public and to funders, but it's proving to be a challenging task - even for the largest R1 universities.  Many of these challenges stem from how institutions have traditionally organized their research functions, management systems, and performance metrics.  Engaging faculty researchers in this process remains a significant challenge, despite the need for rapid transformation. 

While this EFS conference was very well-organized and the speakers delivered a great deal of useful information, I appeared to be one of the few marketing and communications professionals in a room full of research leaders, administrative staff, librarians, and IT professionals. There's a certain irony to this, as I observe the same phenomenon at HigherEd marketing conferences, which often lack representation from research staff.  My point is this.

We can't build better platforms, policies, and processes that amplify the profile of research without breaking down silos.  We need University Communications to be much more involved in this process.   As Baruch Fischhoff, a renowned scholar at Carnegie Mellon University, notes:

Bridging the gap between scientists and the public “requires an unnatural act: collaboration among experts from different communities” – but when done right, it benefits everyone.   But first, let's dive in a little more into RIM's and Expert Finder Systems for context.

What are Research Information Systems (RIMs)  Research Information Management systems (aka Expert Finder Systems) are the digital backbone that tracks everything researchers do. Publications, grants, collaborations, patents, speaking engagements. Think of them as massive databases that universities use to catalog their intellectual output and demonstrate their research capacity.  These systems matter. They inform faculty promotion decisions, support strategic planning and grant applications, and increasingly, they're what institutions point to when asked to justify their existence to funders, accreditors, and the public.

But here's the problem: most RIM systems were designed by researchers, for researchers, during an era when academic reputation was the primary currency. The game has fundamentally changed, and our systems haven't caught up. Let's explore this further.

Academic Research Impact: The New Pressure Cooker  Research departments across the country are under intense pressure to demonstrate impact—fast. State legislators want to see economic benefits from university research. Federal agencies are demanding clearer public engagement metrics. Donors want stories, not statistics. And the general public? They're questioning whether their tax dollars are actually improving their lives.

Yet some academics are still asking, “Why should I simplify my research? Doesn’t the public already trust that this is important?” In a word, no – at least, not like they used to. Communicators must navigate a landscape where public trust in science and academia is not a given.  The data shows that there's a lot of work to be done.

Trust in science has declined and it's also polarized:. According to a Nov. 2024 Pew Research study, 88% of Democrats vs. 66% of Republicans have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists; overall views have not returned to pre-pandemic highs and many Americans are wary of scientists’ role in policymaking.

While Public trust in higher education has declined, Americans see universities having a central role in innovation. While overall confidence in higher education has been falling over the past decade, a recent report by Gallup Research shows innovation scores highest as an area where higher education helps generate  positive outcomes. 

 

 Communication is seen as an area of relative weakness for scientists. Overall, 45% of U.S. adults describe research scientists as good communicators, according to a November 2024 Pew Research Study. Another critique many Americans hold is the sense that research scientists feel superior to others; 47% say this phrase describes them well.

 The traditional media ecosystem has faltered:. While many of these issues are largely due to research being caught in a tide of political polarization fueled by a significant rise in misinformation and disinformation on social media, traditional media have faced serious challenges.  Newsrooms have shrunk, and specialized science journalists are a rare breed outside major outlets. Local newspapers – once a reliable venue for highlighting state university breakthroughs or healthcare innovations – have been severely impacted. The U.S. has lost over 3,300 newspapers since 2005, with closures continuing and more than 7,000 newspaper jobs vanished between 2022 and 2023  according to a Northwestern University Medill Report on Local News. Competition for coverage is fierce, and your story really needs to shine to grab a journalist's attention – or you need to find alternative ways to reach audiences directly. 

 

The Big Message These Trends are Sending  We can’t just assume goodwill – universities have to earn trust through clear, relatable communication.  Less money means more competition and more scrutiny on outcomes. That's why communications teams play a pivotal role here: by conveying the impact of research to the public and decision-makers, they help build the case for why cuts to science are harmful.

Remember, despite partisan divides, a strong majority – 78% of Americans – still agree government investment in scientific research is worthwhile. We need to keep it that way.
But there's still a lot of work to do.


The Audience Mismatch Problem  The public doesn't care about your Altmetrics score. The policymakers I meet don't get excited about journal impact factors. Donors want to fund solutions to problems they understand, not citations in journals they'll never read. 

Yet our expert systems are still designed around these traditional academic metrics because that's what the people building them understand. It's not their fault—but it's created a blind spot.

"Impact isn't just journal articles anymore," one EFS conference panelist explained. "It's podcasts, blogs, media mentions, datasets, even the community partnerships we build." But walk into most research offices, and those broader impacts are either invisible in the system or buried under layers of academic jargon that external audiences can't penetrate. Expert systems have traditionally been primarily focused on academic audiences. They're brilliant at tracking h-Index scores, citation counts, and journal impact factors. But try to use them to show a state legislator how your agriculture research is helping local farmers, or explain to a donor how your engineering faculty is solving real-world problems? There's still work to do here.

As one frustrated speaker put it: "These systems have become compliance-driven, inward-looking tools. They help administrators, but they don't help the public understand why research matters.   The Science Translation Crisis  Perhaps the most sobering observation came from another EFS Conference speaker who said it very plainly. 

"If we can't explain our work in plain language, we lose taxpayers. We lose the community. They don't see themselves in what we do."  However, this feels more like a communication problem masquerading as a technology issue. We've built systems that speak fluent academic, but the audiences we need to reach speak human. When research descriptions are buried in jargon, when impact metrics are incomprehensible to lay audiences, when success stories require a PhD to understand—we're actively pushing away the very people we need to engage.


The AI Disruption Very Few Saw Coming  Yes, AI, like everywhere else, is fast making its mark on how research gets discovered. One impassioned speaker representing a university system described this new reality: 

"We are entering an age where no one needs to click on content. AI systems will summarize and cite without ever sending the traffic back."  Think about what this means for a lot of faculty research. If it's not structured for both AI discovery and human interaction, your world-class faculty might as well be invisible. Increasingly,  you will see that search traffic isn't coming back to your beautifully designed university pages—instead, it's being "synthesized" and served up in AI-generated summaries.  I've provided a more detailed overview of how AI-generated summaries work in a previous post here. Keep in mind, this isn't a technical problem that IT can solve alone. It's a fundamental communications challenge about how we structure, present, and distribute information about our expertise.

Faculty Fatigue is Real   Meanwhile, many faculty are experiencing serious challenges managing busy schedules and mounting responsibilities.  As another EFS panelist commented on the challenges of engaging faculty in reporting and communicating their research, saying, "Many faculty see this work as duplicative.  It's another burden on top of what they already have. Without clear incentives, adoption will always lag."

Faculty researchers are busy people.  They will engage with these internal systems when they see direct benefits. Media inquiries, speaking opportunities, consulting gigs, policy advisory roles—the kind of external visibility that advances careers and amplifies research impact.  And they require more support than many institutions can provide. 

Yet, many universities have just one or two people trying to manage thousands of profiles, with no clear strategy for demonstrating how tasks such as profile updates and helping approve media releases and stories translate into tangible opportunities. In short, we're asking faculty to feed a system that feels like it doesn't feed them back.  Breaking Down the Silos  Which brings me to my main takeaway: we need more marketing and communications professionals in these conversations. The expert systems community is focused on addressing many of the technical challenges—data integration, workflow optimization, and new metadata standards — as AI transforms how we conduct research. But they're wrestling with fundamental communication challenges about audience, messaging, and impact storytelling.

That's the uncomfortable truth. The systems are evolving whether we participate or not. The public pressure for accountability isn't going away. Comms professionals can either help shape these systems to serve critical communications goals or watch our expertise get lost in translation.  ⸻

Key Takeaways  Get Closer to Your Research: This involves having a deeper understanding of the management systems you use across the campus.  How is your content appearing to external audiences? —not just research administrators, but the journalists, policymakers, donors, and community members we're trying to reach. 

Don't Forget The Importance of Stories: Push for plain-language research descriptions without unnecessarily "dumbing down" the research.  Show how the work your faculty is doing can create real-world benefits at a local community level.  Also, demonstrate how it has the potential to address global issues, further enhancing your authority.  And always be on the lookout for story angles that connect the research to relevant news, adding value for journalists.

Structure Expert Content for AI Discoverability: Audit your content to see how it's showing up on key platforms such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT.  Show faculty how keeping their information fresh and relevant translates to career opportunities they actually care about.

Show Up at These Research Events: Perhaps most importantly, communications pros need to be part of these conversations. Next year's International Forum on Expert Finder Systems needs more communications professionals, marketing strategists, and storytelling experts in the room. The research leaders, administrators and IT professionals you will meet have a lot of challenges on their plate and want to do the right thing.  They will appreciate your input.

These systems are being rapidly redesigned - Whether you're part of the conversation or not.   The question is: do we want to influence how they serve our institutions' communications goals, or do we want to inherit systems that work brilliantly for academic audiences but get a failing grade for helping us serve the public?




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5 Reasons "Expertise Marketing" Programs Fail.

  As a company dedicated to “Expertise Marketing” we work with some of the largest organizations from higher education and healthcare, to top global corporate brands.   What these organizations have in common are smart, educated professionals…and a lot of them. The types of individuals that would be valuable ambassadors, true thought leaders, helping you deliver on your organization’s reputational and revenue goals.   

Instinctively marketing and communications teams recognize the intrinsic value of this human capital and have created a variety of “Thought Leadership” and “Expert Marketing and Directory”  initiatives.  The overriding objective is how to best connect their experts to audiences that matter. Seeking opportunities ranging from acting as media sources to event speakers to providing a valuable entry-point for research and business collaboration, even lead generation.   To execute on this goal, one of the most effective approaches, and starting points for any expertise marketing program starts with better profiling their experts and related insights on their website.  Building out and leveraging this expert content is at the core of most expertise marketing efforts.

Despite the promises these web initiatives offer, most programs don’t deliver organizations the results they were hoping for.  Success most often has nothing to do with how smart your people are.  Some of the largest organizations with deep rosters of expertise fail where smaller organizations consistently punch above their weight.  When creating an expertise presence on your website there are important areas to consider. The following represents the top 5 reasons many expertise marketing programs fail and how to maximize your success. 


Reason #1  You’re missing critical team members  There is no “going it alone” when starting a program like this.  Having the following individuals onboard at the start is crucial. Don't worry, these aren't all full-time resources by any means.  As your program progresses, these individuals may come in and out in terms of importance, but having access to them over the lifetime of your program will positively impact your success.  At the core, you need access to the following individuals.

Program Champion -  Having a senior leader as a champion is pretty much table stakes for any successful company-wide initiative such as this.  Someone who can articulate to others, both up and down in the organization as to how this initiative fits into the broader long-term goals of the organization is imperative.  Failure to establish this individual upfront puts your program's future at the whim of shifting priorities and budget cuts.  Marketing/Communications - You need someone with ongoing responsibility for maintaining and promoting your roster of experts and their content.  This ensures  your most relevant experts are showcased at the right time to meet the changing  demands of your audiences and the news cycle.  Digital/Web - You need someone with the keys to the website/CMS.  Ensure you have connections to people who control not only your small area of the website such as a newsroom or department level webpages but also those that have access to the layouts and navigation of the broader website.  The latter is important as it helps prevent your expert content from combing  isolated and disconnected from the rest of your website.  IT - The level of involvement of IT is highly dependent on how you’re looking to implement your expert content on your website. By leveraging a variety of content implementation tools from simple "cut and paste" embeds to WordPress plugins you can severely limit the necessity to involve IT.  However, depending on your budget and goals, IT can leverage  a platform's API, accessing advanced layouts and functionality, including integrating with other systems your organization may already be using.  Engaged Experts -  Last but not least, having your experts on board is critical. By properly communicating upfront and ongoing with your experts around the goals of the program, you're helping ensure your content  best represents the talents that lie within.  We realize it is often difficult and sometimes cost-prohibitive to assemble such a team.  It is important if you don’t have access to all these members in-house that you access them through an external partner's professional services offerings. This could include assisting with building out content such as profiles and posts or providing technical assistance in integrating this content into your website.
 Reason #2  You’re relying too much on IT for implementation or updating.  To be successful long term, it is important that key owners of the expertise marketing program feel empowered to take control of their expert content.  From creation to ongoing management, those with marketing communications roles and others closest to their organization’s expertise need the flexibility to update content  in real-time to remain relevant and up-to-date.  

Being able to quickly log into an external platform that syncs content with your website is key.  It eliminates the need for special access to your CMS or the possible requirement for IT to be in control of your updates. It also allows for a mix of individual expert and administrator access providing the highest level of flexibility. 

 Often left out in IT-focused builds is how you will effectively handle inquiries.  Simply showing emails and phone numbers is a recipe for missed opportunities (and SPAM) as these experts are some of the most time-constrained individuals in your organization.  Ensuring you have access to a customizable workflow feature is essential in ensuring your organization doesn't miss potential time-sensitive inquiries.  

When working with IT to implement an Expertise Marketing Program on your website, you will often be presented with a “we’ll build it for you option” vs using a purpose-built platform.  Understanding the tradeoffs of this approach is critical.  One of the greatest benefits of using a SaaS platform, besides costs, is that you constantly have the most up-to-date software, with the latest features and functionality to best showcase your expertise.  To learn more, download the “True Costs of DIY” to better understand the tradeoffs and functional requirements needed for success.
 Reason #3  Your expert content is siloed, one-dimensional, and rarely updated.  This is by far one of the biggest reasons programs fail.  Well, it's actually a number of reasons, but it all relates back to  how your content will be perceived and ultimately drive connections with interested audiences.  By addressing the following you'll present not only better but more easily discoverable expert content that drives inquiries.
  

You have boring, not engaging profiles for your experts - Before people feel comfortable reaching out they need a good sense of the person.  Profiles that lack media assets such as video, publications and even podcasts are one-dimensional.   Furthermore, showcasing past media and event appearances provides an enhanced level of credibility.  Focused solely on a directory & profiles - Your expertise is more than just showcased through a profile found in a directory.  Adding long-form posts where experts can share their insights and even expert focussed Q&A (download report on "The Power of Q&A") provides audiences additional ways to connect with your experts.  Ensuring all these additional assets connect back to your profiles  provides more insight into the person behind the expertise.  No main website navigation - Despite adding menu navigation on a specific web page, such as a newsroom or About Us page, most organizations neglect to add navigation to their main website’s menu structure.  You can never assume visitors will know where this content resides.  We recommend multiple links in both headers and footers to your expert content. Names such as “Find Experts”, “Media Sources” or “Research Experts” are some of the most common, accessible from overall menu items like “About Us”, “News” or “Research”.  Expert content stuck to one small area of your website - If you restrict your expert content to just one area, you’re just making discovery that much harder and limiting exposing the breadth of expertise you have in-house.  Highlight your experts and expertise on your homepage or in key sections of your website.  Refine your experts and their insights found in posts or Q&A by tagging them based on specific topics and showcasing just those experts in various areas of your website.  Using a dedicated SaaS platform means that when you update content it updates everywhere, making changes quick and easy.  Expert content never gets updated - This is a big issue for organizations that build in-house or through their CMS.  Visitors can quickly understand that the content isn’t fresh and it reflects poorly on the individual and the organization as a whole.  The key to ensuring content is maintained is to provide multiple access capabilities where admins (internal or external) and the experts can maintain the content.  Failure to respond in a timely manner to inquiries - Displaying content that exposes phone numbers and emails of your experts is not the best approach...both from a privacy and timely communications standpoint. Without an advanced inquiry workflow that alerts multiple members of your team, you risk missing out on time-sensitive requests such as those from journalists.   Reason #4   You haven’t considered everything needed to win the SEO game.  Building out content on the web without having a plan for how external and internal search engines will interact with your pages is a big mistake.  Organic search can play a big role in discovery leading to valuable opportunities.  Before you consider your new expert  content pages ready, ensure you've taken into account the following.  

Proper Meta Data - Do your expert profile pages have dynamically created titles, descriptions and keywords that automatically adjust to changes in areas such as an individual's expertise?  Schema Data - Do you have proper schema tags that indicate to Google and other search engines  the type of content displayed as well as the credibility of both the individual and organization behind it.  Sitemaps -  Have you ensured all your pages have been added to your sitemap. Is it automatically updated when new experts or pieces of expert content are added?  Google Search Console - Are you pushing pages directly to Google by requesting important new content is updated in the search index.  For more info on better SEO read my Spotlight  "Why Expertise Ranks Higher".  Reason #5   You’re not doing enough to actively promote your expertise… a “they’ll just find us” approach usually fails.  It's like owning a Porsche and leaving it in the garage…pretty to look at but you’re not realizing its full potential.  Simply putting your expert content on a web page is only the start.  Successful organizations actively distribute these assets, sharing links to profiles and other content elements like news posts or Q&A in a variety of ways.    

Social Media Channels - They start by promoting these assets on their social media channels, from their Twitter feeds to Facebook and LinkedIn posts.  Media Distribution Software - Whether it is systems like Cision or Meltwater, including links to expert profiles and related content when reaching out to journalists adds a layer of depth to your pitches.  Press Releases - Every time you reference your organization's expertise, include links to additional content and individual experts for more insights and pathways to connect with real people.   It sounds like a lot, but with a bit of planning and some ongoing maintenance, a properly constructed expertise marketing program can deliver incredible results for many years.  To be successful it's more than just firing up a few new web pages.  However, with the advent of specialized platforms specifically designed for these programs, and a bit of guidance, it is easier than ever to create an expert content footprint on your website and deliver valuable connections for your organization.  





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Why Your Experts Might Not Show Up in Google AI Overviews — And How to Fix It

  The way we find expert information online is changing fast. With the rise of Google’s AI-generated overviews (formerly called Search Generative Experience), the top spot on the search page no longer goes to the highest-ranking blue link. Instead, AI now summarizes answers using a blend of machine learning, structured data, and trust signals—pulling directly from a variety of select sources across the web.

If  institutions—whether academic, healthcare,  corporate or others—aren't aligning its expert content with these new rules of discovery, your experts may be left out of the conversation altogether.  Don't miss being featured in media stories, invited to speak at events, or approached for business and collaboration opportunities.

This is the moment to double down on structured data and transparent authorship—because AI-first search is rewarding expert clarity, not just content volume.  The following provides a quick breakdown as to how AI Search, Google’s EEAT principles, and Schema.org structured data work together—and what you can do to ensure your expert content...and your experts, gets surfaced, cited, and trusted.
  What Is EEAT and Why It Matters in AI Search  EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness—the core framework Google uses to evaluate whether content is reliable and deserves to rank, especially in high-stakes areas like health, education, and finance.
 In AI-powered summaries, Google doesn’t just look at keywords—it looks for:

Real people with demonstrable credentials Clear affiliations with reputable institutions Consistent authorship and transparency Trust signals like citations, bios, and professional history  EEAT in Action:  Why Schema Markup Is Your AI SEO Power Tool EEAT signals work best when they’re machine-readable—that’s where Schema.org structured data comes in. It acts as a translator between your content and Google’s AI. 

Schema tags are pieces of structured data that help search engines understand the content and context of your web pages. They translate human-readable information—like author names, job titles, and article types—into machine-readable signals that boost visibility AI overviews and search results. Implementing Schema helps ensure your expert content is eligible for inclusion in AI overviews. Key schema types include:

{Person} – for expert bios {ScholarlyArticle}, {Article}, {FAQ} – for authored content {Organization}, {MedicalOrganization}, {EducationalOrganization} – to establish credibility {sameAs} – to reinforce expertise by connecting external profiles (LinkedIn, ORCID, Google Scholar)  Schema in Action:  AI Overviews Favor Structured, Credible Expert Content  Google’s AI overviews are designed to synthesize trustworthy sources—not just surface-level blog posts or SEO-churned pages. That means expert content that is:

Authored by named individuals with clear credentials Structured for readability and machine parsing Linked to institutional authority and trust domains  If your experts don’t meet these criteria—or if Google’s crawlers can’t understand the relationships between person, organization, and content—your insights may never reach the surface of the AI summary box.

 How ExpertFile Optimizes for AI-Driven Search AI search is no longer just about keywords—it’s about credibility, structure, and clarity. Institutions that invest in properly structured expert content will not only rank better—they’ll become the source quoted in the next generation of search. ExpertFile is purpose-built to maximize visibility and trust in this new era of AI search. Here’s how:

Structured Expert Profiles: Every expert has a dedicated page with rich Person schema, bios, credentials, affiliations, and publication history. Schema-Tagged Content: Articles, media spotlights, and FAQs are marked up using Schema.org types like ScholarlyArticle, FAQPage, and Article. Institutional Credibility: Profiles are embedded within .edu, .org, or corporate domains—reinforcing trust with Google’s algorithms. Cross-Linked Authority: Integration with Google Scholar, LinkedIn, and ORCID ensures a 360° trust profile across the web. Mobile-Ready & Indexed: ExpertFile content is fully indexable and distributed across web and mobile platforms—supporting discoverability everywhere AI pulls from.  With ExpertFile, your experts are not just listed—they’re positioned, structured, and ready for the AI spotlight. Learn more about how ExpertFile helps organization's benefit in the new era of AI.


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Google's New AI Overviews Isn’t Just Another Search Update

It’s a Massive Wake-Up Call for the PR Industry

Google's recent rollout of AI Overviews (previously called “Search Generative Experience”) at its annual developer conference is being hailed as the biggest transformation in search since the company was founded. 

This isn’t a side project for Google — it fundamentally alters how content gets discovered, consumed, and valued online. If you're in marketing, PR, content strategy, or run a business that depends on online visibility, this requires a fundamental shift in your thinking.

What Is AI Overviews?  Instead of showing users a familiar list of blue links and snippets, Google now uses artificial intelligence to generate a summary answer at the very top of many search results pages. This AI-generated box pulls together content from across the web and tries to answer the user’s question instantly—without requiring them to click through to individual websites.

Here’s what that looks like:

You type in a question like “What are the best strategies for handling a media crisis?”

Instead of just links, you see a big AI-generated paragraph with summarized strategies, possibly quoting or linking to 3-5 sources—some of which might not even be visible unless you scroll or expand the summary.  Welcome to the new digital gatekeeper.

 Elizabeth Reid, VP of Search at Google states "Our new Gemini model customized for Google Search brings together Gemini’s advanced capabilities — including multi-step reasoning, planning and multimodality — with our best-in-class Search systems.

Let's breakdown this technobabble.

Think of Gemini as the brain behind Google’s search engine that’s now:

Even More Focused on User intent  For years, SEO strategies were built around guessing and gaming the right keywords: “What exact phrase are people typing into Google?” That approach led to over-optimized content — pages stuffed with phrases like “best expert speaker Boston cleantech” — written more for algorithms than actual humans.  But with Google Gemini and other AI models now interpreting search queries like a smart research assistant, the game has changed entirely.  Google is no longer just matching phrases — it’s interpreting what the user wants to do and why they’re asking.

Here’s What That Looks Like: Let’s say someone searches:

“How do I find a reputable expert on fusion energy who can speak at our cleantech summit?”

In the old system, pages that mentioned “renewable energy,” “expert,” and “speaker” might rank — regardless of whether they actually helped the user solve their problem.

Now Google more intuitively understands:

	•	The user wants to evaluate credibility
	•	The user is planning an event 
	•	The user needs someone available to speak
	•	The context is likely professional or academic

If your page simply has the right keywords but doesn’t send the right signals — you’re invisible.
	

Able to plan ahead Google and AI search platforms now go beyond just grabbing facts. They string together pieces of information to answer more complex, multi-step queries.  In traditional search, users ask one simple question at a time. But with multi-step queries, users are increasingly expecting one search to handle a series of related questions or tasks all at once — and now Google can actually follow along and reason through those steps.  So imagine you’re planning a conference. A traditional search might look like:

"Best conference venues in Boston” 

But a multi-step query might be: 

“Find a conference venue in Boston with breakout rooms, check availability in October, and suggest nearby hotels with group rates.”

This used to require three or four different searches, and you’d piece it together yourself.
Now Google can handle that entire chain of related tasks, plan the steps behind the scenes, and return a highly curated answer — often pulling from multiple sources of structured and unstructured data.
	

Even Better at understanding context Google now gets the difference between ‘a speaker at a conference’ and ‘a Bluetooth speaker’ — because it understands what you mean, not just what you type.”  In the past, Google would match keywords literally. If your page had the word “speaker,” it might rank for anything from event keynotes to audio gear. That’s why so many search results felt off or required extra digging.

Now Google reads between the lines. It understands that  “conference speaker” likely refers to a person who gives talks, possibly with credentials, experience, and a bio.  And that “Bluetooth speaker” is a product someone might want to compare or buy.

Why this matters for marketers: If you’re relying on vague or generic content — or just “keyword-stuffing” — your pages will fall flat. Google is no longer fooled by superficial matches. It wants depth, clarity, and specificity.

Reads More Than Just Text Google now processes images, videos, charts, infographics, and even audio — and uses that multimedia information to answer search queries more completely.  This now means that your content isn’t just being read like a document — it’s being watched, listened to, and interpreted like a human would.

For example:
	•	A chart showing rising enrollment in nursing programs might get picked up as supporting evidence for a story about healthcare education trends.
	•	A YouTube video of your CEO speaking at a conference might be indexed as proof of thought leadership.
	•	An infographic explaining how your service works could surface in an AI-generated summary — even if the keyword isn’t mentioned directly in text.

Ignoring multimedia formats?  Then, your competitors’ visual storytelling could be outperforming your plain content.  Because you're not giving Google the kind of layered, helpful content that Gemini is now designed to highlight.
Why This Matters  There's a big risk here.  Marketers who ignore these developments are in danger of becoming invisible in search.

Your old SEO tricks won’t work.
Your content won’t appear in AI summaries.
Your organization won’t be discovered by journalists, customers, or partners who now rely on smarter search results to make decisions faster.

If you’re in communications, PR, media relations, or digital marketing, here’s the key message.
You are no longer just fighting for links. You need to fight to be included in the Google AI summary itself at the top of search results - that's the new #1 goal.  Why?

	
Journalists can now find their answers before ever clicking on your beautifully written news page.
Prospective students, donors, and customers will often just see the AI’s version of your content.
Your brand’s visibility now hinges on being seen as “AI-quotable.”

If your organization isn’t optimized for this new AI-driven landscape, you risk becoming invisible at the very moment people are searching for what you offer.

How You Can Take Action (and Why Your Role Is More Important Than Ever)  This isn’t just an IT or SEO problem. It’s a communications strategy opportunity—and you are central to the solution.

What You Can Do Now to Prepare for AI Overviews 1. Get Familiar with How AI “Reads” Your Content AI Overviews pull content from websites that are structured clearly, written credibly, and explain things in simple language.

Action Items: Review your existing content: Is it jargon-heavy? Outdated? Lacking expert quotes or explanations? Then, it's time to clean  house.

2. Collaborate with your SEO and Web Teams Communicators and content creators now need to work hand-in-hand with technical teams.

Action Items: Check your pages to see if you are using proper schema markup.  Are you creating topic pages that explain complex ideas in simple, scannable formats?

3. Showcase Human Expertise AI values content backed by real people—especially experts with credentials.

Action Items: Make sure your expert profiles are up to date.  Make sure you continue to enhance them with posts, links to media coverage, short videos, images and infographics that highlight the voices behind your brand and make you stand out in search.

4. Don’t Just Publish—Package AI favors content that it can easily digest and display such as summary paragraphs, FAQs, and bold headers that provide structure for search engines.  This also makes your content more scannable and engaging to humans.

Action Items: Repurpose your best content into AI-friendly formats: think structured lists, how-tos, and definitions.

5. Monitor Your Presence in AI Overviews Regularly search key topics related to your organization and see what shows up.

Action Items: Is your content featured? If not, whose is—and identify what they doing differently.

 A New Role for Communications: From Media Pitches to Machine-Readable Influence  This isn’t the end of communications as we know it—it’s an evolution. Your role now includes helping your organization communicate clearly to machines as well as to people.

Think of it as “PR for the algorithm.”  You’re not just managing narratives for the public—you’re shaping what AI systems say about you and your brand.   That means:
	•	Ensuring your best ideas and experts are front and center online.
	•	Making complex information simple and quotable.
	•	Collaborating cross-functionally like never before.


Final Thought: AI Search Rewards the Prepared  Google’s new AI Overviews are here. They’re not a beta test. This is the future of search, and it’s already rolling out.

If your institution, company, or nonprofit wants to be discovered, trusted, and quoted, you can no longer afford to ignore how AI interprets your online presence.

Communications and media professionals are now at the front lines of discoverability. And the best way to lead is to act now, work collaboratively, and elevate your role in this new era of search.

Want to see how leading organizations are getting ahead in the age of AI search? Discover how ExpertFile is helping corporations, universities, healthcare institutions and industry associations transform their knowledge into AI-optimized assets — boosting visibility, credibility, and media reach. Get your free download of our app at www.expertfile.com




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The Hidden Power of Invisible Experts

Why Organizations Must Rethink Expertise

 In a fast-moving landscape shaped by AI, hybrid work, and constant information shifts, organizations can’t afford to overlook their own expertise. Yet many still do — because the most valuable voices are often hiding in plain sight. We call them "invisible experts".

These aren’t just the well-known thought leaders or executives quoted in media. They’re the researchers, engineers, clinicians, analysts, and project leads quietly shaping strategy, driving innovation, and influencing outcomes every day. They have deep knowledge, practical insight, and the credibility to build trust — but they’re often left out of the spotlight.

And that’s a problem.

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The Expertise Gap  Many organizations, both corporate and institutional struggle to define what makes someone an “expert”. Without a clear framework, expertise is often equated with job title, seniority, or public visibility. But in reality, expertise is multidimensional. It includes formal education, yes — but also lived experience, community influence, original research, and the ability to explain complex ideas clearly.

If your organization wants to stay competitive, earn media attention, attract speaking engagements, partnerships, or influence your industry, you need a deeper bench of visible expertise. And it starts by identifying who your real experts are — not just the obvious ones.

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 7 Dimensions of Expertise  Here are seven ways to think about expertise beyond the traditional credentials:

Authority – Known as a go-to source in their domain. Advocate – Actively supports and elevates their professional community. Educator – Shares knowledge through teaching, speaking, or mentoring. Author – Publishes original insights or thought leadership content. Researcher – Contributes new data, analysis, or findings in their field. Practitioner – Applies knowledge in real-world contexts daily. Graduate – Has academic or technical training in a focus area.  Not every expert is made for the stage or the media spotlight — and that’s okay. Some are best behind the scenes, helping create compelling content, briefing spokespeople, or surfacing insights from the field. Your job is to recognize the different ways people can contribute and make that part of your strategy.

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Visibility ≠ Seniority  In the era of LinkedIn, personal branding, and AI-powered content, professional visibility is no longer tied to hierarchy. A mid-career professional, with a sharp take on current events might be more discoverable — and more in demand — than a long-tenured exec with little digital presence.

That’s why organizations need to shift from thinking about expertise as a ladder, to thinking of it as an ecosystem. Not every expert wants to build a personal brand, but many are ready to contribute — if they’re supported and recognized.

Here’s the truth: If you don’t tell your story, someone else will. And if you don’t help your experts show up in the right places — search engines, newsrooms, speaker directories, donor meetings — opportunities will go elsewhere.

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Give Your Experts a Digital Home  Even after you've identified your internal experts, the next question is: Where do they live online? Too many organizations treat expert content like an afterthought — scattered across bio pages, outdated PDFs, or buried in press releases. To unlock the real value of your expertise, you need to give it a proper home.

That means:

Expert Profiles that showcase credentials, insights, and media-friendly info Expert Posts that surface their latest research, commentary, and thought leadership Searchable Directories that help media, partners, and the public find the right voice fast Inquiry Management tools that streamline incoming requests and drive results  A centralized platform makes it easier for both internal teams and external audiences to discover, engage, and activate your expertise — whether it’s for media interviews, event invitations, donor conversations, or strategic partnerships.

Without it, you're leaving visibility and value on the table.

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Is Your Organization Ready?  Expertise is one of your most valuable and underutilized assets — but turning it into impact requires more than a list of names. You need to take stock of your internal bench strength, identify the experts who are ready to lead, and invest in the systems that make their voices heard.

Start by asking:

Who in our organization has untapped insight? Who’s already engaging audiences but flying under the radar? What tools, platforms, and support can we provide to amplify them?  Recognizing your invisible experts is just the first step. Giving them a digital home and helping them engage with the right audiences — that’s how you turn knowledge into opportunity. 

Learn more about how ExpertFile helps organization's shine the light in these Invisible Experts. 

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How to create an engaging online presence for your experts at scale.

4 Focus areas to maximize impact... while minimizing time and resources.

 Tasked with creating or expanding how you promote your organization's experts? Delivering an engaging online presence is vital, yet scaling from a handful of experts to hundreds takes planning. While interesting content, modern layouts, and intuitive navigation are essential, the real test lies in managing and presenting the extensive knowledge each expert brings. What works for a few can become a complex, time-consuming, and costly endeavor as you attempt to scale to dozens or hundreds of experts and their content, leading to an underwhelming user experience and missed opportunities. These challenges are magnified as small marketing and digital teams face greater demands such as:
 How do I create and maintain up-to-date content for all my experts?  How can I efficiently roll out this content across my website, beyond just the About Us/Team or Newsroom sections?  How can I best facilitate audience interaction with my content, leading to valuable opportunities for both my experts and my organization?  And perhaps most importantly…

How can I minimize the use of marketing and digital resources, as well as costs, in building and maintaining all this content?  Addressing these challenges requires a plan. The following highlights 4 areas to focus on when scaling your expert content to ensure an engaging user experience for your audience.
1. Create versatile content that’s engaging, timely, and relevant. The foundational importance of the quality and versatility of your expert content in designing an optimal user experience cannot be overstated. According to a recent report from the Content Marketing Institute, the majority 52% of B2B marketers plan to increase their marketing spend in 2025 on “thought leadership content”. This underscores the necessity of making relevant, high-quality expert content the backbone of delivering engaging and intuitive interactions with your visitors.  

 Without this focus on content, it doesn’t matter how visually appealing your layouts are or how well structured your navigation, it won’t meet the needs of your audience.  Expertly crafted content builds trust and credibility, as users perceive well-organized, comprehensive and authoritative information as a sign of a reputable organization with interesting and credible experts.  
 "Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration".  Jeffrey Zeldman - Renowned designer, author & speaker on web design.  Ultimately, the integration of high-quality, versatile content into UX design is essential for creating meaningful and effective digital experiences that meet and exceed your visitor’s expectations.

Keys to Scaling Share the Workload: Make content creation and management easier by using a purpose-built system that streamlines content creation and updates, vs custom designed page or need to provide access to the core CMS. Ensure the system allows multiple team members, including the experts themselves, to easily access and manage their content, making the process quick and efficient.  Repurpose Existing Content Assets: According to the Content Marketing Institute, the failure to utilize pre-existing content is significant challenge (37%) impacting marketers' ability to scale. Leverage existing content assets, such as blog copy & imagery, and previously created videos, to enhance your expert content. This approach allows you to enrich your content without the need for expensive production, making the most of the resources you already have.  Leverage Your Content Elements Together or Individually: Each content element should enable visitors to explore deeper insights from experts. Linking profiles to embedded videos and insightful posts or showcasing other experts within your organization can offer new and diverse perspectives. This approach enhances user engagement and provides a richer, more interactive experience.   2. Start with a home base, then grow your footprint.  Creating a home base for your expert content, such as an "Expert Center" or "Speakers Bureau," within your website's newsroom or media section, or enhancing your "About Us" pages, can significantly elevate your organization's profile and improve user experience. This hub could also be tailored to highlight specific areas like "Research Expertise," depending on your primary audience—be it media, event organizers, or prospective clients. Establishing this destination for your expertise using a flexible integration option, not only provides a focal point for your owned content but also lays the groundwork for expanding your reach across your website. By categorizing and featuring your expert content strategically, you can engage a broader audience across various sections of your site.

"Your website’s content should act as a doorway. Land new visitors with compelling stories, then expand their engagement by guiding them to explore more relevant content tailored to their interests."     Ann Handley, Chief  Content Officer, MarketingProfs  Keys to Scaling Establish & State Clear Objectives - Ensure you prominently state the goals of your initiative—whether it’s combating fake news, serving the community, or showcasing your organization's breadth of expertise. Clearly outline the types of inquiries you’re seeking to attract. This transparency not only sets expectations but also aligns visitors with your mission, fostering trust and engagement.  Invest in Fresh Content - To keep your expert content hub dynamic and engaging, continually invest in new content. Regularly feature new experts and insights to encourage visitors to bookmark and frequently visit your site. Implementing a centralized, multi-access platform for content updates will streamline this process, making it scalable and sustainable.  Link to Related Content - Utilize your expert content hub as a gateway to other areas of your website. Create links to related content, such as research initiatives, to help visitors explore and engage with your broader expertise. This not only enhances the user experience but also maximizes the value and reach of your content across your site.   3. Always be thinking about Discoverability  Creating expert content—from compelling profiles to thought leadership—is only valuable if it’s easy to find. If visitors can’t quickly locate the expertise they need, frustration sets in and user experience suffers. To make expert content truly effective, it must be optimized for search engines, clearly organized, and internally linked. This is especially important for audiences like media, event organizers, and potential clients who rely on quick access to credible information. Prominently featuring and properly tagging expert content boosts visibility, builds authority, and drives meaningful engagement.

Keys to Scaling Homepage/Top-Level Navigation: Don’t rely solely on a menu option or link buried in a subsection like your Newsroom. Featuring menu items, graphics, and other call-outs on your homepage and main section pages will increase interaction and inquiries.  Leverage Distribution Networks: Drive traffic to your expert content by promoting your experts and their insights on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and expert-specific search engines like expertfile.com or mobile expert directory apps.  Add Free-Form Google-Like Search: Provide visitors with a free-form search experience that encompasses all elements of your expert content, rather than just a series of tags, titles, and names.  Ensure All Metadata is Available: Let Google do the heavy lifting by ensuring you have properly structured metadata and schema data for each piece of expert content. While most digital teams remember standard title and description metadata, powerful schema data that helps Google understand the context and authority of the content is often overlooked.  Add Links to Common Recurring Communications: Leverage all your communication channels, including adding links to your About Us section in press releases and individual experts’ email footers.   4. Plan for your Success  It is important to plan for the success of your Expertise Marketing program. A successful program will not only deliver valuable opportunities, helping drive reputation and revenue, but can also place increased demands on your marketing and digital teams, as well as your experts themselves. Your success will likely inspire interest from other experts or departments for inclusion in your program, necessitating tools and defined processes for efficient onboarding of new experts and integrations across your website.  Equally important is managing the influx of inquiries from key audiences such as the media, event organizers, and prospective clients in a way that provides a seamless user experience and encourages repeat engagement. Addressing these challenges with a strategic approach will lay a solid foundation for a robust and scalable expertise marketing initiative.

Keys to Scaling Inquiry Workflow: Putting a general email or phone # as a contact does not scale. Implementing an efficient inquiry workflow is essential for the success of your expertise marketing. This process starts by ensuring that inquiries from key audiences—such as media, event organizers, and potential clients—are promptly and accurately directed to the appropriate experts within your organization. An automated system can streamline this process by categorizing inquiries based on specific topics and routing them to the relevant experts, even filtering out unnecessary or harmful inquiries. This approach not only saves time but also ensures swift and professional responses, enhancing your organization's reputation and effectiveness.  Capture and Act on Analytics: Continually monitoring your analytics is crucial for refining your content strategy. By analyzing which types of content and which experts resonate most with your audience, you can better plan future content creation and decide who to feature prominently. This data-driven approach allows you to tailor your expertise marketing efforts more effectively, ensuring that you consistently engage your audience and meet their needs.  Share Your Success - By sharing your experts' achievements both within and outside your organization, you create a culture of recognition and aspiration. This not only encourages additional departments and experts to join your program but also enhances the overall value of your expert center. Expanding your program to include more experts and additional expert content transforms your website into a valuable destination for key audiences such as media, event organizers, and potential clients. Effective dissemination of success stories amplifies your reach, reinforces your organization’s credibility, and drives sustained engagement and growth.  Successfully scaling your Expertise Marketing program while maintaining an optimal user experience presents unique challenges. It requires producing versatile, high-quality content that is consistently engaging and relevant. Establishing a centralized home base for this content, such as an "Expert Center," helps streamline navigation and enhance user interaction. Improving discoverability through effective SEO and internal linking ensures that your expert content is easily accessible to key audiences like media and event organizers. Finally, meticulous planning for content updates and inquiry workflows is essential to manage resources efficiently and sustain growth. By addressing these areas strategically, you can build a robust and scalable Expertise Marketing initiative that drives engagement and reinforces your organization's reputation.


 About ExpertFile ExpertFile is changing the way organizations tap into the power of their experts to drive valuable inquiries, accelerate revenue growth, and enhance their brand reputation. Used by leading corporate, higher education and healthcare clients worldwide, our award-winning platform helps teams structure, manage and promote their expert content while our search engine features experts on over 50,000+ topics.

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