COMMENTS
I think that people are becoming warry of too many recommendations, particularly on sites like LinkedIn. Probably better to modulate one's instincts to recommend everyone one knows.
Uh, folks! I think we're not seeing the forest for the trees here. It's not just Social Media that is suffering an erosion in trust. It's across the board. Looks to me like nobody trusts anybody. People are suspicious of other peoples' agendas--regardless of the tool that's used as a conduit.
Or?
People are getting burned at a rapid rate with the likes of politicians using social media to promise the world then deliver nothing so that skepticism will spread to other areas as well.
Also, the definition of "friend" has eroded as well. Honestly, I don't know many people in my Twitter feed to take a recommendation from them without some form of follow up with a truly trusted source.
People want unbiased reviews and comments. Their friends can still be biased towards something or their peers on the Internet. Anyone's review on the Internet, good or bad, could be biased. That's why I like how the article stated, "According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, people still need to hear things in five different places before they actually believe it. "
People are now doing a "survey" of the reviews or recommendations, then basing a decision off a sample rather than one or two people. That's the great thing about social conversations, there so many conversations going on about the same thing!
Good point Michael, they've dropped across the board.
If you click through via that 2010 report link at the top and watch the corresponding you-tube (near the bottom of the page), they're basically saying that it's a blip and a 10 year period shows that social media is carving out a greater share.
The "larger group of friends" is a really good reason for the declining trust barometer. I suppose this is partially why segmenting your "friends" into lists has occurred. I'm going to trust a "friend" that I've known for two years and have a history with over someone I just met online, regardless of how transparent they may seem. Word of mouth (from a long term friend) is still the best referral.
@Nils & @Michael,
I like both Thoughts.
Social Media Sites like Linked In, Facebook and others seem to be just too Broad when thinking in terms of Friends. The Internet Version of Friends seems to be a much more casual and I hate to say it, shallower version to what I consider a Real World Friend to be.
This coupled with Michaels thought on a Total Erosion of Trust in our emerging Global Society.
This adds up to me to what could be influencing the Big Drop that the Endelman survey is reporting on.
On the Bright Side these kinds of numbers could be influencing a Trend I have just recently been educated on:
Niche Social Networking.
Dan Nations offers this definition:
The alternative to general social networking websites are niche social networking sites, which are social networks targeted at a specific audience. This includes social networking for the family, for business, for music, etc. By targeting a specific audience, a niche social networking site is able to create an automatic bond between people.
Here is a Link if you want to know more.
http://tinyurl.com/ybw86js
At the end of the day with the Breach of Trust we have all experienced in the last 15 Months I think we are all just a bit more leery when hear ANYTHING from ANYBODY. We just all seem to be staying a little closer to home and listening to people / relationships that we have Equity In.
In deference to our Hosts here at Hubspot:
These make the Words we hear from Brian Halligan ring more true - Transparency and Authenticity are key elements to invest in when we are Building our On Line Persona's whether they be for Companies or Individuals.
I'm open to any tips people may have developed to help them Judge Character in on line Friendships.
I'm OK with it in the Real world by reading Body Language, Eye Contact and to some degree general appearance.
I'm a Total Novice and quite Naive when it comes to Judging Character Traits On Line.
Have a Great Day,
This result is not that surprising. This is the result of TMI. When you see and read your "friends" opinions frequently you realize how different you are from them. You also begin to see them acting out all manner of idiosyncrasies and expressing all kinds of opinions. It triggers a new set of filters which accounts for the drop in trust.
Isn't the interesting thing that all channels saw a significant drop, not jut social media (based on table above)? After last years market turmoil and economic collapse, people are just generally more skeptical.
Yes, seems it's time to proclaim another death, lol, death of social marketing in communities. Where are the times, when Friends left nice glitter greetings on one's profiles? - today one must permanently look and delete the ads they post...
I think this data is very easy to misinterpret. Edelman is a solid, well-respected firm with, I'm sure, excellent statistical techniques. But when it comes to trust, I think that doesn't cut it.
Very simply, trust is a highly situational subject. It makes almost no sense to say that "government is more trusted than business," without answering the question--to do what? Print money? Regulate banks? Pay well? Sell cars?
I trust my dog with my life, but not with my ham sandwich. Which are we talking about? The predicate is critical.
Another concern about trust: what question are people answering when they say their friends are credible information sources about companies. What does "friend" mean when in the last year the explosion of "friends" online has redefined the term? And credible information for what? Annual earnings, or product safety? For what companies--cars? Burgers? Insurance?
There is so much going on in these questions that don't get portrayed in the data that one has to be cautious.
It makes sense to say that, over time, trust in a constant object (e.g. "government") has declined, or increased. Beyond that, it's much less clear.
My old accounting prof said the only valid definition of "profit" was "the bottom line on the income statement." I fear trust surveys, below a certain level of generality, are they same. What do they measure? They measure people's answers to a survey instrument on trust.
Caveat trustor.
This has to be expected. On most social networks, recommendations are almost always "reciprocal"- the "you recommend me, I recommend you" way.
Admitted that in some extreme cases such a reciprocation is genuine but in the majority (to be empirical, should i say around 99%?) it is just a buy/sell trade.
How will you have trust then?
The bigger surprise for me in this is that HubSpot didn't contextualize the drop. When everything is falling this systematically, the overall drop is the news item. Perhaps...
"Edelman Survey Results Reveal Everybody Trusts Everything About Half as Much as They Did in 2008 -- Friends Included"
...would have made a more accurate post title.
I'm receiving about 5,000 hits a month on my website however not one phone call nor email. Any suggestions?
To Patricia's concern about 5000 hits and no calls or emails:
We are well past the days when a website was an action-trigger. It has to be viewed as a resource, not a sales-driver. It's a must-have, but that doesn't mean it drives action.
I think of a website as the new brochure. It is a resource, and makes a branding statement. It's like the old Yellow Pages ad--you have to have it so people can quickly find out about you, and if you don't have it, you're a nobody.
Even blogs these days don't solicit much in the way of feedback: that doesn't mean people don't read it or you shouldn't pay attention to it. It just means that there's no direct action link that follows from it.
Using the old AIDA marketing model (Awareness to Interest to Desire to Action), websites are solidly in the Awareness and maybe Interest columns; they are not in the Action columns, at least not nowadays.
To get calls and emails, look elsewhere: networking, traditional sales approaches.
One hint, consistent with inbound marketing: have you yourself made a phone call or email to someone else's website? One way to generate interest is to offer it.
@Charles H. Green AKA Trusted Advisor. I have, indeed, made calls and emails to other companies websites. While I agree with you about the Awareness and Interest (AIDA model), a good, nay, great website has calls to action that firmly engage the visitor. A sticky site is one that encourages you to come back and that's where Inbound Marketing comes into play. If you know that a website provides Trusted content, you will rely upon it as a resource, right? Content is the magnet that pulls people into your website. With appropriate CTAs, you can sign up subscribers to your blog or newsletter, get a quote, register for a webinar, listen to archived presentations, read thought leadership content. I agree that a website is a resource AND it can also be a demand generation tool, one that drives leads to your sales team.
Jeanne, point well taken. And I need to work on my CTAs, thanks.
--Charlie Green (Not "the trusted advisor," just author of the book of that name: I try very hard not to say 'trust me,' as it guarantees no one will).
A lot of talk was in the news about selfserving information in social media.
Just think about the discussion about the new FTC rules, and what everybody who is not a marketer will conclude from that discussion.
One point is certainly that the source of information is not always obvious, and not everything that seems to be peer to peer is actually peer to peer.
I hope the overall quality of information will become more important, again.
With peer-to-peer trust going south it's timely then to refresh ourselves re: what we can do to up the Trust Factor. Here's 2 well-known Internet evangelists/authors with great tips (without breaking the bank.) Chris Brogan, social media evangelist, recently released his book about "Trust Agent" (Hubspot did review on 8/18/09 )- a must read. David Weinberger, author of "The Cluetrain Manifesto",last week in a virtual MasterClass, spoke about 3 types of Marketing Transparencies that he thinks are crucial to cement credible relationships in the Web 2.0 world. You can get the dibs straight from David himself in this video clip (which I posted): http://bit.ly/MktTrparency
This is really a piece of interest! These figures seem to me credible as the analysis is sensible.
One year ago, I made a post on my blog (in french: http://www.myblognote.com/2009/03/facebook-3-approches-du-reseau-damis.html) showing that our networks on social media tend to become a kind of audience and not any longer your "real life friends" only.
The open-field system of social media that has been and remains (at least for now) 'free' was also free of restraints, allowing a flooding of the airwaves and causing a number of
free market abuses. While you are certainly right @Charles H. Green to say that trust is situational, it is also institutional and personal. The one factor that is incompressible, however, is time and, the lack of time versus the oversupply of advice and links, etc., has created a natural culling effect.
The winnowing out of the blogs you read, the tweets you click on and the brands you will buy into is the result of a natural, Darwinian process of selection. In a constantly evolving landscape, people and brands will need to learn the value of their online credibility. Just like the lack of trust of marketers was caused by irrelevance and unwanted interruption, now poor or unwanted advice, unashamed self-promotion and virtual noise have dropped the value of having an overly wide circle of "friends."
Your lasting strength (and personal creditworthiness) come, on the one hand, from the value of being selective in the friends you "accept" or follow and the sites you reference, as well as, on the other hand, the quality of your own posts, comments & links you share. I am sure that this boomerang effect will be healthy for the social media sites, because the bubble was appearing a bit oversized. As you suggest @Emmanuel, your circle of friends becomes your network; but, if you spurn the needs of your network, you risk getting
turned off, just as the TV networks have experienced.
@Minter,
Very Powerful and deep comments.
Thank You for helping me connect the dots between our Traditional world of Network Televison and our emerging Social Networking world.
The Very insightful connection between unwanted Interuption and Unwanted Advice is one conclusion I would not have come to on my own!
You obviously have thought about this deeply.
Do you have any additional material that you could point those of us who might want to learn more?
I am particularly intersted in learning more about building the "Trusted Advisor" roles in the Social Networking World?
Thanks.
Jack Napoli jack.napoli@cox.net
Hi Jack,
It's a changing world, so the challenge will be to stay ahead of the wave (not the mini Google Wave though).
One of the best sources I can recommend is Chris Brogan author of Trust Agents <a>http://www.chrisbrogan.com/. Also enjoy Charles Green's site <ahttp://trustedadvisor.com/.
I'll shoot you a mail so we can continue the conversation. Cheers
It's obvious that the net suffers from the same malaise from which our society suffers: we as a culture are greedy, lack empathy and also lack some pretty important fundamentals, like decent manners.
I've decided to give a Social Media Etiquette class to hopefully address some of these gaffes so others can learn from the mistakes of their peers. Let's hope it helps ...
Molly Burke CPCC MSU
Queen of Confidence
<a> http://www.lifepurposeworks.com
"I've bottled confidence. Care for a wee dram?"
Perhaps the qualifications of the social media critics should also be questioned. http://bit.ly/cW9tfl
kilgannon.com
@kilgannonsays.com
kilgannonsays.wordpress.com
@Kilgannon a.k.a. Pam,
I really like your assessment that it would be naive to totally discount the views from Social Media.
That the more rational action would be to count Social Media sources as one of the Four or Five data points that we use to formulate our opinions.
Great Advice.
I'll use it as I have been a bit anxious as to how to sort all the incoming advice.
I believe it was Minter in an earlier comment mentioned that although the eveolving of Permission Based Marketing strategies has had a culling effect on Unwanted Interuptions it has created a Casacade of Unwanted Advice. You have put the light on another side of that for me and that is that it maybe Unwanted it may also be Unqualified and Inaccurate which Ultimaley ties back into the Endelman Survey which is probably one of the fundamental Causes in our Lack of Trust from peers.
Thanks for the Thoughts.
They have helped me connect the dots on several key elements.
I like your Blog!