Trust is one of those vital components at the core of every relationship. When trust is not there, or if it’s jaded by a negative experience, interactions and decisions can be challenging and stressful creating the ultimate ‘negative mojo.’
For most of us in the business world, complicated commercial relationships with varying levels of trust are the reality and accepted.
This is likely NOT true for your fickle customers who, in today’s competitive marketplace, cast their ‘trust votes’ with their wallets.
For years, advertising and the media have done incredible things in creating emotional connections to brands, people, products, and services – thus creating positive opinions and overall trust. Obviously, these brands, leaders or companies must deliver on their promises for the trust to be sustainable. In bolder words, a company or person with a large marketing budget can likely develop a potentially false sense of trust with a target audience. Whether we like it or not this happens every day, and if you are honest with yourself, I’m sure you can think of an example of this cycle where you have done this or fallen victim to it. Take the recent, “I’m a PC and I’M a Mac” Apple commercial – It’s all about the perception of trust.
Social Media and collaboration is changing how trust is developed with more transparency and authenticity. Without directly quoting Steve Ballmer’s comments on the efficiency of the new economy, I predict that the new trust development patterns that get created due to social collaboration will be the ‘new normal.’
So, who do you trust to provide you with authentic advice about what content to read, where to go for dinner, what attorney to choose, blah blah blah?
In other words, who are your Social Influencers? How do you find them? How do you choose them?
For the same reason you may not trust the first book review for a newly-released book on Amazon or someone from Yelp recommending a local piano teacher. You are familiar with the system and suspect these are seeded comments by folks trying to push their own products or services. It’s no different when someone new enters an established digital community (on YouTube, Digg, Stumbleupon, etc.) and pushes too hard. They stick out like a sore thumb and can get ostracized by the well-established members of that social community.
Identifying who to trust and the maturation process for that trust happens over time and typically through the art of lurking: a process of silent and passive participation. Years ago a lurker was frowned upon for not actively participating in a group. Nowadays the majority of online community participants are lurkers who are quietly understanding the players, absorbing the content, and learning the community etiquette. If this is you – enjoy that time lurking, yet when the time is right I urge you to make the move and become an active social community participant; it will be a fulfilling experience.
For those with great things to share and want to become a social influencer there are several things you can do. Start with these three below:
- Develop an effective social media strategy
- Build your personal social capital
Feel free to share your comments below on how you are choosing your social influencers.
