Well who’d have thunk it – trust in corporations is at an all time low according to Edelman’s Trust Barometer http://www.edelman.co.uk/trustbarometer (or at least the lowest in its ten year history). Is it surprising news? No, not really. As the report points out these figures follow hot on the heels of twelve months of bank bail outs, dodgy Illinois Senators and fraud scandals that we didn’t really think could happen again after Enron.
(Similarly low on the shock-o-meter is the accompanying fact that trust in Government has taken a beating too. Which begs the question, why then, were so many respondents (3:1) keen that Government intervene to regulate industry or nationalise companies in an effort to restore public trust?But that’s a bit of an aside.)
Well why is trust so important? 77 per cent of the report’s survey base say that they have refused to buy from a company they distrusted so oh dear, that means potential loss of sales and cash for distrusted business.
According to the report the majority of respondents trust the opinions of independent parties (or friends...?) more than corporate spokespeople. 34 per cent of respondents admit that they’ve shared negative company opinions and 42 per cent have shared positive opinions. Again, its not news to marketers that consumer word of mouth activity can impact sales but the old adage ‘ give a customer bad service and they’ll tell seven people (I’m probably hashing that right up aren’t I?) hadn’t taken in to account new technology and new communications practices.
Give me bad service and I’ll tell my 150 followers on Twitter – but I’m only a newbie - Russell Brand, by tomorrow afternoon I expect, will be able to tell the entire English speaking world. It’d be a bit of an oversight not to stay in touch with these folk wouldn’t it? Monitor who’s talking about you on Twitter, offer information to those that are interested, resolve problems for those who are having bad experiences with your company and make those negative experiences positive experiences with your brand.
If you’re looking for inspiration as to how to use Twitter and blogs and all that good stuff to better your company brand then you could do a lot worse than read this book by Shel Holtz and John C. Havens, ‘Tactical Transparency’, check it out at http://www.tacticaltransparency.com/ and let me know what you think...
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Umm...It's a dodgy Illinois GOVERNOR. And he's dodgy for trying to sell a senator's seat. The seat belonging to Barack Obama, which he vacated for another...job. So unless you meant to call President Obama, one of the most trusted and liked men in American right now, dodgy, you might want to correct that.
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