Trust me
Edelman, the public relations firm, has released its eighth annual Trust Barometer, based on findings from a survey of 3,100 “opinion leaders” in 18 countries. Lots of interesting nuggets of information:
- The survey summary notes that “‘A person like me’ or a peer is the most trusted spokesperson in the United States at 51 percent.” A nonprofit or NGO representative comes in third, after doctors and academics. I found it particularly interesting to see that “a blogger” comes in dead last, at 9 percent; I wonder, however, if folks who read a blog on a regular basis stop thinking of the author as “a blogger” and start seeing him or her as “a person like me.”
- Edelman states that, “Trailing only ‘providing quality products or services,’ undertaking ‘socially responsible activities’ is universally seen as the most important action an organization can to do to build trust. ‘Socially responsible activities’ surpassed providing ‘a fair price for products or services,’ ‘attentiveness to customers’ and ‘good labor relations’ in most markets.”
For those wishing to delve more deeply into the findings, a fairly detailed PowerPoint presentation is available. Scroll to the bottom of this summary to download: http://www.edelman.com/news/storycrafter/EdelmanNews.aspx?hid=181
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Comments
I think nobody trusts "bloggers" because they know they are not supposed to trust bloggers. The blogs they read, though, are different. It's like Congress. People always rank Congress extremely low, but rank their member of Congress highly. It's the everybody-else-is-an-idiot syndrome.
Actually, I'd be willing to bet that when most people answered that survey, they were thinking of political blogs. This is going to be pretty interesting in the next couple of years. Blogs had some pretty spectacular successes in the last few years -- CBS being fooled by a forgery comes to mind. Less publicized are the many, many baseless allegations with unnamed sources. Cable and network news seem quicker to pick these things up. I'll respect the mainstream news source (and the blog) that doesn't worry about getting scooped and points out the absurdity of it all (and works to get it right).
Posted by: Scott Briscoe | January 22, 2007 10:49 PM