Social media proves route to gaining customer trust, says new report
Social media is a much more effective way of gaining customers’ trust than advertising, according to a new report from customer engagement technology company Alterian.
The report, Your Brand: At Risk or Ready for Growth by Professor Michael Hulme of Lancaster University, found that 31% of UK consumers believed that companies using social media to engage with customers were “genuinely interested” in them. That rose to 35% in the US.
But at the same time only 4% of UK consumers (6% US) trusted advertising and only 9% in the UK (6% US) believed ‘what the company says about itself’.
However, the report found that many organizations had yet to grasp the importance of social media for them. Some 58% of respondents to the research thought the lack of a social media strategy was due to the absence of board support.
In the report, Professor Hulme said: “Organisations need to recognise they are not merely responding to a new media form, social media, rather, they are responding to a permanent and far reaching social change, of which social media is merely one manifestation.”
David Eldridge, chief executive of Alterian, said: “The report highlights that the majority of marketers are simply not hitting the right note with their target audience. Consumer trust is at an all-time low. What we are witnessing is an era of individualisation. It is no longer adequate to adopt a strategy of mass broadcast and one-way conversations. Brands should be trying to understand communities rather than focusing on siloed communication channels.”
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[...] http://www.internetretailing.net/2010/05/social-media-proves-route-to-gaining-customer-trust-says-ne… [...]
[...] around ‘trust’. More recent surveys not only reinforce these trends but show that no amount of traditional advertising can match social media in it’s ability to create or destroy brand [...]
[...] around ‘trust’. More recent surveys not only reinforce these trends but show that no amount of traditional advertising can match social media in it’s ability to create or destroy brand [...]
[...] around ‘trust’. More recent surveys not only reinforce these trends but show that no amount of traditional advertising can match social media in it’s ability to create or destroy brand [...]
I work for a small mail order operation and we are considering whether to use social media channels to further our business aims.
My concern is that this will be resource hungry, in a company with limited respources, without any measurable impact on sales.
Does anyone know of a success story in the mail order industry where social media has generated sales – or is it just about generating “trust”?
Tony
What is so surprising about this is the amount of time it is taking brands (both FMCG and retailers) to recognise that the world has changed… Professor Hulme really sums it all up in his quote above “Organisations need to recognise they are not merely responding to a new media form, social media, rather, they are responding to a permanent and far reaching social change, of which social media is merely one manifestation.”
I’ve have the pleasure knowing both Penny Power, founder of Ecademy and author of “Know me, Like me, Follow me”, who is a strong believer in gaining engagement from a community to achieve the level of trust required to secure new customers AND Grant Leboff, a sales and marketing expert who not only wrote the bestselling book “Sales Therapy” but who speaks at events all around the world explaining how the traditional sales and marketing model no longer works… So I consider myself to have had the benefit of learning from their insight. None the less, it still surprises me how comparably late to adopt this shift the most well known / larger organisations have been in comparison to the small business sector.
For me, as someone who has worked within the retail industry for my entire career, I look forward to watching the transition from corporate broadcasting to them adopting Penny’s “know me, like me, follow me” philosophy – although as Thomas Power says, it can take up to 10 years for an evolution to a digital mindset to really take place – so hopefully by listening to those who are ahead of the game, my favourite retailers and brands can accelerate this process. It will be great to observe and I for one look forward to engaging!
Great article – thanks for provoking my “grey cells” into action!
Clare Rayner
Founder & Managing Director, Retail Acumen & The Retail Conference
twitter.com/retailacumen | twitter.com/clarerayner