Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers)

Categories: Analyst, Challenges, Web MarketingPosted on April 29th, 2008

The question many marketers are trying to answer now, is “Who do people trust?”

I’ve been spending more and more time pouring over data, medium usage, behavioral and preference data for clients, and am learning more and more about how humans behave on the web.

So who do people trust? Three research studies indicate it’s peers, or people they know. And social clout from bloggers, or those with a lot of online friends ain’t it.

1) Forrester Research

What’s interesting is that colleague Josh Bernoff’s weekly post on who do people trust, indicates that people trust their peers the most, and bloggers last. Josh writes:

“What does this mean for your brand? It means that a focus on “influencers” is not enough. You never know who may be reviewing your product, or where. Influencers may touch a lot of people, but so do the masses of reviewers on Yelp, or Amazon.com, or TripAdvisor. And heaven forbid you get people talking about your brand on The Consumerist.”

If people trust the reviews of friend that they know and trust 14% more than your corporate website, what is your web marketing team doing to accommodate this? Are you spending 14% more effort to listen, learn, influence peer reviews? I’ll bet your not, as most brand marketers I know are spending time building microsites, and launching brochure ware on their sites, without think about the impacts of their corporate website becoming irrelevant.

2) Edelman Trust Barometer

In a confirming correlation, Edelmen’s research from Steve Rubel indicates the exact same findings, despite different phrasing of the questions. Steve writes: “both marketers and publishers - continue to focus on reach, they are missing the big picture. Trust is by far a more important metric, one that clearly rules when it comes to influence.”

3) Pollara Research

Steve points to a third research report also validating this claim. Research firm Pollara found similar results:

“According to a new study from Canadian research firm Pollara, self-described social media users put far more trust in friends and family online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace “friends.”

Of more than 1,100 adults polled in December, nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by “well-known bloggers.”

“This shows that popularity doesn’t always equate to credibility,” said Robert Hutton, executive vice president and general manager at Pollara. “Marketers might have to reconsider who the real influencers are out there.”

What you should do
Forward this post back to your marketing team, encourage the team to have an active and open dialog. Should you be focusing in on influencers only in your market space? Or should you start also focusing on ratings and review sites, where customers are critiquing, reading, and making decisions based on each others data.

So what’s this mean for me? Unless you know me, you’ll probably trust your friends or family far more than my opinion.

So how can I win your trust back? Lately, I’ve been starting to see the cracks in social media, and have started a tag on this blog called Challenges. Social media isn’t perfect, it’s new, and many people and brands are doing it wrong. It’s important to be objective and point out when it works and when it doesn’t.

Update: Am I looking in the rear view mirror? intersting audio podcast debating this post, listen in (around 20 minutes in)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 2:47 am and is filed under Analyst, Challenges, Web Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

I think this is spot on. When working with clients on building community, I’ve always stressed that we need to build a platform that allows reputation to manifest itself. Conversations (versus pontifications) certainly help achieve this goal. Trust is a byproduct, and it’s something you can’t buy.

Contrary to what you may imply, you are trusted by many of your readers. You’ve earned this trust by being transparent, by being consistent, by slowly building a reputation, and by the multiple channels in which someone can learn about you. For example, I think an important aspect of Twitter is that it helps establish trust - it often provides a different, less formal, side to a person.

Posted by Jon Mountjoy on April 29th, 2008 at 3:08 am

I think that you are confusing two categories. Of course people don’t trust a generic category called ‘bloggers’ But they do trust people they ‘know’, and in these days of social networking ‘knowing’ someone may mean you have never met them in real life. But if a relationship of trust & authenticity has been developed between you & them, then they could trust a blogger.

Posted by Kate Carruthers on April 29th, 2008 at 3:11 am

Jon, thanks. What’s a misfortune for me, is that I don’t get to know people as well as they get to know me, I’m missing out on a lot.

Kate, Good observation. I’m just trying to make a point about where marketers should spend their efforts. Is it on ’social media influencers’ or on ‘peer review’.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 29th, 2008 at 3:15 am

That’s thought-provoking, for sure.

The 82 percent for recommendation from a (real) friend is no surprise.

Regarding the Forrester report I’m most surprised by the 69 percent trust in the info on a manufacturer’s website and the 75 percent trust following a review in a newspaper or on TV. That says a lot about the perceived Wild West nature of the internet.

Of course, those results are now. Results from the Club Penguin generation, ten years hence, will be very different.

Posted by Carlton Reid on April 29th, 2008 at 3:16 am

Another great post Jeremiah.
I think people (I like to call them people rather than users or customers) will trust less and less bloggers because brands are corrupting the natural meaning of blogs. Many people can perceive if behind a blog there is a brand to pilot or influence posts!
Same problem with ratings and reviews. In theory they are a great way to show transparency from a brand, but brands should be bold enough to show on their corporate sites good and bad reviews! So, the question is: how many brands are brave enough to do so? And, don’t you think brands would be more inclined to influence reviews? Just few of the brands I know are really transparent about these tools, and one of these is Dell.

Sometimes we struggle behind measurement and how to build trust, etc…but if we start thinking to audiences as People, we might be surprised by the fact that people are US, and We DO trust our friends because we know them…so, where’s the surprise?

Maria Teresa

Posted by Maria Teresa Salvati on April 29th, 2008 at 3:18 am

Carlton thanks

Good question, how do you think the club penguin generation will change things? Will we have an increase in virtual relationships in virtual worlds?

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 29th, 2008 at 3:18 am

Maria

BINGO!

You’re on to the solution (I didn’t want to give it away in the post) but you’re figuring it out.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 29th, 2008 at 3:19 am

I see Jeremiah, you hold the truth, but you are trying to get more out of the posts…clever

Maria-Teresa

Posted by Maria Teresa Salvati on April 29th, 2008 at 3:23 am

It means so much more if you think it out and discuss it with your teams, rather than me telling you what I think.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 29th, 2008 at 3:27 am

I was joking!

Posted by Maria Teresa Salvati on April 29th, 2008 at 3:27 am

Jeremiah

I’m not a Second Lifer and am bored stiff by stuff like Grand Auto Theft IV, but my three kids love Club Penguin and this is their induction into a virtual world that they see as wholly normal.

Extrapolate ten years and it’s patently clear that marketeers will need to change big-time, if they want to reach consumers.

I edit a trade mag for the bicycle industry (BikeBiz.com). The marketing focus is still very much on traditional media but a number of innovator companies are reaching out with rich media - and a little bit of social media marketing - and doing very well with it.

Posted by Carlton Reid on April 29th, 2008 at 3:35 am

Interesting post Jeremiah!

I think it is interesting to know WHY we trust our friends more than companies. I think this might be due to the fact that we don’t know the company (as stated in your post and several comments). We therefore refer to someone who does have a experience (knowledge) about the company.
But now we are a company and we want to be trusted. What should we do? I think Maria was completely right with being transparent. When being transparent, a company might be able to generate trust through their visitors.

The way a company presents their transparency is key I guess. I don’t think it should be through a corporate blog, but it should be in a very user-friendly format: short, simple, complete.

Posted by Gerard Top on April 29th, 2008 at 3:46 am

Gerard

You raised another interesting point, why people don’t trust companies?
I think, it’s because they are perceived as corporate and un-personal entities that exist just to make money, or to steal people’s money.
So, probably these companies should start get the shape of people, so not corporate but people that produce products and services…give a voice and a face to a brand and start talking as a group of people to other people?

Discuss!

Posted by Maria Teresa Salvati on April 29th, 2008 at 3:52 am

Jeremiah,

I think it’s a little more complicated than that. For example I certainly trust your opinion on social media and marketing-related things, even if I don’t agree with you 100% of the time. But that’s largely because I see you as someone who believes many of the things I believe about marketing and the direction it’s going in the digital space, and you have a proven record of posting insightful things that I find useful in thinking about this as well. So I would classify you as ’someone with my interests’ before I would classify you as a blogger in this regard. Someone who shares my interests who happens to blog, if you will.

Now if you were to suddenly start to offer advice on what video games to play this weekend I wouldn’t be interested, for several reasons. The first is that you’ve never really discussed video games before so I have no idea what your tastes are and if they coincide with my tastes. I have no record of your previous posts on video games (if any) and so I would probably scroll right past a post about gaming. In this regard, you’re a blogger first and a trusted source of information second - and I trust your opinion less because of the reasons above. Which isn’t so say that you couldn’t become a trusted source of information about video games if you posted about them often and I discovered you enjoyed strategy games as well - then I’d be paying attention.

Furthermore I’d be able to engage you in dialogue about games to ask clarifications, tell you about my own experiences and make recommendations - in much the same way your readers here engage you in dialogue about marketing.

I think this is a key piece of the puzzle that many old media people miss and you more than allude to it in your post. They see ‘influence’ as an extension of the old ‘circulation’ number and blogs as a just another form of old broadcast media, with ‘readership numbers, ‘technorati and google rankings’ and ‘hits per day’ as a way to measure that influence and the reach of the ’story’ they’ve placed. It’s actually more than just going to Amazon to see who’s been reviewing your product and what they’re saying; it’s finding real conversations and taking part in them rather than just pitching a blogger and sitting back and relaxing when they post a link to your story, content that you have another piece of ‘coverage’ to paste onto your posterboard to show to your client/boss.

Posted by Jason Mical on April 29th, 2008 at 3:56 am

Shoot, forgot: transparency/disclosure, I work for Edelman Digital in London, whose report was cited in the OP.

Posted by Jason Mical on April 29th, 2008 at 3:57 am

Jason

I agree, I wish I had more insight to how the questions about “do you trust blogs” were done. We need to see the context, as it could be broken down to:

“do you trust bloggers with similar opinions, that you read frequently”

“do you trust random blogs you stumble across”

Perhaps the questions could even be posed a different way: “do you trust the opinions of bloggers?”

And by the way, I don’t play video games anymore, it’s too consuming, but starcraft 2 is calling my name

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 29th, 2008 at 4:09 am

Totally agree about context - I think the Forrester report comes closest to being specific since it’s about reviews, whereas the Edelman barometer is simply about ‘trust.’ Trust to review a product objectively? Trust as a source of news? And to your point, it definitely doesn’t differentiate between a blog you might find or a blog you read every day. The blogs I read every day I read in a large part because I do trust them and they are reliable.

If you end up getting Starcraft 2 we’ll have to play a game sometime.

Posted by Jason Mical on April 29th, 2008 at 4:18 am

Maria, Jason,

I think the key concept discussed here whether or not a source is credible. This makes credibility even more important than trust, since it then acts as a condition for trust. In the case of Jason comment: Jeremiah is in your eyes not credible enough in respect to gaming. In Maria’s comment: The companies are not credible enough because they have double agendas (talking smart to sell big, so talk is cheap in the minds of buyers)

Credibility is a hard thing to achieve I guess, since it needs time to grow. In Jeremiah’s first post, he might not have been as credible for his readers as he is right now.
In order to make a link back to the topic: In order to receive the trust you need, you should be able to enter a time-consuming process of gaining credibility on your field of work.

So to answer (or trying to) the questions of Jeremiah: reading a blog frequently should automaticly increase credibility and thus trust (nice hypotheses for a research by the way, if it wasn’t for the time).
Trusting a blog someone stumbles across is not due to the content I guess, but to credibility factor as: how large is the archive, how many readers does this blog have, how many participate in commenting etc.
That also generates an answer to that final question: a person should trust the opinion of bloggers, IF they think of them as credible.

Posted by Gerard Top on April 29th, 2008 at 4:27 am

Jason, Gerard

We could also interpret that if your friend is someone that blogs, you likely trust them (regardless of the medium they choose).

Some of my readers have become real life friends, (yes real world, I see them live!) and some become virtual friends, where we grow and trust each other.

For those cases, I think it could likely fall into the first category of ‘trusting friends’ rather than a random blog.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 29th, 2008 at 4:32 am

[...] 英文原文在此。 [...]

Posted by 鬼才相信你的博客 | WEBabie.com on April 29th, 2008 at 4:33 am

Interesting, in just a few hours there are 10 tags on delicious for this post

http://del.icio.us/url/9670461709fa31828bb3e2c4864c02ed

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on April 29th, 2008 at 4:59 am

[...] Rank the Lowest in Consumer Trust This is a pretty interesting post from Jeremiah Owyang, where he uploaded a few research reports on consumer trust. Problem is, this [...]

Posted by Bloggers Rank the Lowest in Consumer Trust « Blue Heavens on April 29th, 2008 at 5:18 am

It seems trust is a core concept in the mind of marketers. But anyway, in reaction to your comment: that interpretation might be quite valid. I think you’ve underlined the statement in my post by saying ‘… and some become virtual friend, where we GROW and trust each other’. The growing part underlines that trust is generated to credibility and through time. It’s a continuous, time-consuming process and companies should be aware of this. The question for those who want to generate fast sales is how to find the best way to catalyze that process

Posted by Gerard Top on April 29th, 2008 at 5:19 am

[...] Jeremiah points to 3 studies conducted recently and they all tell you that people trust people they know. Sometimes, I really get confused what these studies are really for - are people or the Harvard educated management that dumb, that they need these studies to realize this fact. [...]

Posted by Bloggers - we don’t trust you | Screensumer on April 29th, 2008 at 5:40 am

It’s a great post. And it’s spot-on. A blog is nothing more than the rants of a stranger. On the other hand, it’s the simplest, easiest, cheapest resources to use that can turn a community of faceless strangers into avid contacts, prospects, customers and fans. Why? Because it’s a tool for personal, real, authentic conversation…( Sorry for the cliches. Sometimes they’re true.) with lots of people. And that’s how you build trust with regular, consistent, true conversations. That’s how you build friends and peers and influence.

Posted by Zane Safrit on April 29th, 2008 at 6:09 am

excellent post. thanks!

Posted by Leonardo Kenji on April 29th, 2008 at 6:35 am

Thanks for this post, Jeremiah. I look forward to hearing what you think–social media influencers or peer review. I suspect the right balance will be different for every brand. In my niche of membership and conference marketing in the association world, for example, peer review has been central since long before the Internet. It makes sense that it should remain central.

Posted by Lindy Dreyer on April 29th, 2008 at 6:56 am

[...] Who do people trust? (it ain’t bloggers) [...]

Posted by etc… :: Groso Informe de Jeremiah on April 29th, 2008 at 6:58 am

what about the overlap between peers bloggers?

Posted by steve cater on April 29th, 2008 at 7:36 am

You mean “Whom do people trust?”

Posted by Pedant on April 29th, 2008 at 8:23 am

[...] can’t figure out what to do with them. Those of us who’ve tried have realise that our simple outreach and product reviews are ineffective when it comes to [...]

Posted by Blogger relations best practices « The eOK .network on April 29th, 2008 at 8:34 am

I completely agree Jeremiah. In fact, this is the premise behind our new app Publish Social. We are going to make it easier for brands to publish what people are saying about them online. The tool will aggregate social content (most likely by tag) and bring it into a publishing environment, similar to a CMS, and make it easy to publish on the home page or anywhere else. There is nothing up yet, but check http://www.PublishSocial.com for a landing page soon.

Posted by Matt Browne on April 29th, 2008 at 8:40 am

I don’t believe you.

Posted by Dave on April 29th, 2008 at 8:43 am

@dave LOL!

Posted by brian on April 29th, 2008 at 9:10 am

I think the problem is that some people associate “bloggers” with “probloggers” aka spammers that scrape content off others and use SEO to jack up their readership so that they can sell ad space on their blog.

Most of those guys don’t give a crap what they write. They’re just trying to make money. It gives the rest of us who are doing it for free a bad name.

I’d trust what I read on a blog without advertising pasted all over it over a spamblog.

Posted by Aaron on April 29th, 2008 at 9:19 am

great, data-rich post Jeremiah.

If that data is accurate, it suggests that the largest marketing ROI would come from engaging publishers with the highest ratio of personal friends/peers reading what they write. Begging the question, is that elite bloggers, review sites, or personal/long-tail bloggers?

As an investor and participant in the space for some time, I think it’s the latter. Your article didn’t really distinguish between elite and long-tail bloggers, so I’d be interested to hear whether you feel review sites have a higher publisher:friend-reader ratio than long-tail bloggers.

Posted by Dan... on April 29th, 2008 at 9:38 am

nice article….. thanks

Posted by RedesignYourBiz.com on April 29th, 2008 at 9:43 am

Excellent post. I think the key is, as others have pointed out, the difference between a real blogger - with street/online cred and a real opinion and position worth following, and a pseudo blog - created for brand positioning or other agendas. I think the tone of the blog quickly establishes itself to the reader.

You mention that “Social media isn’t perfect, it’s new, and many people and brands are doing it wrong” What are some of the major sins being committed? Or is that another post topic?

Posted by Elyse on April 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am

[...] to “the real world”. That’s my reaction to all the fuss on the topic of who people trust. [Link via Judy [...]

Posted by Why should you trust me? « Heather Yaxley - Greenbanana views of public relations and more on April 29th, 2008 at 11:41 am

I’m wondering why bloggers were rated even lower than chat rooms/discussion boards. I would think that a person would “know” more about a blogger than a chat room/discussion board person. Has Forrester (or anyone else) delved into this negative perception of bloggers?

Posted by Ontario Emperor on April 29th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

[...] , Media , Media Research , Pubblicità , WOM , passaparola , social media Jeremiah Owyang, in questo post, cerca di dare una risposta alla spinosa questione: di chi si fidano le persone? Per farlo cita tre [...]

Posted by Di chi si fidano i consumatori? Molto degli amici, poco dei blogger… « MediaMeter on April 29th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

[...] then a report like this comes out. Simply put, people trust their peers first and blogger least. Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers) I’ve been spending more and more time pouring over data, medium usage, behavioral and preference [...]

Posted by Trying to build trust with your blog…You might want to try something else | Intelligent Website Widget Deployment Strategies on April 29th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

[...] Dit is een vertaalde posting van Jeremiah van Web Stategist [...]

Posted by RealVine | Wie vertrouw je het meest? on April 29th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

Jeremiah
I think you’re right, but I also believe that this report could have got more insight if it had asked a few more questions about:
1. Transparency
2. Sentiment
3. Demographics

Thanks for giving us the chance to mull it over though.

Hayden
http://press20.blogspot.com/2008/04/trust-and-blogs.html

Posted by Hayden on April 29th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

[...] first video (I promise to zoom out in the future) where Matt and I discuss Jeremiah Owyang’s recent post on influence and [...]

Posted by Blogger Influence « Inside the Rabbit-Hole on April 29th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

[...] Since research indicates that people seem to trust peers more than corporate websites, not a bad move. However, unless these reviews point out advantages and disadvantages of using a particular product in specific contexts, I wonder if people will put much trust in them. Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers) [...]

Posted by trend spotting - checklist for building trust with your global social media audience on April 30th, 2008 at 4:18 am

[...] to Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research, more than 83% of us trust the opinion of an acquaintance or friend, while [...]

Posted by Do You Trust Hotel and Restaurant Reviews? on April 30th, 2008 at 4:29 am

I think the blogger trust level is very interesting. I wonder what it was say a year ago and how that will move in the next year. The amount of ‘pro bloggers’ raised by Aaron and then further discussed by Dan do bring the 30% into question as well.

I think as blogs become more commercial they clearly risk losing their credibility which is no doubt part of the low ranking.

Also, what would the results be like if the age groups of respondents were split out. I would expect few of the ‘older’ generation would even know what a blog is so the data surely needs to be applied to your target audience rather than just take a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Either way, great post and no doubt helps push the book as well!

Peter

Posted by Peter Gold on April 30th, 2008 at 4:51 am

[...] Owyang claims that people don’t trust bloggers. To back up this claim, he cites three market research studies showing that when given a choice, [...]

Posted by Why people don’t trust “bloggers” - Bokardo on April 30th, 2008 at 5:33 am

One should carefully interpret results of this study, because it does not take in consideration such factors as prior distribution of exposure to different media/sources of information. In other words, what you think is indication of “source trustworthiness” may be in fact simply reflectin of levels of “reach” of that source in general population. We communicate with our peers, friends and family everyday, and in various settings. “Word of mouth” has a reach of nearly 100%. TV has a penetration of nearly 95%. These sources are available and accessed by nearly everyone, so more people refer to them as to “most trustworthy” sources. Online blogs, on the other hand, are read by only 8% of US population (and only 11% of US Internet users). Chat rooms and discussion boards are used by merely 15% of Internet users. As a result, these sources were mentioned by less people.

Now, I am not trying to defend blogs or social media. I am just poiting out that it is necessary to take in consideration prior distributions of these sources. Marketers often limit their research to simply reporting distributions, whereas one should also look at how variables of interest related to other factors. Reach and frequency is soooo analytics 1.0! Traditional media have been using these metrics for a long time, and now it looks like digital media now social media are repeating their mistake. Think in terms of niche-marketing: the most attractive segment is not the one that is bigger, but the one that is more likely to use your services. So I would like to see first how trust in each source is related to likelihood of purchasing product or services after seeing a review.

Modern Metrix blog at http://www.mmx.typepad.com

Posted by ModernMetrix blog on April 30th, 2008 at 6:37 am

I think blogger trust will move up fast with the addition of video to many blogs. People will get used to the sight and voice of the blogger and trust them more.

Also, I was asked as a blogger to interview the stars of a new TV show on TLC. Instead of traditional reporters, the producers asked real estate bloggers to do the interviews. If TV sees the power of bloggers over newspapers, the trust is building.

Posted by Jeanette on April 30th, 2008 at 7:02 am

I’m struck by the year-on-year variation in the Edelman Trust Barometer numbers. I’m no statistician, but there’s probably no significant difference in most of the categories given the large variances.

Posted by Pierre dV on April 30th, 2008 at 8:41 am

[...] Once you get the message out, then it’s about trust. So who do people trust. Forrester Research analyst and blogger Jeremiah Owyang (Web Strategies by Jeremiah) has a great (and detailed) post on trust. Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers) [...]

Posted by AllinaComm » Blog Archive » Who do people trust? on April 30th, 2008 at 9:05 am

All I do know is that trust isn’t built overnight and is the product of many a time checking and hacking away at the mangroves of personas that are supposed to be more difficult to assess given the lack or minimal face-to-face meetings among online participants.

But surprise, in today’s highly-connected world, you can find out many things about a person if you know where and what to look for. It isn’t truth science but often times enough to measure transparency and consistency of lines and thoughts. Whether it leads to trust, it is still debatable but given the prevalent ‘cattle mentality’, better follow Buddha and rely on your own findings than just riding the tide.

Best.
alain

Posted by friarminor on April 30th, 2008 at 9:39 am

[...] second trust topic was social media. Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang published a piece titled Who do People Trust? It ain’t bloggers this morning, about the implications of social media for marketers. Suffice it to say, he thinks [...]

Posted by Squawk Box April 30 - Trust — Alec Saunders SquawkBox on April 30th, 2008 at 9:57 am

Trust is moving from institutions to processes. Hence - I don’t trust bloggers (institutions) but I do trust blogging (process)as a way of giving me accurate information.

This shift in the source of trust is one of the most important characteristics of the social media revolution.

Posted by Richard Stacy on April 30th, 2008 at 10:22 am

Great post. The data doesnt lie. A blogger may have a great digital reputation but thats where it ends. I may check something out that a blogger or “influencer” may recommend, this is true. But I would act much quicker to the purchase process if recommendation was made by a close friend or family member (inner circle).

Posted by Morgan Witt on April 30th, 2008 at 4:09 pm

[...] Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers) Interesting stats. (tags: blogging marketing metrics statistics trust new.media) [...]

Posted by links for 2008-04-30 « andrew golis on April 30th, 2008 at 4:45 pm

[...] Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers) (tags: trust marketing research socialmedia influence blogging business **) [...]

Posted by links for 2008-05-01 « Simply… A User on April 30th, 2008 at 5:43 pm

[...] his post, Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers), Jeremiah, a senior analyst at Forrester Research, has gathered data which shows that people turn [...]

Posted by Sazbean » What is your B2B Brand Awareness? on April 30th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

[...] it comes to the opinion of bloggers anyway. According to some research folk (you can see graphs here). The link points to the blog of Jeremiah Owyang, a Senior Analyst of Social Computing at [...]

Posted by People Don’t Trust Bloggers | Michael Koby (mkoby.com) on April 30th, 2008 at 11:20 pm

I can def. feel the effects of this purchasing trend. Dealing directly with the consumer I can clearly see the trust issue taking effect. Clients really want to go the extra length and get to know you and your organization before signing on the dotted line.

Posted by Brick Marketing on May 1st, 2008 at 6:58 am

[...] Ampliar noticia Social Media Marketing:Estos íconos enlazan con webs de marcadores sociales que permiten a los lectores compartir y descubrir nuevas webs. [...]

Posted by En quien confia los usuarios en su decisión de compra | Marketing Online Blog on May 1st, 2008 at 8:50 am

That is why it is important to build sincere relationships with people. The people who are opinion leaders who create influence in a group will step up if they can sense your sincerity.

Posted by Adam Gershenbaum on May 1st, 2008 at 9:16 am

People matter. Always will. Especially the most trusted and respected people in your life.

Posted by jb on May 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am

[...] pm on May 1, 2008 | # | Tags: blogs, social networks, trust Well, it’s not that bad. But Forrester agrees with Edelman (or vice versa?): bloggers aren’t trusted. They ain’t trusted worth [...]

Posted by Forrester: Bloggers, cheats, and swindlers « 3008: What’s Next? on May 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm

[...] Diagramas de Venn y los problemas de escribir y publicar blogs Seguramente que mas uno de ustedes estan siguiendo los feeds y los agregadores de un amigo, conocido o persona que creen tiene buenos links. Eso tiene sentido, hace algunos dias en el NYT apareció un artículo demonizando el exceso de information en el internet y en una de sus partes decía: Ahora todo el mundo puede predicar en el desierto. Y no hablamos solamente de blogs, no importa si es un experto o conocedor de la materia, hoy por hoy es muy fácil no solo publicar un blog sino tambien un libro. Y mientras nadie se ha puesto de acuerdo de si los blogueros son periodistas, que si los periódicos regulares tienden a desaparecer y en su punto, si los blogueros están hipervaluados; el punto es que, si nadie le cree a los blogueros tal y conforme Forrester lo ha encontrado, entonces vienen los amigos y conocidos, por que es en ellos en quien al fin de cuentas creemos. [...]

Posted by Diagramas de Venn y los problemas de escribir y publicar blogs « B.P.L.E on May 1st, 2008 at 5:41 pm

[...] research firm Pollara points out (via Jeremy): Of more than 1,100 adults polled in December, nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more [...]

Posted by Whom to people trust? Friends the most, Bloggers the least |Technology and Business Startups in India on May 1st, 2008 at 11:16 pm

[...] recently wrote an interesting post, “Why people don’t trust “bloggers” in response to Jeremiah Owyang who claims that people don’t trust bloggers. As Joshua wrote that Jeremiah based his observations on three studies by respected marketing [...]

Posted by The FASTForward Blog » Are Us Bloggers to be Trusted?: Enterprise 2.0 Blog: News, Coverage, and Commentary on May 2nd, 2008 at 7:07 am

Trust is the new currency in the evolving digital age / social environment. I do hope that marketeers / media planers and so on start to realize this. And brand monitoring in the social media resp. digital environment is a must, unfortunately still not put into practice by most companies.

Posted by Markus Hübner on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:29 am

[...] an interesting post, Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang recently focused on a study produced by his firm indicating that [...]

Posted by Measles Outbreak Illustrates Hidden Costs Of Trusting “People Like Us” | Envisioning 2.0 on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:42 am

Great post, Jeremiah! You are spot on with your comments and insights here. So much energy is spent by marketers on finding the ‘key influencers’. But I would agree that it is the trusted relationships that are already in place that can have the most impact in people’s decisions. That is where the real influence exists.

Thanks for organizing your argument so clearly, and with several data points of interest.

Posted by Andy Levitt on May 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 am

fine!

Blogger are supposed to curse and they get digg!
and if I write something what it has to do with if others buy it or not?

Who cares?

Posted by dai on May 2nd, 2008 at 9:32 pm

[...] Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers) (tags: Forrester Marketing research Blogs trust) [...]

Posted by Engenharia da Computação » Blog Archive » Links for 2008-05-04 on May 4th, 2008 at 12:58 am

[...] Forrestor Research在北美范围内做了一个产品或服务信源调查，Blog的信任度是30%，多少让人有些沮丧。 [...]

Posted by 信任的成本 - 传世纪·下一代传播 - on May 4th, 2008 at 1:32 am

[...] Owyang de Forrester, sur son blog Web Strategy, insiste sur les deux extrémités du tableau : les gens font confiance à leurs connaissances et [...]

Posted by A qui faites-vous confiance ? « internet et opinion - web 2.0, communication, relations publiques, influence, médias, blogs, etc. on May 4th, 2008 at 5:40 am

[...] the other hand, Jeremiah Owyang asks (and answers his own question), Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers): he points to research that suggests people trust people they know, but that bloggers [...]

Posted by Manuel L. Quezon III: The Daily Dose » Blog Archive » A proposal lacking a consensus on May 4th, 2008 at 11:47 pm

Posted by 李劳·传世纪 » Blog Archive » 信任的成本 on May 5th, 2008 at 9:24 pm

Interesting post. I think some of it will be largely be based on the relationship (real conversation) the blogger has with their community of readers & the level of disclosure that the blogger (or other community medium) does with their readers. I think some people, rightfully so, suspect that “other things” are going on behind the scenes to influence a blog post.

Another point is that it is fairly well-known in the tech world that social media tools can be gamed to some degree…so I think tech folks might be a little bit more jaded in their opinions than your average person.

Posted by Damon Billian on May 6th, 2008 at 12:01 am

[...] Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers) April 29th, 2008 | Category: Challenges, Analyst, Web Marketing [...]

Posted by Contagio en Publicis Dominicana » Blog Archive » Las Personas creen más en los comentarios de conocidos on May 7th, 2008 at 7:11 am

[...] Blogs asks, Does the public trust bloggers? The reason for the question was “a recent Forrester report posted by Jeremiah Owyang finding the public doesn’t trust bloggers as much as other sources when commenting on [...]

Posted by Law Bites » Would You Buy A Used Car From A Blogger? on May 8th, 2008 at 12:05 am

[...] the people that they are connected to, too. The most important underpinnings of a social network is trust and behavior. When you build around your identity, you’re not anonymous so your reputation is at stake. [...]

Posted by Go Big Always - On Social Networks, nobody thinks you’re a dog on May 9th, 2008 at 2:13 am

Thanks for this post… not only thought provoking, but really nice to see how many people reacted to your post! Just last night (before i read this) i wrote a post on my own blog, discussing the my minute viewpoint of whether to trust or not and how it is impacting my life and then in turn how is it going to affect my kids’ world…

Posted by Claire on May 9th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

Sorry! For some reason my URL was wrong above… it’s http://www.verb.net.au

Posted by Claire on May 9th, 2008 at 6:51 pm

[...] commenter on the Web-Strategist blog post featuring this study picked up on the issue that bothered me when I looked at these stats: [...]

Posted by Do People Really Trust Bloggers? on May 13th, 2008 at 7:53 pm

[...] you trust me? Jeremiah Owyang at Web Strategy by Jeremiah says you do not , unless you are related to me. But the real point of Owyang’s post and [...]

Posted by May Carnival of Trust IP Down Under on May 17th, 2008 at 10:15 pm

Posted by Blogger relations best practices - biginfo.org on May 18th, 2008 at 12:15 pm

Is anyone really surprised that people tend to trust their families, and the friends they have chosen in real life (and therefore have strongest ties to), when they want opinions?

Or that blogs don’t figure highly in the Edelman Trust Barometer of people 35-64? (I think that’s what the tiny text indicated!)

Someone needs to be looking at the variation within online/offline close friends, acquintances, and bloggers who are read regularly, infrequently, have a large perceived spehere of influence, or have a readership of 5 etc…

And it needs to be segregated by age and location.

Meanwhile the Forrester report is from a Q3 2006 survey, and while I don’t think it will have been flipped on it’s head - I do think the figures will have changed since then.

Posted by Dan Thornton on May 21st, 2008 at 3:30 am

Wow, I suspected the preference for opinions of people we trust, or at least know so we can calibrate accordingly, would be high but didn’t expect 80%+. Seems to me that Linkedin is leveraging this pretty well –I wonder who else is REALLY capitalizing on it

Posted by Rob Gemmell on May 22nd, 2008 at 7:58 pm

Trusting individuals can be very difficult in the digital landscape. If you don’t know someone, reputation and credibility are not properties that can simply be claimed. Finding an objective measure of credibility would help people to assess trust in others they don’t know. Don’t underestimate the power of friends-of-friends though as a large trusted resource.

As others have commented, credibility is different for different topics. An expert or credible source for web strategy may not be the same for cars, say.

I think the need for trust in individuals online is growing, and it extends way beyond reviews of products and services - what about people selling good themselves? or claiming medical or legal expertise for example?

I’ve got a blog that discusses trust in individuals online, and a prototype application that aims to expose people’s credibility in different areas. Take a look at http://trustweb.blogspot.com/ and http://www.knowbetween.com/

Posted by Jon Reay on May 26th, 2008 at 1:39 pm

[...] the question, “does your ranking influence others?” we know from trust research that people trust those like them or peers, far more than anything [...]

Posted by Understanding Community Leadership: An Interview with a Member of Yelp’s “Elite” on May 27th, 2008 at 6:01 am

Påverkan 2.0…

I boken “Influence: Science and practice” (Amazon) identifierar Robert B. Cialdini sex stycken psykologiska mekanismer som hjälper människan att fatta beslut. I stället för att processa all tillgänglig information varje gång vi ställs inför e…

Posted by Daytona Blogg on May 27th, 2008 at 7:05 am

[...] first video (I promise to zoom out in the future) where Matt and I discuss Jeremiah Owyang’s recent post on influence and trust. Subscribe to comments Comment | Trackback | Post Tags: blogger, brands, [...]

Posted by » Blogger Influence on June 5th, 2008 at 12:10 pm

[...] Owyang of Forrester recently did something of a research summary on this issue on his blog post Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers). One study he highlights, published in April by Canadian research firm Pollara, makes [...]

Posted by Now that you’re blogging, get the real-world right too at allaboutadvocacy.com on June 10th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

I like this post and would like to add…

I recently had a friend steer me really wrong on a contractor recommendation. Though most of us will trust friends, according to this blog entry, you go on to qualify that this person’s trust factor is high if that friend is like you. This one is definitely not! Sometimes I wonder why we’re friends since we agree on very little.

Here’s some additional qualifiers I’d like to add:
wrong, right? WRONG!
-Has this friend had a lot of experience in the things he/she is recommending?
-Is your friend in the loop as far as knowing people and their reputations (applies to people recommendations)?
-Do you consider your friend to be a bright person?
A “NO” to any of these questions is reason enough for you to search out recommendations elsewhere.

Posted by Laura Ressurector on June 14th, 2008 at 9:51 am

[...] In ogni social network così creato e vissuto è importantissimo considerare il cosiddetto trust and behavior. [...]

Posted by Sui social network nessuno pensa che tu sia un cane : Catepol 3.0 on June 29th, 2008 at 7:12 am

[...] by Girish Krishnan on July 14, 2008 Came across a slightly old post on “Who people trust” in the online [...]

Posted by No Trusting Bloggers? « The KSeeker on July 13th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

[...] (arguably the most), are being edged off of their pedestal as more and more consumers turn to “people like them” to help mold their thoughts and [...]

Posted by Digital Perspective Blog » Blog Archive » Social Media: The Essence of Grassroots Communication on July 17th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

Better late than never.

It seems that ‘trust’ question parallels the ‘engagement’ question. Just what do we mean by those terms? (And if we can figure that out then maybe we can understand influence better. Disclosure - this is something we’re working on.)

In this context trust could be considered a function of experience and relevance. My trust increases based on length of time I’ve known (or read) a resource, my frequency of interaction, and the willingness of the resource to help me. Trust also increases based on category and product expertise while being damped by the possibility of bias (ads?). The two concepts together make a powerful combination as it relates to influence.

Interesting read and commentary!

Posted by Anthony Power on July 19th, 2008 at 12:04 pm

[...] leads into what kind of consumer reviews people trust and why. Jeremiah Owyang delves into this in his post citing a study that shows people trust the opinions of their friends or acquaintances who have used [...]

Posted by The Influence of Reviews on July 29th, 2008 at 10:36 am

the result surprised me

Posted by Nigel on August 19th, 2008 at 9:05 pm

[...] אבל אם כבר כנות ואמינות - על מי הצרכנים סומכים? על חברים, עיתונאים ומידע “אובייקטיבי” שמופיע באתרי [...]

Posted by תגובה הולמת: בולשיווקים » ברמה העקרונית» הבלוג של רוני שני on September 13th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

[...] spikerzy wiadomości telewizyjnych, Jeremiah Owyang cytuje badania, które pokazują, że ludzie nie ufają bloggerom. Specyficznego smaczku dodaje temu fakt, że Jeremiah jest w swojej dziedzinie (wykorzystywanie [...]

Posted by Na CeLowniku Internet i nowa edukacja » Archives » Drukowana Wikipedia on September 18th, 2008 at 4:30 am

[...] 阅读：Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers) [...]

Posted by 阅读和评论：爱德曼公关推出ES | 新营销观察 on September 19th, 2008 at 5:06 am

Posted by pensare in rete | Ibrid@menti on October 3rd, 2008 at 3:15 pm

[...] The moment of brilliance was when David said that one of the requirements of his marketing efforts was to never link to Intel.com. Rather than try to join a community then pull them away, the marketing efforts joined the community and stayed there –likely where the trust is highest (see data). [...]

Posted by Community Marketing: Fishing Where The Fish Are on October 25th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

[...] The moment of brilliance was when David said that one of the requirements of his marketing efforts was to not link to Intel.com. Rather than try to join a community then pull them away, the marketing efforts joined the community and stayed there –likely where the trust is highest (see data). [...]

Posted by Yks blog » Blog Archive » Intel’s Community Marketing: Fishing Where The Fish Are on October 30th, 2008 at 1:35 pm

yes, everybody trusts a friend or somebody’s friend to recommend what to buy, but the fact thet they don’t trust a blogger amaze me

Posted by SEO en Joomla on November 20th, 2008 at 10:23 am

[...] activities to brands, why? Because research on trust shows that consumers (folks like you and me) trust the opinions of people we know more than anyone else. It makes sense of course, think about the next time you’re going to buy a car, who’s opinion [...]

Posted by Yks blog » Blog Archive » Retweet: The Infectious Power Of Word Of Mouth on November 27th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

[...] is not only absorbed, but embraced, passed along and viewed as valuable? There have already been plenty of studies conducted that show us that word of mouth is the most trusted source of information for internet [...]

Posted by heavyBlog » Maximizing Social Discovery Opportunities on the Social Web on November 28th, 2008 at 10:04 am

[...] blog. Strange that consumers don’t trust personal blogs? We actually saw other findings from data that supports that blogs are not trusted. Then, moving up the graphic, we start to see an increase in trust from mainstream mediums like [...]

Posted by So, Who Do Consumers Trust? on December 10th, 2008 at 7:09 am

[...] Check out the full post >> [...]

Posted by Consumers trust bloggers less than you would think… | Jay Lane on December 12th, 2008 at 8:25 am

[...] venner tilføjet sig til denne gruppe, vil dette stå omkring din annonce, hvorved du kan skabe øget troværdighed og trafik. Der kan læses mere om social ads på How to Effectively Buy Into Facebook: Social [...]

Posted by Lidt om markedsføring til 150+ mio. mennesker at CreunaBlog on January 14th, 2009 at 5:05 am

[...] extensive research on the topic, the full results of which can be seen on Jeremiah’s blog here. Not surprisingly, the opinion of a friend or acquaintance who has used a product or service ranked [...]

Posted by Who do people trust? - Zibaba on February 9th, 2009 at 1:39 am

[...] do not need advertising. Research clearly suggests that consumers trust the opinions of friends and family more than anything else. [...]

Posted by The Death of Outbound Advertising | Broadband Evolved on March 22nd, 2009 at 6:54 pm

[...] let’s bear in mind the fact that I’m a cold-hearted cynic and that you should never trust anything you read in a [...]

Posted by Stop with the cheer-leading « IQL Consulting on April 17th, 2009 at 1:47 am

Think about eBay. Why does anyone trust enough to buy? Solely because they ask everyone to comment on every trade, and eBay is independent of the seller.

That’s why we started Feefo - and that’s what we do, except that it’s for anyone except eBay. Is there any better measure consumers can use to generate trust?

Posted by Bill Cawley on May 1st, 2009 at 4:04 am

[...] among future employers, partners and customers by spouting dross. Trust A new survey suggests consumers have limited trust in blogger reviews. The same survey, however, scores the views of known experts and personal contacts highly. In [...]

Posted by B2B Marketing and Blogging | Velocity - the B2B marketing acceleration agency for technology companies on May 8th, 2009 at 8:53 am