In my last post The New Social Economy & Currency of Trust, I expressed my thoughts on how our modern economy trades on the trust an audience has in the brand and I listed 4 ways a business might encourage that trust from their consumers.
Many clients have reached out after that article was posted and in the subsequent conversations highlighted the fact that trust in the social economy is really a two-way street. Specifically, if a business seeks to have trust granted to it from consumers, it too must grant trust to its audience.
What does this mean in practical terms? By opening itself up to social interactions, a business must trust that consumers will participate in that engagement and act in a way that benefits the companys goals.
In fact, Id argue that granting trust to an audience is a pre-requisite to having trust granted by them. Even if a business were to follow the recommendations of my last post, they wont be successful unless they firmly believe that their customers will appreciate, recognize and reciprocate their efforts. Such a belief will directly impact, positively or negatively, the strategy & quality of the business social efforts.
A client recently asked: So, how do I know I can trust my audience? The reality is you cant know for certain but as in any personal relationship, one party has to take the initiative and open themselves up to trust. In our social economy, its the business that must make this leap of faith.
Establishing an Internal Culture of Trust
The reality is that most business executives have a distrust of customers. Despite the many positive case studies and statistics that demonstrate the benefits of social media, the fear of negative customer feedback is still one of the primary reasons executives hesitate to invest in social community building.
And while many are beginning to realize that negative commentary exists whether they participate in the social conversation or not, there is still distrust in the ability of the consumer to management & respect the business brand.
There are factors that can be affected within your organization to be sure your business is open to trusting your audience. Below is my list:
- Research conduct social media research to identify what and where your audience is engaging on line and what the tone of those conversations are. What are they saying about you now, what are they saying about your competitors? Creating an engagement strategy that is built upon your audiences existing online activities will increase the changes your business efforts will be positively reciprocated.
- Product Does your product or its branding address what the audiences stated needs are? By listening to their online dialogue (see #1 above), consider if your products branding, advertising and packaging is being presented in a way that best resonates with the customer need vs. what YOU want it to be. Sometimes a slight change in the products messaging strategy makes a measurable impact in the audiences participation with the brand.
- Cross-Silo Coordination Through education and training, be sure that the entire organization understands what the social engagement strategy is and what each of their roles are within it. When all departments efforts are coordinated and each understands their role in the social ecosystem, the business will have more confidence in opening themselves up to social media communications.
- Customer Service A well trained customer service team that is pro-active vs. reactive is another building block in the establishment of open community trust. The confidence in knowing that your business team will be ahead of negative feedback to a product or message in the social channels, will establish the foundation for customer trust.
- Customer Participation The best way to establish the confidence to trust your audience is to have them participate in your social engagement planning and strategy. Initially and on-going, create focus groups, customer advisory forums and wikis to leverage consumer-insights in your online strategy before even going to market.
Many writers and social media strategists have defined a strong social relationship as two or more parties, where each gives and receives some value from the other. Its a two-way street. Businesses with a distrust of their customers will never achieve the maximum benefit that social engagement can drive to the bottom line. Sometimes its a leap of faith, but as discussed above, you can impact your business foundation of trust.
To what level does your business truly trust its customers? How has your social engagement strategy been affected by trust or its lack thereof? Get in on the conversation by commenting below.
By Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego
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