Who Do You Trust?

Trust is a funny word. It can mean many things depending on the context. Do you trust your manager? Do you trust your manager to honor the promotion he/she promised? Do you trust your manager with your children? Do you trust your manager to NOT be an axe murderer? Context, can change our opinions on trust.

Trust

Conversations about trust have been going on for a long time, especially in the context of brands, products, companies, and of course people. Lately, trust and another word, credibility, are being used somewhat interchangeably. Can you trust someone that isn’t credible? Is someone credible trustworthy?

This got me thinking and more importantly prodded me to act. A few weeks back I created a survey on PollDaddy.com’s platform that asked a simple question.

Please rank the following expertise, occupations, and/or roles from most “TRUSTWORTHY” to least “TRUSTWORTHY.”

Respondents were given the following options: Firefighter, Car Salesman, Lawyer, Social Media Marketer, Politician, Realtor, Police Officer, and Doctor. I’ve left the survey open, so feel free to view it live.

I found the results somewhat surprising.

Let’s break it down:

Fire Fighters and Doctors are VERY trustworthy.
Car Salesmen, Politicians, and Realtors are NOT very trustworthy
People tend to lean toward trusting police officers, but it’s not a slam dunk
Lawyers are for the most part in the middle, but people are leaning towards not trusting them
The most polarizing category was the social media marketer. Roughly 50% of people have them in the middle.

I expected fire fighters and doctors to be at the top of the list. I also expected care salesmen and politicians to be at the bottom. However, I didn’t anticipate seeing so many people on the fence about social media marketers. Frankly, I find them to be the least trustworthy of all the people.

If you’ve read Malcom Gladwell’s book, “Outliers” or read an article about it, you’re probably familiar with the 10,000 hour concept. Gladwell’s data suggests that people who are EXPERTS have spent 10,000 honing their craft. I’m not sure the number is 10,000 hours, but the concept is something I can buy into.

That said, if we take Gladwell’s data to be true it would take someone approximately 5 years to be an expert at social media marketing. So if we have “experts” today, that would mean someone would have been practicing social media marketing since 2004. Folks, for all intents and purposes that’s impossible.

The concept of social media marketing is roughly 2 years old. Most of the tools and platforms, like Facebook, weren’t even around in 2004. So how, can you be an expert? Well, if we use Galdwell’s 10,000 hour mark and we look at 2007 as the birth of social media, an expert would have to be a 13 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year practitioner. Again, impossible.

I’m no on the fence about social media marketers. I think there are some very smart people working in the space. But, today, I don’t see too many pretenders claiming to be experts. Don’t believe me? Look at this search result from Twello. Scary, isn’t it.

Frankly, a warning sign to me in any space is someone who calls them-self an expert. Real experts don’t do it, because after all they let their credibility and accomplishments demonstrate how much of an expert they really are.

You’ve seen the data. You’ve seen the results. You’re a smart person. What do you think? Who do you trust? Do you trust me?

Bree

I find it interesting that you are cautioning people against trusting social media marketers not because they hate privacy and want people’s PII to use for nefarious purposes, but because they’re not technically “experts” at what they do.
Bree

I find it interesting that you are cautioning people against trusting social media marketers not because they hate privacy and want people’s PII to use for nefarious purposes, but because they’re not technically “experts” at what they do.
http://thenumerati.net/ steve baker

I’d trust you to a large degree 1) because I’ve been reading your stuff and know something about your life, and 2) because if you betrayed my trust I could do a job on your reputation.
http://thenumerati.net steve baker

I’d trust you to a large degree 1) because I’ve been reading your stuff and know something about your life, and 2) because if you betrayed my trust I could do a job on your reputation.
http://keywords.vc/ Norbert Mayer-Wittmann

By and large, I trust everyone.

And/But I will listen to exactly what they say — and I will take their words very literally. Then I will analyse those words — much like Socrates did in his dialogues. If people are not interested in this, then I tend to lose interest in what they say.

If what they say is complete nonsense, I may “cut to the chase” and not pay attention to them at all.

I also tend to trust people who listen to me much more than people who do not listen to me.

Online, what builds trust must is also language – in particular the domain name. The top level domain (TLD — such as .COM, .NET, .ORG, etc.) is the highest level — if you cannot trust the TLD, then all bets are off. The second level domain (SLD) is usually the crucial level from the “community” perspective — this is the level that defines the community (in other words: the topic the community members share an interest in — such as “cars” or “hotels” or “movies” or “twitter” or … whatever). It will rarely be the case that a keyword name like “books.com” would be filled with useless PPC ads (indeed, years ago I would ask other domainers when they expected B&N to rebrand their company as books.com — but my colleagues then just tended to roll their eyes as if I were joking or something like that .

So on the web, people don’t matter much to me. However: if I see a website uses randomized PPC ads by Google (or whatever), I will know that they do not take their readers very seriously. Hence, the presence of such random ads makes me lose trust in such websites (and usually results in me closing such windows immediately).

That’s probably more than you asked for — but I have been working in this space for almost a decade now, so I have quite a lot of experience (and also many “how to do it” ideas .
http://keywords.vc Norbert Mayer-Wittmann

By and large, I trust everyone.

And/But I will listen to exactly what they say — and I will take their words very literally. Then I will analyse those words — much like Socrates did in his dialogues. If people are not interested in this, then I tend to lose interest in what they say.

If what they say is complete nonsense, I may “cut to the chase” and not pay attention to them at all.

I also tend to trust people who listen to me much more than people who do not listen to me.

Online, what builds trust must is also language – in particular the domain name. The top level domain (TLD — such as .COM, .NET, .ORG, etc.) is the highest level — if you cannot trust the TLD, then all bets are off. The second level domain (SLD) is usually the crucial level from the “community” perspective — this is the level that defines the community (in other words: the topic the community members share an interest in — such as “cars” or “hotels” or “movies” or “twitter” or … whatever). It will rarely be the case that a keyword name like “books.com” would be filled with useless PPC ads (indeed, years ago I would ask other domainers when they expected B&N to rebrand their company as books.com — but my colleagues then just tended to roll their eyes as if I were joking or something like that .

So on the web, people don’t matter much to me. However: if I see a website uses randomized PPC ads by Google (or whatever), I will know that they do not take their readers very seriously. Hence, the presence of such random ads makes me lose trust in such websites (and usually results in me closing such windows immediately).

That’s probably more than you asked for — but I have been working in this space for almost a decade now, so I have quite a lot of experience (and also many “how to do it” ideas .
http://www.thekmiecs.com adamkmiec

@Steve

You hit the nail on the head – you know something about be. You look up what I stand for and what I’ve done in my career. My body of work speaks volumes about be. You can see my name in ink next to projects like BMW Films, the U.S. Army Re-Branding, and others. I have a track record. Combine the history with what you know about me now and you’ve got a reference point.

People like an @iJustine or an @Pistachio trouble me. There’s no track record. With these so called social media “experts” there’s nothing to point to and say, oh she/he is the person behind ABC. They talk a good game, but with most I’ve rarely seen results. Real results. Of course there are outliers like Deb Schultz who has a proven track record and is making it work today. But, people like her are few and far between.

Also, I don’t think you have to worry about me betraying your trust. I’m an open book and have a solid POV If you don’t agree with it, that’s ok with me. That’s the beauty of having a POV.

Adam
http://www.thekmiecs.com Adam Kmiec

@Steve

You hit the nail on the head – you know something about be. You look up what I stand for and what I’ve done in my career. My body of work speaks volumes about be. You can see my name in ink next to projects like BMW Films, the U.S. Army Re-Branding, and others. I have a track record. Combine the history with what you know about me now and you’ve got a reference point.

People like an @iJustine or an @Pistachio trouble me. There’s no track record. With these so called social media “experts” there’s nothing to point to and say, oh she/he is the person behind ABC. They talk a good game, but with most I’ve rarely seen results. Real results. Of course there are outliers like Deb Schultz who has a proven track record and is making it work today. But, people like her are few and far between.

Also, I don’t think you have to worry about me betraying your trust. I’m an open book and have a solid POV If you don’t agree with it, that’s ok with me. That’s the beauty of having a POV.

Adam