Building A Mosaic Of Trust

The 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer was released today, so I thought it might be good to highlight some of its key findings here. The Edelman Trust Barometer is an annual survey measuring the public’s trust for institutions (business and government) and the credibility of information sources.

2010 Edelman Trust Barometer Highlights:

• The survey reported a modest global rise in trust in business. The rise was fueled by a handful of Western countries, especially the U.S. where trust in business leaped 18 percentage points to 54 percent. It appears U.S. companies are on their best behavior in an all-out effort to rebound from the Great Recession.
• The other side of the coin: trust is fragile. Nearly 70 percent of respondents expect business and financial companies to return to “business as usual” after the recession.
• Only 17 percent of respondents say product and corporate advertising is a credible source of information. Product and corporate advertising ranked lowest on the credibility scale of any information source surveyed.
• Transparency now outranks high quality products or services as the number one factor influencing a company’s reputation.
• Nowadays, companies must build a “mosaic of trust,” which means companies need a multi-channel and multi-spokesperson approach. In my humble opinion, this underscores the importance of social media as a tool in fostering trust with consumers.

“Last year, we learned that people need to hear something about a company three to five times to believe its veracity, pointing to the importance of a multi-channel and multi-spokesperson approach. To advance reputation, companies need to be everywhere, engaging everyone.” – 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer

So what are your thoughts? What does the Edelman data mean for your business?