It may only be 5 letters long, but "trust" is a big word. Millions of people communicating with each other via the many varied social media channels, review sites and forums will make recommendations to others about the brands they trust the most. They are associating their own credibility to their recommendations and therefore will advocate extremely carefully. The diagram below outlines an approach we use to ascertain the levels of trust a brand has with it's customers. It is based on 4 simple criteria and the model comes from extensive online research.

The 4 Categories are:

Quality of Offering: What do people think about the stuff you do?

Accessibility: How easy are you to reach in the areas where people spend their time online?

Quality of Interaction: How well do you listen and engage?

Transparency: Are you genuinely receptive and invite all types of feedback?

Assessing these 4 areas in detail provides a clear set of actions that form the basis of creating an effective social media advocacy strategy, that builds genuine trust amongst the people you wish to engage with. There is quite a bit of detail behind the scenes, and the trust profiling for a specific brand has a few  "layers" behind each of the 4 areas. An example profile is shown below.

Each bar is scored relative to best practice associated with the best on the web or the best in a specific sector. Your goals and ambitions decide which you would like to be benchmarked against.

If you'd like to know more please contact us at engage-me(at)somatica.co.uk

NB: Our Brand Trust methodology has been endorsed by econsultancy and continues to evolve with the web. It is also being supported in the world of academia and is being submitted to a couple of publications.