Social Media: Influencing people’s trust in organisations
Social media has changed the way people decide which organisations they trust – trust to tell them the truth, trust to reflect their values, and trust to provide them with the best products and services. Social media enables information about organisations to be created, shared, recommended and filtered more quickly, more easily, and by more people than ever before. It is this socially mediated information which people use to decide which organisations they trust.
In this new environment, ‘social’ is more than a medium, it’s capital – and to succeed in this new environment, to ensure that people get the information they need to trust your organisation, you need to build and invest your organisation’s social capital.
Social Capital: Investing wisely in social activities
Social capital is the value of the relationships within your organisation’s social network: who knows you, who trusts you, and who would share that knowledge and trust with people they in turn know and trust. The more social capital your organisation has, the more it is able to influence the information people use to decide which organisations to trust. Like all forms of capital, social capital must be wisely invested in order to grow. Organisations can make these investments by using social media to share, create, recommend or filter information, or by facilitating these acts amongst others.
Made wisely, even the smallest investments of your organisation’s social capital can have huge returns. In the social world in which your organisation now operates, a little social capital goes a long way.
Social Activities: One activity, multiple business benefits
In the social world, social capital is invested in social media activities – getting people the information they need to trust your organisation. Investing in one social activity can meet multiple objectives across your organisation. For example, managing an online community related to your organisation can both strengthen relationships with existing customers and generate word of mouth which reaches prospective customers, whilst simultaneously providing feedback about product improvement and innovation and introducing your organisation to potential partners, employees and associates. This is the real value that social media can bring: one wise investment of your social capital can meet multiple objectives – all going towards ensuring that people have the information necessary to trust your organisation.
That’s why social media works – a little goes a long way.
