How do we form the best relationships; bring our best to them; build environments that nurture them; and measure our success?
Join the Comment Box Conference. Ask questions. Discuss answers. Meet people in the comment box. Find out.
John Haydon
John Haydon is the Social Media Coach and Publisher of CorporateDollar.Org and his fans describe him well. In the words of Rebecca Leaman of Wild Apricot, “John speaks directly to the needs and interests of small nonprofits.” Chris Garrett, Co-author of Problogger agrees “John’s short ebook gets straight to the point and only shows you the most authentic and ethical techniques, keeping the ‘social’ in social media! I would recommend it to anyone, profits and non-profits alike.”
John’s focus today is
Social Media and Trust Online
- Social Proof -Book marking, testimonials, number of comments, number of subscribers, community involvement.
- Consistency – Sticking around for years.
- Being Honest – Just being who you are.
- Being Afraid
- Not Worrying — about what other folks are doing
John has had experience with relationships online. “John absolutely knows his Twittering.” – Michael Martine, Remarkablogger.com
Follow @johnhaydon at Twitter.
Hi all! Come on in!
Hiya! John!
Glad to see you!
See? I’m here – right on time. Lesson #1 about trust: Be on time.
Hey John! Welcome!
Er, or thanks for the welcome! 🙂
Wow, racing from one session to the next – like all conferences!
Heh. 🙂 Very true. So what do you do when you break someone’s trust – how to fix it in a day when the Web remembers all?
Easton – very good question. We all know the answer though.
If you do something stupid to break trust, you have to go way beyond what someone might expect in order to express your SINCERE apology.
Pick up the phone – send a post card. Do it fast.
Maybe it’s not so much fix, but rebuild their trust again.
Speed of response is a key ingredient found in the recipe to make Trust.
Vicky,
Yes – fix should come second, unless there’s a server that’s crashed.
A sincere apology first. Humility. Then listen – really listen.
John
Hey Easton – I know you! You’re mentioned in that song that Terry wrote!
Hi Glenda,
You’re very good at creating trust on your blog. You communicate very openly.
John
Hey John. You rang? 🙂
Hi Amy,
Yes. I rang because I think your video talks about trust:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vKw7kxnbG8
This is a video tutorial on being authentic, which is another ingedient in the Trust recipe.
John
Greetings everyone.
Hey John!
How long do you think it takes to build trust?
Sarah
All,
One amazing thing about trust is that it speeds up business transactions and lowers the cost of those transactions.
John
Thanks John. I wonder about Twitter, if I communicate too freely at times. 😉
Thanks John. I have a question I’d like your opinion on… Someone asked me this today and it’s a question I get asked a lot by new bloggers trying to brand themselves through blogging and social media — How does someone with a new business, who is new to the internet, go about establishing trust when there is little evidence to back up their trustworthiness? I think you did a good job of getting connected fast and rising to the top of the trustworthy pile… Any tips on how you did that?
Sarah,
You asked “How long do you think it takes to build trust?”
It takes as long as it takes. However, if you use social proof (backlinks, testimonials, feed counts), you’ll have a bit of a head start.
John
Amy,
You’re friend asked:
“How does someone with a new business, who is new to the internet, go about establishing trust when there is little evidence to back up their trustworthiness?”
In my case, it may look like I “rose to the top” (which is relative anyhow). But I really took months to get to know people. I commented on blogs – consistently. I talked up people I loved (like you). I made a sincere effort to support others.
It all comes down to sincere effort to create value for others. Once you have this mindset, all the tactical stuff follows.
Does that help?
John
Glenda,
You wonder about Twitter, if you communicate too freely at times?
I’m the wrong to ask about being free and open.
If you are you, you can never be too freely open. If people don’t like it, they will “opt out”.
No big deal.
It’s easier to be who you are. That way, you have less to remember AND you can BE VERY HAPPY doing what you’re doing until the day you die.
John
Re: #12 John: Hehe I guess I am – nice to meet you! And thanks for replying to my question about rebuilding trust. I agree – it’s like offline stuff but even maybe more urgent because of the perfect Web memory – you have to overdeliver and fix what you did wrong and really make it above and beyond just apologizing.
Hi Zaibatsu!
What do you think about trust? You have a zillion people following you on Twitter. What ingredients are in your trust recipe?
John
Here is an excellent post that Liz wrote on our subject:
https://www.successful-blog.com/1/which-social-media-apologies-rebuild-trust/
Thanks John. That does help a lot and reinforces my thinking. I’ve been watching you — in a totally non-creepy way — and I admire the way you reached out to folks and got involved from the very beginning. From the start, I saw that what you were doing was valuable, and you seemed very genuine to me — whereas many people who reach out to me do not. 🙂
Hey John,
Almost missed it but Liz’s tweet reminded me!
What are some key things to avoid when trying to build up a relationship with your fellow tweeters? (Besides spamming!)
Amy,
The cool thing about being sincere and making tons of effort is this:
It’s a huge differentiator!
John
How do you measure trust? Sorry if it’s been asked.
Glenda,
Check out this post on your commitment to connect in 2009:
http://www.doitmyselfblog.com/2009/my-word-for-2009/
“be the best connector,
Inter-actor and communicator”
John
Thanks John! I agree. I know I’m not following all of the arbitrary Twitter rules, but til major followers unfollow, I keep doing what I’m doing.
Just thinking about it, all these rules are amusing. Like, what is a Twitter expert anyway?
Oh Glenda, I am SO with you there!
John,
Building trust on twitter or any other social site comes from a warm and comfy level of consistency. People trust your opinion and content if you keep on delivering solid stuff.
It’s like a drumbeat, you build on your community and your communities trust helps you grow.
zaibatsu
Glenda, you type FAST! With just your left thumb!? I hunt and peck and I’ve used a keyboard since I was practically in diapers!
John,
what happens when you betray your audience, your loyal followers. I know I’ve done it more than once.
Your thoughts?
Zaibatsu
Easton,
Trust can be measured with:
The consistency and length of your relationships.
How often people point others to your blog.
Quality of testimonials.
Technorati authority (to an extent).
How often a blogger comments back in a blog post – how interactive they are.
How quickly people to business with you.
How freely and consistently people retweet your stuff.
How often clients do repeat business with you.
How often clients refer other people to you.
Stephen Cover has a new book called “The Speed Of Trust”. Tons of examples of metrics in that book.
John
Glenda,
We’re all experts about our own experience on Twitter.
John
Zaibatsu,
What happens when you betray your audience, your loyal followers?
You screw yourself. Unless you make right.
John
Zaibatsu – By the way, I like the “drumbeat” analogy. I’ll have to steal that.
John
How do you make it right?
Any tips?
Zaibatsu
You can also create trust by sincerely putting the interests of others before your own:
http://www.corporatedollar.org/2008/11/how-to-get-the-universe-to-promote-you-on-twitter/
Trust is a major factor in what some folks call “Authority”:
http://www.chrisg.com/what-is-authority/
Oops, late to the party here – keep talking, John et al, while I read fast & try to catch up!
lol Easton, and that was w/ a brief power outtage too! Maybe you’d be faster using 1 thumb too.
John,
Well said.
There are so many selfish people throughout social media.
Helping the community seems like a great way gain trust.
We’ve seen alot of that recently with the fires in Australia.
Zaibatsu
Thank you for inviting me John, and for all you said here. You’re awesome. 🙂
Zaibatsu,
How do you make it right?
Sincerely reflect on what you did and really think about how it impacted your audience. Call some folks who you impacted and seek to understand more.
Then maybe write a post with an apology. And for goodness sake, don’t promote anything in the same post!
You could also give them their money back.
Bottom line is to put yourself in your audiences shoes. What would you want if you were them?
John
Amy – you’re awesome-er!
Thanks a ton John!
John,
Thankfully for me it’s usually the twitter audience and not a client.
I lose influence or trust with a bad post or someting I haven’t vetted throughly.
But trust within social media circles is huge.
Thanks for your insights, I haven’t quite looked at it from your perspective.
I think you have some ideas that we could all put to good use.
Zaibatsu
Easton & Zaibatsu – thanks so much for stopping by!
John,
My question is… how much do you need to share about yourself to build that trust and how do you manage that while balancing people’s concerns regarding personal privacy?
🙂
Zaibatsu puts a finger on something important (#51) – because the Internet has a long memory, we need to take a tiny bit extra time for reflection before speaking or taking action. That can be really difficult when there’s such a premium on speed of response.
I don’t think you need to sacrifice privacy in order to build trust, Ria. The kind of person you are will show through your actions and attiitudes towards others, not through how much persosnal detail you release. Would you trust me more if you knew my street address, or who I ate lunch with?
[Liz’s website doesn’t trust me much, by the way – I’ve been talking to myself and the spam filter here! LOL]
John – I read your list above, and pretty much wonder why anyone “trusts” me then? I don’t rank high on many of those qualifications. But I do try to stay consistent with what I say and believe – do you find that sometimes trust is based on “gut feelings” or intuition? or is it only based on reputation?
Thanks!
So sorry, I’m getting John back here!
Ria,
“how much do you need to share about yourself to build that trust and how do you manage that while balancing people’s concerns regarding personal privacy?”
You shouldn’t feel like you “need” to share anything about your personal life. Share what YOU are comfortable.
The business value of sharing a bit of your personal side is that people want to do business with people – not corporations.
John
Rebecca,
You wrote that it “can be really difficult when there’s such a premium on speed of response.”
I agree.
John
Lucretia, I think consistency has a lot to do with trust. In fact, it might be almost how we define trustworthiness, in a lot of cases: someone demonstrates their nature through their behaviour, and over time we build up a picture of who that person is. Consistency – trust – is built up one tiny moment at a time, like grains of sand piling up into a full-sized dune. Some waves are bigger, some smaller, but the dune withstands all that come within the normal range of tidal motion… and that’s trust in action, day to day. But all it takes is one big crashing wave of unexpected action or speech to feel like a betrayal; and that makes a break in consistency that can wash away a good part of the carefully built-up dune of trust.
Here endeth my analogy for today!
Lucretia,
Anyone can work on the things in the list, for sure. It’s all about where you’re at and making causes to create trust from today onward. And by the way, this list certainly doesn’t cover everything that can be measured.
You ask if trust is “based on “gut feelings” or intuition? or is it only based on reputation.
If someone doesn’t know you, they get their “gut feeling” from social proof demonstrated on your blog:
Your about page is one of the first place people go to get their “gut feeling”. Yours says you’ve been blogging for over 10 years (that makes me trust you). Also, you are a contributing blogger on other sites (that makes me trust you). You also have over 9,000 followers on Twitter – play that up!
John