Business Credibility Is Different From Social Trust & Friendship

In my last post, I pointed out how professional networks online are not based on friendship and trust, but rather on the sharing of deep knowledge between participants, whether individuals or institutions. Respect and influence are good words to use to describe the outcomes of sharing knowledge within a professional social network. So is credibility.

David Meerman Scott recently discussed this idea in rich detail during an interview he gave about his book: "The New Rules of Marketing & PR." One situation he describes captures the influence cycle well:

"First, put away your company hat for a moment and think like one of your buyer personas. The content that you create will be a solution to those people's problems and will not mention your company or products at all! Imagine for a moment that you are a marketer at a Sales Force Automation (SFA) provider. Rather than just peddling your SFA solution, you might write an e-book or shoot a video about shortening the sales cycle, and then promote it on your site and offer it for free to other organizations (such as industry associations) to put on their sites."

This rings true on so many levels. No matter what social channel is part of the larger strategy, information must be shared in meaningful ways and make a solid contribution to the industry in order to be credible. Credibility + opportunity = sales. This is true offline and online.

Business credibility is not the same as social trust and friendship. Professionals online take their cues about a person or company based on a number of elements. Is this author (company or person) "legitimate" - do they have the background to support their statements or assertions? Are other professionals influenced by this source? Who is connected to this person or company as a buyer? Is the context for sharing information appropriate for the audience?

This last item is especially important. To take a small personal example, I belong to a number of professional online communities. It is not uncommon for their connection function to use the wrong nomenclature. On one CEO group where I am a member, requesting a connection to another member delivers a message that reads: "Vanessa DiMauro wants to be your friend." How awkward is that? It evokes the image of a child holding a ball on the playground looking for playmates, and feels laughably wrong for an executive audience. I cringe every time I send or receive a connection. The point is -- I don't want to be their friend, I want to connect collegially and exchange specific knowledge and information of professional value. The unfortunate choice of nomenclature undermines the seriousness of purpose embodied in this community. It's another hurdle to establishing credibility.

The Online Credibility Index or SLOTS

One way to assess the credibility of professional social network efforts is to measure the effectiveness and professionalism of various contacts and information. My colleague Ryck Lent and I have been developing a way to identify online credibility. The best place to start is with your own efforts -- individual or organizational. The Online Credibility Index is derived through a set of social steps and checks that can place you into a credibility bucket. Call it your SLOTS rating.

• Site Rating Does this site or blog receive solid traffic? To be sure, niche industries will rarely drive the traffic at big company levels, but even so, does a particular site show well compared to peers?

• LinkedIN Checking profiles for background and overlapping relationships. Does this person's profile demonstrate expertise? Is anyone I know and trust connected to this person?

• Offline presence covered online It's still a real world. Much of a company's or professional's best work happens face-to-face as a speaker at industry conferences, during client interactions or hosting thoughtful informal conversations. Does this company's or person's offline persona warrant online exposure? Are they good enough to be reported on via the social web?

• Twitter Check to see if this person or company is appropriate and relevant. Too often Twitter is misused by professionals who treat it informally. A quick scan of a twitter stream can reveal inappropriate commentary, a likelihood of confidentiality breaches ("great sales call with XYZ! Or "working on … insert confidential innovation project here.") Now that the Library of Congress is proposing to archive all public tweets -- look out!

• Sentiment analysis What is the public's opinion of your company or brand? Open web search tools enable anyone to find out what others are saying about you, and from those results infer the quality of your impact and relationships in the industry. The result is a quick, crowd-sourced thumbs-up or thumbs-down on your -- or your company or brand's -- professional reputation.

Most of us care what other people think of us. But trust and "friends" are no substitute for professional credibility. The SLOTS online credibility index is a tool for understanding your online professional credibility in a more rigorous, structured fashion than simply counting product "fans", professional connections or review stars.

For more insight into how credibility is assessed online, here are two recent scholarly articles that discuss this topic:
Measuring Consumer Perceptions Of Credibility, Engagement, Interactivity And Brand Metrics Of Social Network Sites (PDF)

Making Sense of Credibility on the Web: Models for Evaluating Online Information and Recommendations for Future Research (PDF)

You May Not Be My Online Friend -- But You Influence Me

I am growing weary of all this social media silly talk about trust and friendship as it applies to professional collaboration online. I have online “friends” in my knitting community and my travel community, for example, but my professional networks do not yield friendships in the real, down-and- dirty, share a beer or drive me to the airport at 5am kind of way.

What my social media peer group (SMPG) offers is a fruitful and productive idea exchange.I share experiences and thoughts with my SMPG about my work life and the situations I encounter on a professional basis. I also have a cadre of thought leaders I go to for new ideas and subject matter expertise in areas I don’t know about. This useful give-and-take helps me avoid missteps and brings new ideas to the table.Given the global nature of the internet, social media peer groups can be very far-reaching, with knowledgeable people around the world influencing each other about professional decisions.The opportunity is there for individuals and organizations to participate -- in the right ways.

All too often, professional communities take their cues from consumer-facing social media sites and experiences. We have greater access to public, consumer-facing instances of social media, and thus try to adopt their practices for professional peer groups.I believe this is a real mistake.

The rules of engagement for professional networks are different.The presumption of trust and the goals of achieving trustful relationships on professional networks should be reexamined. The current model of striving for trust online in professional settings is fundamentally unachievable. Nothing in the world will replace a good old-fashioned face-to-face handshake or a business dinner, where stories can be shared and the gritty nuances of the project and the politics are revealed.This is how professional trust and intimacy develops.

In business, social credibility stems from expertise, accomplishments, battle scars and length of service in ones given profession.The credible people are those who have fought the good fight, won some and lost some, and have the stories to prove it. Voracious use of social media is no substitute for these badges of honor, no matter how actively one participates in an online dialogue. Lack of experience or know-how becomes ever more obvious when someone shares information without a solid foundation of understanding.In this new social economy, the currency of authority is deep knowledge.Enthusiastic participation does not always equal expertise in practice.

Companies that use social media to reach their professional audiences online -- buyers and prospects -- too often confuse trust with respect and influence. An organization has to educate and inform their audience about the firm’s position, products and services in the market place -- not be their “friend.” Firms who endeavor to create a social media presence to attract new customers or retain existing ones should become invaluable to the buyer. By sharing ideas, case studies, thought leadership, industry trends and happenings, companies and individuals can insert themselves into the specific area of professional knowledge and help grow it. Offering specific knowledge and useful guidance is the foundation for building respect and influence, and for staying top-of-mind when the buyer has a service or product need.

The Dali Lama once said: “Share your knowledge, it is the way to achieve immortality.” To gain professional legitimacy online there must be a dedicated focus on sharing the knowledge that one person or a company has amassed over time, and letting that information help inspire or inform others. Even if a buyer never calls you back or orders your widget, you have helped shape how that buyer thinks about their industry and job, and they are more likely to recommend you to a peer. Though social means, you or your firm have influenced and earned the respect of that buyer. That’s worth a lot more than a “fan” badge or a place on a “friends” list.

Designing Social Media Engagement Programs

“An organization’s best customers…are not just “satisfied” or “loyal,” they are emotionally attached to the organization’s brands or services. They are engaged” (Gallup, 2009).

A disengaged customer is not really a customer, or at least not a good customer. Unfortunately, few companies have implemented effective systems to gauge the level of their customers on social media. Understanding engagement measures is important because they can give a company a more accurate and complete picture of their customers. For example, there are millions of daily web surfers. Most surfers breeze through websites and articles, maybe spending a few seconds on any given page. These brief visits will increase a company’s number of visitors and impressions, but it does not give the company an accurate accounting of how many of visitors are interested in their ideas, products, or services. This is why engagement measures are an important part of the mix.

Engagement measures aim to quantify how interested and committed customers are to a business. Although it is good for businesses to get as much exposure to their sites as possible, it is better yet to focus on getting the attention of customers whose visits will most likely translate into business.

Engaged customers generate the most business because they are more likely to generate higher conversion rates, be more loyal, and have higher retention rates. Another benefit of having engaged customers is increased customer satisfaction.

 In order to relate business goals to social media outcomes it is important to tie the anticipated results to the goals. Once you define your engagement goals, only then can you design the programs and processes to  support the goals and be able to measure them in context.

Here are some examples to illustrate my point...


Increased customer loyalty = Ratio of the number of visitors to number of repeat visitors (to measure how successfully the site captures viewers

Improved customer experience =  Ratio of the number of registered users to the number of active users, Frequency of mentions about the company, brand or thought leadership, Number of customer issues resolved or addressed through the social channel


Increased customer referrals =Number and nature of online reference, results of online peer referral program

Increased awareness = New areas of site explored as result of social media driven campaign

So before you go opening that Facebook for business page or creating a Twitter account on a whim, it is best to figure out what your company or department intends to do with it and what impact it should make upon the bottom line when done properly. If you want to control the outcome, you need to control the process. 

Enterprise Social Strategy Begins With Discovery

Starting a strategic social media plan can be overwhelming to a mid-to-large size company. There are a few big questions that often cause organizational paralysis...the most daunting of which is "where do we begin?" followed by "what's happening that we don't know about?" But knowledge is a catalyst to action. And, as with the formation of most effective business strategies, you need to understand it in order to set a course of change.

So in order to begin to formulate social strategy within enterprise,the first place to start is to conduct a discovery audit: running reconnaissance to find out what is happening in the social sphere. Only then can programs be developed that optimize best practice. Taking the pulse of the market and identifying current practices is a necessary first step that really should precede any strategic programs. Now, culturally, the company may be resistant to do discovery - afraid that there are "social media things" going on and are worried about what to do with the findings. Most certainly, there are skunk-works social projects happening within the organization, and social media practitioners among the staff. Is not bad that things are happening without being sactioned, but at some point, you do need to know about the social activity in order to move from the experimental phase into a more strategic position. This is why social media discovery is important to lay the foundation for your future efforts.


Social media discovery is really less complicated than it may initially sound. What is required here is to take a snapshot in time. The goal is not to be MECE(Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive) but to create a gauge of what is happening now. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to identify all social media activity by or about your company. So, the discovery period should be limited to a point in time and should not exceed two months.

Within that two months, under an executive-sponsored effort, a team of 2-3 people should do two things: search & find what is happening in the social sphere and determine the overall business impact of the current and future state of affairs. This will help the business begin assess the social situation in order to respond to the current state and prepare to shape the future direction of your social strategy. Now the past events should not dictate the future plans, but it will create a good baseline of understanding what has been done, what has worked and social efforts may have limitations.

To begin the search and find effort, it is best practice to conduct social media searches on a variety of different channels: on your company name, thought leadership topics, key company personnel. This should include both internal and external references from a variety of media channels: including blogs, online publications, video, social networks, gated communities and whatever other media channels you may find customers or clients on. This will help you create a taxonomy of your company’s social media presence and be able to codify it into types of efforts and the outcomes. This will allow good examples to bubble up and potentially be repeated where appropriate across the organization, and can help prevent the organization from repeating categorical missteps.

If the company's focus is consumer goods - for example - the social channels are likely to be vastly different than if the company is in the business-to-business space. Look to the places where your customers or clients are likely to be online as a starting point. For example, if your key customer is a CIO, changes are LinkedIN or an industry specific thought leadership community is a more likely channel than, say Twitter. The goal of this effort should be focused on taking stock of social media penetration in a non-judgmental way and not a punitive hunt for employee tweeters!

The discovery effort is likely to combine the use of social listening tools and manual labor. As we are in the pioneering stage of social strategy, there are a plethora of tools designed to capture the interplay of person-to-person collaboration on the web. Yet, these tools are able to capture about 50-60 percent of all of the “unstructured” data – otherwise known as social commentary - that is present on the Internet. It is not necessary to surface every social utterance because there are too many channels to track and social “listening” tools are imperfect at best.

Despite the inherent incompleteness of the results, beginning the act of discovering what employees and customers are saying and doing online in relation to your company is essential as it provides a baseline for understanding the general information exchange, tone and tenor of engagement. This baseline will provide you and your organization with a starting point for understanding needs and opportunities (as well as risks and liabilities) so that your organization can respond and react, and, eventually take a lead. By setting a limited period for discovery, you can leverage what you learn and be able to move forward to the next stage. The findings from this social media discovery are extremely useful when forming the basis of a social strategy and creating social media policy for the company as well.