(Limor Peer)

This is what successful media organizations like to hear from their readers, viewers, listeners and users: "If something is important, I am confident I can get it here," "I trust it to tell the truth," "I would trust this site with any information I give it," "It is very professional," "You don't have to worry about accuracy."

These are ordinary people's words as they describe how they view various newspapers, magazines, television stations, and Web sites and can be summed up by one word: Trust.

Trusting the quality and professionalism of a media organization is a key experience that drives newspaper and magazine readership, local television viewership and Web site usage (see research on experiences). Trust is an experience that drives usage of various media.

When people ask us about this experience we typically call it "table stakes" - it's something you have to establish with your consumers to even be in the game. Without it you can't really compete. But how to do that? What is it that creates that trust in the consumer's mind?

I would argue that in today's fragmented, over-saturated, news-as-commodity world, it is the brand as a whole, more than any one thing - more than individual writers, editors or anchors, more than how you decide what to report on, or how quickly or how exclusively to report on it - that is associated with people's trust. Two un-related examples illustrate this:

The first is ostensibly about videos online and how they get noticed, but turns out to be about the code of conduct on the Internet and what users expect from trusted brands: A couple weeks ago, a guest post by Dan Ackerman Greenberg over at TechCrunch listed some ways in which viral videos might not be so "viral" thanks to a little help from "clandestine marketing campaigns." The post immediately got many heated responses in the comments and led Dan to write a follow up post two days later in which he tried to clarify his position.

It's interesting that many of the comments expressed indignation in the face of what they perceived as blatant manipulation of online popularity (Are people really that surprised this and other forms of reputation gaming is going on?). Many saw the possibility that the system is somehow rigged as a breach in the trust they willingly give to the sites they use. One commenter sums up the sentiment: "Dan, we tend to trust the sites we use to prevent people like you from monetizing our attention. That's what's morally wrong here. You game the system for your own benefit and don't give anything back."

The second instance that trust came up recently is in the context of citizen journalism and the expert-amateur debate. Some argue that poor quality submissions from users have led to the demise of citizen journalism and to the recognition that the future belongs to experts because they are more trustworthy, and others see that as a premature conclusion. Research from the Pew Research Center actually shows that people often look to both experts and non-experts and then make their own evaluations: "Experts clearly played a role for online users, but so did many other kinds of resources, notably just using the internet to ask other people for advice."

What jumps out at me from both these incidents is that trust can be seen as connected to a perception of the brand as a whole. In these cases, if you trust the site, you'll trust the way they figure out popularity ratings. If you trust the site, you'll trust the people and the content - regardless of who has posted it. These examples - though different - illustrate how powerful and critical trust is to consumer loyalty and engagement.

From our research we know that this is especially true for younger people, for whom sites can be trusted if they have a "big" name, good reputation and financial success - that is, if they are "brand names." The 2007 State of the Media report confirms this about young people.

So, two things are clear: First, trust is precious. Second, it applies to your brand as a whole. These realizations may not be new, but they should figure into any discussions about future strategies.


By Limor Peer (l-peer@northwestern.edu)
Limor Peer is research director for the Media Management Center and Readership Institute.