stedavies.com - communications consultant

As my mate, Simon Collister let me know today, Edelman’s released this year’s (and the eighth I believe) Trust Barometer survey. I already knew, though, as he and David Brain were ‘live tweeting‘ it this morning. Here’s a snippet:

OVERALL MOOD

• Generally improving mood on trust: ‘opinion elites’ in many countries show significant increases in trust scores for specific companies, and credibility scores for media sources and spokespeople.

MEDIA

• The voice of media is back – Traditional news sources still hold the greatest credibility, with webbased, peer-to-peer sources continuing to play an influential role.

BUSINESS

• Trust in Business is a trend, and not a one-year blip. Business ties with NGOs as the trust leaders globally
• Significant increases in business trust in the U.S. and Japan, and drops in China and Sweden.
• US trust in business is at historical high 58% in 2008 vs 44% in 2002

YOUNG OPINION LEADERS

• 25-34 year old Young Influentials give business a new entrance for engagement
• 25-34 Young Influentials use multi sources of information and are more trusting of several.

SPOKESPEOPLE

• Person Like Yourself” and experts (such as documents, academics, industry analysts) continue to represent the most credible spokespeople; not the CEO
• Companies must change the way they communicate to opinion leaders. They should blend ‘traditional high level communications’ with peer-to-peer efforts.
• Person like yourself defined by common interests rather than shared demographic features and attributes. Communities are not geographically contained.

TRUST ACTIONS

• Elites will act positively based on trust or negatively based on distrust in companies.

ONLINE

• Use of web-based information sources (e.g., online forums, social networking, video-sharing sites), is particularly high in the countries which have typically had the most government control over media, such as China and Russia.
• The majority of young opinion elites in these two countries are using online forums and social networking sites to get information about companies.