Who Do You Trust?
By Anthony Schneider
Do We Trust Our Peers Less These Days?
A recent Edelman "Trust Barometer" study claims, among other things, that only 25% of us believe our friends and peers are credible sources of information, a 20% drop in just two years.
"It's a more skeptical time," Edelman says. "If companies are looking at peer-to-peer marketing as another arrow in the quiver, that's good, but they need to understand it's not a single-source solution."
The findings are questionable, as is the methodology. More importantly, the study seems to misdiagnose the trust landscape—the influence of social media and what's changed in the past couple of years.
First, let's assume that peer trust did go down dramatically. It's understandable, because (a) the number of peers we're exposed to and (b) because our peer interactions are now with a wider, shallower network, a more two-dimensional group. (Think about the content and context of a Twitter and Facebook post, compared to a 20-minute conversation with a pal). Some of our "peers" might be people we barely recognize, so of course we trust them less than people we see all the time.
Second, abundance must lead to wariness, if not distrust. The study doesn't take into account the coming of age of social media, which amounts to a huge increase in our "peers." Any Facebook friend or Twitter follow is probably a "peer" according to this study. And there are just so many more of them. So, we trust the people that we trust, and that hasn't changed. There's just more peer noise these days. It follows that we have to pick and choose. More peer noise or more people doesn't mean less trust. It means, simply, more people -- and a corresponding decrease in percentage of trust.
Let's take a closer look at the methodology and findings.
The study finds that we trust CEOs and executives more these days ("The biggest year-over-year increase from 17% in 2009 to 26% this year.") Really? We'd like to take a look at the data. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll back in 2002 found that 25% of us trust CEOs and execs. So, trust in mahogany row is up exactly 1% since 2002.
As for the peer trust, the Edelman findings fly in the face of many recent studies that show that peer trust is, still, higher than our trust in other sources. For example, a 2010 EXPO Purchaser Influence Study found that US mom Internet users trust peer reviews more than manufacturer information. Over 90% of moms trust their peers, while only 7% trust the manufacturer. Okay, it's not exactly comparing apples to apples, but it does seem to point to a rather different finding.
What the study might be saying is this: we trust 25% of people (peers, executives, people on the radio... everyone). Okay, we buy that. And if we take a closer look at our levels of trust within those groups, we'll probably find that we put the most trust in peers we know, online, offline, in social media or at the water fountain. Social media has come of age. There's a lot more of it, so we have more peers than ever before across more platforms than ever before. We still trust our peers.
