Trust is an issue approached and researched every year in the Edelman Trust Barometer and it’s one report that never goes unread in this office. To truly understand how to communicate with people and (WARNING: bottom line truth coming up) convince them to do business with our clients, it is imperative that we, as marketers, understand where people’s trust lies and what truly impacts those feelings.

How To Build Customer Trust

This year in their report, Edelman included a wonderful list of attributes that establish and build trust between an organization and its constituents. That list looks something like this:

Let’s explore those attributes of trust and see if we can’t find some areas for improvement.

Engagement

So what do people think about when they look to trust a company? Engagement and transparency may be buzzwords in the industry, but they got there by being important to people who spend money. Things like whether or not a company listens to customer feedback, whether or not they treat their employees well, how apparent it is that profits come before customers and the frequency and honesty of public conversations are the main driving points for engagement that dictate trust.

Most of these are quickly dismissed by companies, which is unfortunate because these are not only the most important issues for customers, but also the ones that are mostly handled incorrectly across all industries. Sure, it’s easy to say “We consistently get good responses in our customer feedback surveys,” or “Our employees don’t hate us,” or “We have a sign that reads ‘The Customer is Always Right’,” but the real tough work comes into play when you have to take a hard look at your corporate culture and value proposition to see if you’re truly listening to customer feedback instead of just taking it, and really asking what your employees would change about their working conditions if they could, or taking a stand on an issue that may lose you money because it’s the right thing to do for your customers.

That’s where trust is built. Where do you land when it really comes to trustworthy engagement with your audience?

Consider This: When was the last time a service, product or company update was used from a customer complaint/suggestion? What about an employee complaint/suggestion? Try working in some “behind the curtains” posts when you’re planning out your next round of social updates, even if it makes your skin crawl to be that open in a public forum.

Integrity

This is one of those truths that are self-evident: the more likely people feel your company has and acts with integrity, the more likely they are to trust you. I’ve read my share of Arthur Conan Doyle, but you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that correlation.

If your company operates with ethical business practices, if you accept responsibility for your actions and communicate with transparency, according to Edelman (and everyone else with common sense) your customers will be likely to trust you. This is another bundle of things every company knows, but knowing it and doing it can sometimes be world’s apart. Honestly, how much easier is it to try and skirt an issue or deny blame for a mistake than publicly stating “We know what happened was unfortunate and it was a mistake. We are sorry”? People are much more forgiving that we tend to give them credit for and if Lance Armstrong, Kobe Bryant and Milli Vanilli have taught us anything, it’s that dragging out a lie looks a whole lot worse than simply apologizing and learning from a mistake.

Businesses and CEOs have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to gaining back trust. Simply stating that you have ethical business practices won’t cut it anymore. In a world where everything is public and everything can be broadcasted, your customers need a little more convincing.

Consider This: Take a look at your crisis communication plan (this is assuming your company has one). If step one isn’t ”Apologize for the Mistake”, you might want to think about revising it. Find a place in the beginning of your policy to include the Three As of a corporate crisis: Acknowledge, Apologize, Act.

Products & Services

At first glance, this might seem like a strange addition to the list. Even more strange that it’s in the middle and not a tack-on afterthought, but when it really comes down to it, this may be one of the most important areas to pay attention to when trying to build customer trust within your target markets. Before social media and online communications, the first two aspects of this list almost didn’t exist. Sure, you had TV commercials, radio ads, magazine placements and the like, but very few people truly trusted those as faithful representations of how a company actually was. Trust was built almost entirely by the quality of your merchandise and the effectiveness of your services. We’ve kind of drifted away from that type of thinking in recent years; which is why my grandparents washing machine is still going strong and I’m almost on the last leg of the one I bought myself not 8 years ago.

It’s imperative that you spend the time to create products that solve problems and, here’s the kicker, actually do what you’ll say they’ll do. The same sentiment also goes for the services you provide. Edelman also points out that whether or not you’re perceived as an innovator of new products, services and ideas plays a part in building trust. When you are seen as a thought leader, risk taker, and industry driver, people let down their guards a bit and trust you know what yo’re doing (it also helps if you occasionally succeed due to actually knowing what you’re doing).

Consider This: At the last new product/service planning meeting, was the phrase “We can probably leave that out. It’s expensive and the customers might not even notice” ever uttered? If it was, start approaching problems more from the angle of “what will solve and exceed ALL of my customers’ needs with this particular issue” as opposed to “what can we leave out to have this launch next week”? Everyone remembers being disappointed as a child after begging for something you saw in a TV commercial only to find out the Teenage Ninja Turtle Sewer Set broke after once use and wasn’t big enough for your toys to fit in and play. Don’t be the Teenage Ninja Turtles Sewer Set.

Purpose

This one could just as easily be labelled “Social Accountability.” All of the elements listed by Edelman for this section revolve around programs to help the local communities, steps to protect the environment, addressing societal needs, and working with non-profits, so it would appear that stepping outside of the corporate walls to show empathy and compassion in the world around you makes a difference to people who want to give you money.

A lot of times, things that encompass a company’s purpose are encapsulated within it’s Vision Statement or Mission Statement. Having said that, the fact that outreach is mentioned in a Vision/Mission Statement nohow guarantees that it will be implemented or carried out.

Consider This: Try setting up a monthly charity or cause that your company can support in the local community. Take a Saturday and have the team (or a department at a time) build houses with Habitat for Humanity or find a Charitable Fun Run to do as a group. Also, there are a lot of holiday opportunities with Goodwill and Secret Santa organizations. It sounds mean to say “be charitable to gain customer trust,” because you should honestly be charitable because it’s the right thing to do, but that doesn’t always motivate every CEO.

Operations

Are your executives known and liked? Do you consistently bring in earnings for investors? Are you Nationally or Internationally ranked for something? If the answer to these questions are “yes” then you pretty much have this area buttoned up. While not every company can simply “get Internationally ranked as a world leading company,” there are definitely some organizations or awards within your niche that you can aspire towards.

Your executives don’t have to make a huge gestures, sometimes all it takes is noticing something in the community and taking time to appreciate it. Again, this is hinging on the possibility of sounding overly in support of disingenuous actions and that’s not my point. My point is that if systems are built into the fabric of your organization that allow for transparency and success to be noticed, you will be in a prime position to built trust within your customer base and trust can correspond to a happy bottom line.

Consider This: Are the only times stakeholders are thought of during Stakeholder Planning Meetings? Is your CEO well-known in the community or a hobbit-like recluse, hiding in his mansion calling into the night for his lost sled? If you have a blog, that’s a great way to get your CEO’s voice out into the world and working to increase the bottom line for investors will always make people happy.

Conclusion

We’ve been on a journey today, but I hope that you trusted me that we were talking about something important. It’s important that your customers trust you so they feel comfortable giving you their money. It’s important for companies to understand what aspects make up those elements of trust for customers in order to align business actions and objectives with them in mutually beneficial ways. It’s also important to realize that we all have jobs to do, and we all have to trust and rely on someone to make sure things run smoothly.

How important do you think trust in in your industry? Is there an industry or service where trust doesn’t really play into the equation? I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Is Facebook on a mission to improve user experience, or on a quest to validate every privacy concern your kid’s school counselor warned you about? On Jan. 16^th, 2013, Mark Zuckerberg introduced the Facebook Social Graph Search, and to many appears to have taken an early lead in driving a dangerous trend.

 ”Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.”

-Ayn Rand

That may sounds like a rash generalization (I don’t normally jump straight to the Ayn Rand quotes when I’m researching things), but Zuckerberg’s take may actually validate this when he talks about what he believes people care about:

“A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.”

-Mark Zuckerberg

What Is Facebook Graph Search?

Facebook’s “Social Graph Search” will allow users to search the Facebook user database for individuals, brands and content based on data points such as:

• Interests
• Photos
• Places visited
• Likes
• Physical location
• Etc.

At this point, the Facebook Social Graph Search won’t search status updates, but it’s no doubt in the long term plan, if you take Mark’s word on it:

“Our goal is not to build a platform; it’s to be across all of them.”

-Mark Zuckerberg

To Search or To Facebook Graph Search?

In addition to this change, which is aimed at encouraging users to stay longer on the Facebook website, integration with Bing appears to have deepened, judging by their beta and Bing recently adding 5x more social data into their search sidebar. When results are not found within your network or shared publicly, the ‘fallback’ is for Facebook to display relevant results through their search partner, Bing. Inevitably, some users will begin searching for general information through the Facebook search bar as they become conditioned to search within the platform, which I’m willing to be Zuckerberg wouldn’t be upset about.

With any new Facebook change there’s a period of necessary trial and error, but if the beta test proves to be a working platform, Zuckerberg may have finally found a way to liven up the network’s current (and pretty useless) search bar. By integrating a more natural search, Facebook can entice more people to spend more time on the site, which already dominates a lot of Internet time as it is, thereby encouraging investors and the stock market gnomes that Facebook isn’t a waste of time after all.

Whether this search enhances the status of social media civilization or demolishes it is up to be seen, as Facebook has made very clear that privacy issues were taken into consideration from the very beginning.

What Does Graph Search Mean for Marketers?

Right off the bat, Facebook profile, page and picture optimization, as well as optimization of websites for Bing spiders just became a top priority. This implies a growing need for leveraging metrics available from Microsoft and Facebook revolving rankings, profile ‘completeness’, network size, and respective rankings in results. It also means a need to go back in a start labeling and taggin all photos and video content with locations, company, and people names in order for them to show up in the new search.

For example, if someone uses the new Graph Search to find “Friends who went to the ISM Holiday Mixer” it won’t do any good unless all of those videos and pictures are tagged with that particular event, the ISM brand and the people in those photos are tagged correctly. It’s adds a few more steps into the mix when it comes to (and I hesitate to use this term, but what the heck) Facebook SEO, but those steps are now glaringly necessary.

Aside from just making Facebook changes, if you’re not using Bing’s Webmaster tool set yet, you probably want to set that up immediately considering all Facebook default searches will now run through Bing.

The Bigger Search Picture

All in all, these changes speak to a greater message many of us have anticipated and preached for years: social media’s growing importance in search. While we don’t believe Facebook’s Graph Search is a complete ‘game changer’, we do believe that it will likely drive more search equity towards FB/Bing and we would be remiss if we didn’t step up and be well-prepared and positioned to take advantage of whatever shifts come over the next few years.

As marketers, it is our job to stay on top of updates and announcements like this and while concrete data and extrapolations can’t materialize until widespread release of Graph Search, it appears at this point Facebook may be extending it’s hand into a profitable and influential arena. Whether or not Facebook users or the general public feel privacy is going out of the window, this new land of search is here to stay.

What do you think of Facebook’s Graph Search? Do you think it’s a “game changer” or just another addition to the network people will ignore to watch cat videos?

Thoughts?

Pretty moving, but we all know how it ends. Jerry gets fired, brings Bridget Jones with him, argues with Cuba Gooding Jr., falls in love and re-establishes his proficiency in his field using the philosophy he mandated at the beginning. Happy endings all around.

Sure, I doubt many of us are high-level sports agents and therefore may not relate to Jerry’s epiphany and I fully plan on relating this to your business and your brand stories (retail, industrial, B2B, whatever), but first let me tell you another story.

Starbucks and the External Internal Memo

In 2006, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz spent some months auditing the Starbucks franchises and came to some unsettling conclusions. He felt that the Starbucks experience had become “too commoditized” and was distancing itself from their original vision and purpose. He made his concerns known to his internal leadership team in a memo.

He told them of his feelings by saying things like:

“Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary…we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.”

and

“Many of [the] decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit would not have created the dilution of the experience; but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces.”

He goes on to explain how the choice to move to better espresso machines was a smart economic move, but the height of the new machines cut off the barista from the customer, thereby removing “much of the romance and theatre that was in play” in the stores; and how the need for fresh-roast coffee in every international market required flavor-locked packaging that no longer allowing baristas to scoop and grind the beans, which in turn eliminated the natural aroma expected in the stores, “the most powerful non-verbal signal… in [the] stores.” Schultz then moves to the streamlining of the stores’ design, a necessity based on store ROI, but how the branches inadvertently lost their neighborhood feels and came off as “sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion [the] partners feel about [Starbucks] coffee.”

He ended the memo saying:

“I have provided you with a list of some of the underlying issues that I believe we need to solve, let me say at the outset that we have all been part of these decisions. I take full responsibility myself, but we desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it’s time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience.”

It is a very powerful and emotional memo and I’ve used quite a few direct quotes from it already. The interesting thing about this though is that it was an internal memo, never meant to see the light of day or grace any eyes besides those of Mr. Schultz and his top 12 executive team members.

It was leaked and picked up by the fan blog Starbucks Gossip and within days had spread to the likes of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many more.

This event noted a turning point for Starbucks. No longer could they hide behind their size and distance from the consumer. Thanks to social channels, everyone now knew that Starbucks was aware of their issues, leaving them no choice but to act and actually do something about them.

In an interview following the leak, Schultz said the public reaction was a wake-up call for him.

“Stunned as I was that the memo had leaked, I was also astonished by the depth of conversation it unleashed, as well as the speed…The heated online conversations about the memo were beyond Starbucks’ influence, more so than any other controversy we had experienced…Starbucks had no interactive presence online. No way to speak up quickly on our own behalf, to talk directly to customers, investors, as well as partners, or let them talk directly to us…we were losing control of our own story.”

Unlike Maguire, Schultz never meant for other people to see his thoughts and feelings, but that doesn’t change the fact that he wrote his own Maguire Manifesto, the honest document that broke down walls and changed the course of a brand and an industry.

Controlling Brand Stories & The Maguire Manifesto

Jerry Maguire learned the hard way that revolutionary thinking will be met with backlash, and Howard Schultz learned the hard way that nothing in this world is truly confidential anymore. It is the responsibility (not to mention, the necessity) of all brands to take steps towards owning their brand stories. Whether they be the strategically-branded stories created and distributed by companies themselves or the ones curated and fostered by online communities, brand stories and their ownership are vital parts of the business world now.

To get to that point of understanding and owning your own brand stories, you need to write your own Maguire Manifesto. What areas are stagnating in your industry/business/brand/office and what steps are needed to get back to that transparency that truly connects your company with the people it serves? When was the last time you mapped out all the influencers and advocates that stand up for you when you’re not standing up for yourself? Do you know where they live online? Are you creating and curating brand stories that provoke further conversation, and, maybe more importantly, do you know how those conversations fit into your overall marketing strategy and further your business’ goals?

No longer can these Statements of Realization be kept private. Everything eventually gets out. But honestly, why would you want those statements to be kept under lock and key? By releasing them to the very people you’re desiring to connect with, you allow them to hold you accountable to your mission (like the Starbucks community and Howard Schultz) and bring them into your the brand story that you are controlling. No more catch-up playing, no more controversy, just conversation.

This is a big step for a lot of companies and the progression from the walled garden into the town square can be a rough one. It’s important to have the proper guidance and a team that can manage those connections and lead you to where you want to be as an organization that plans on lasting 10, 20, 100 more years. We are entering the days where Connection Planning and Management is going to overtake Channel Planning and Management and your Maguire Manifesto will help lead you into that new dawn.

Carbonated Conversations

Recently I was very impressed with Coca-Cola because of their take on the Maguire Manifesto. Not only did they externalize an internal company conversation, but they animated it and actively shared it on Youtube. The fully disclose their marketing and content strategies as well as explain their thinking and why these changes are important to them. It’s like Jerry Maguire times 1,000.

Take a look. Here’s part one of their two-part Maguire Manifesto:

Coca-Cola is leading the way with their efforts in social media and this manifesto just promotes their efforts further, bringing their advocates and fans deeper into the conversation about their conversations (how meta!) and changing fans’ opinions of just how Coca-Cola fits into their lives. It’s an impressive step and one that should be emulated throughout all industries.

Are you inspired?

Have you already begun writing out your Maguire Manifesto in your head?

Or perhaps there are things standing in your way that seem insurmountable, problems that don’t seem to have a solution or walls that can’t come down.

Jerry Maguire had a box of belongings, a love-struck secretary and a pompous second-rate wide receiver and he still found a way. Howard Schultz had the eyes of a nation focused on the company he loved and the minds of his customers thinking the Starbucks brand was crumbling and he still found a way. Coca-Cola was coming from over 130 years of tradition and a world that viewed them a certain way and they found a way as well.

Maybe you just need help.

Their ways started with their Maguire Manifestos, so maybe you should start there too.

Thoughts?

Google has a reputation for rolling out far-reaching changes at a moment’s notice. Today, it was announced that Google is merging its Google Places pages with their new Google+ Local initiative. While this move adds benefits and options for consumers and G+ users, it creates a lot of new potential challenges for Google Places Page and Google+ Business Page administrators.

Here’s what you need to know:

Optimization of G+ is Even More important Now

While you can still manage your Google Places page from your previous administrator access, the page information is now being cultivated and merged with your Google+ Business Page and will live in the new Google+ Local tab.

You business pages will still show up in search results (and have been integrated with Maps and mobile too), but now the information that shows will be the rich content that has been written and optimized for your Google+ Business Page.

This makes it even more important that you’ve taken the necessary steps to completely optimize your G+ page (if you’re unsure how to do that, read our post on optimizing G+ personal pages). There isn’t a business on the planet that can afford to not have an updated, optimized Google+ Business Page now as search results and business rankings will be shifting in the wake of Google’s 80-million-page shift.

A Fully-Realized Enterprise Social Strategy and Social Media Policy Are No Longer Optional

It wasn’t that long ago that having an enterprise social strategy was something you’d find in companies few and far between, but those times have changed. With every change to Google and Facebook’s growing empires, it has become necessary to delve into and understand how your company appears for, acts with and responds to customers on social media.

With the recent merger of Google Places and Google+ Local, customers now have the ability to interact and converse directly on Google+ Business Pages alongside leaving reviews. In the past, it was easy to keep an eye on reviews and respond when necessary, but the conversation is moving away from stagnant review slots and we are in the midst of Google realizing their vision – a completely social experience for the consumer.

Because of Google’s recent changes to 80 million pages, having a clear, set and understood social media policy has just become a top priority for companies.

It’s worth reminding you that unless your customers are prompted to write a review, the review they’re most likely to leave will happen after they have a bad experience. Unlike the Lowe’s Facebook fiasco last year, we hope you’ll be ready to reply with the right response.

One Profile, Several Search Experiences

Your customers will now be able to search out your business in many different ways: by searching on Google.com, searching on Google Maps, through mobile applications and now through searches on Google+ and Google+ Local. You can see how businesses show up in Google Map searches in the image below:

Although there are many doorways through which your customers can now find you, all the information is coming from your one G+ Profile. Users will be able to filter by location, type, Circles, ratings (Zagat-based ratings as well as reviews), and more, so having a fleshed-out and content-rich profile is critical.

Google+ Business profiles allow for much more information and rich content like pictures and videos to be added and easily displayed to customers and search engines. Below, see the different between the old Google Places page layout and the updated Google+ Business page layout.

It’s up to you to take the time and fully optimize this page to give people searching their area the best presentation of your company as possible.

New Pages Are Indexed

One of the most exciting changes coming along with this shift for business concerned with SEO is that unlike Google Places pages, Google+ Local pages will be indexed, so all that work you’re putting into optimizing your page will pay off in your company’s search ranking positioning.

The good news is that aside from spending more time setting up an enterprise social media policy and filling out your Google+ Local page information, managing your Google Places/+ page won’t involve a huge learning curve. Here’s that Google had to say about it in their blog:

“If you are a business owner, you should continue to manage your information in Google Places for Business. You’ll still be able to verify your basic listing data, make updates, and respond to reviews. For those who use AdWords Express, your ads will operate as normal as they’ll automatically redirect people to the destination you selected, or your current listing.”

Yes, there are greater demands on business-owners on learning Google+, but much is being focused for businesses while search option are expanding for customers searching you out.

No More Stars, Zagat Now Rules To Roost 

Last year Google acquired Zagat. No one was really sure how it would play out, but now we’re getting a peak into how this will solidify for businesses and consumers.

Google has done away with their 5-star review rating process and merged everything with Zagat’s 30-point score system. The same is true for general reviews and both will show up in search rankings for businesses on Google.com AND Google+ Local searches.

While for a lot of B2B businesses this may not seem like that big a deal, with all reviews now showing up in search rankings throughout all Google services, it is even more important that you create positive experiences for clients and encourage your customers to leave positive reviews on your Google+ profile.

Final Thoughts

Google has made some pretty big changes that affect a lot of businesses and pretty much all of them involve how your business shows up locally to people around you. The changes will most certainly enhance customer search and discovery experiences with a small learning curve for users.

As for businesses, the changes mean a great deal more. It is now imperative that businesses pay attention to the activity and presence on Google+ and those that ignore their Google+ presence do so at their own peril.

Google has been inching towards making local search more social for a while and now has taken a huge leap into that area with this merger. Social media has been playing a large part in business communications for years, but in one day, Google has effectively upped the ante and made it crucial for your business to get in the game.

Recap

3 years ago you may have been one of the guys saying “I can’t believe competitor X is wasting money on THAT…” Today, Google has created another opportunity for you to start fresh and be ahead of the curve. The question is, are you ready?

If you need additional help, feel free to contact our search and social department at social@marketstrong.net or visit our Enterprise Social page.