Lincoln once said, “With the public trust, anything is possible. Without it, nothing is possible”. Social media is now a daily activity that millions of people around the world consume and participate in. This is the first time in human history that anyone, no matter who you are or where you are has an opportunity to create, share, and prosper, and if you’re going to succeed and stand out in a heavily crowded social media ocean, you need to earn your audience’s trust. |
For those entrepreneurs who have increasingly turned to crowdfunding to fund their projects as advertising dollars dry up, earning trust has become especially important. If you fail in earning the public trust, your project won’t go anywhere, and you won’t be able to raise funds. If you rely on your users to financially support your product, then earning their trust is paramount, because they’re not going to back you if they don’t trust you. |
Below is a list of ten things you must do to earn the trust of your online audience. The list is written from a crowdfunding perspective, but this advice really applies to anyone working in social media and seeking the trust of their users. |
1. Tell us who you are. Do you have a website with your name as the domain? If not, get a social networking profile, fill it out completely, and use the domain to point to your profile. |
2. Choose your best picture. Common sense, right? But you also want to avoid staged photos that look like you’re selling real estate. Look for a photo that tells your story and use it consistently across all your profiles. |
4. Own your subject. You don’t need to be an expert at first. You should work hard to become one, but when you’re starting out, you should find the book other books and websites in your area reference. Read that book. As time goes on, pick up the books that book referenced. Most non-fiction books tend to regurgitate what’s already out (ditto for websites), but by going to the core book and then going from there you will be ahead of the game. |
5. Don’t be fake. A problem many people face online is that we’re sensitive to what everyone wants, so we try to fake it. Nobody wants to give money to a phony. Take the material you’ve learned and put your own spin on it. It won’t be for everyone, but everyone won’t give you money, anyway. People who like and trust you, however, will. Find your voice and the people it appeals to. |
6. Be Available. Can I call you? Can I send snail mail? If you want money from your audience and press attention, you need to provide a way to quickly and easily contact you. |
7. Be Transparent. Matthew Zachary of the I’m Too Young For This Foundation once said to me that his organization was “Obama-like” in terms of transparency. For any project using your audience’s money, you too have to be “Obama-like” in your transparency. Public budgets, public documents, public receipts, even your emails should be public. Not everything has to be released in the early stages — many crowdfunders fear the loss of their idea to a competitor — but when the project is in motion, open your vaults. |
8. Write for the web. People won’t trust what they won’t read. Keep your material short, simple, and useful. Use sub-headings, have a great first sentence (your lead), and keep the article short. |
9. Document everything. How are you keeping us posted? Use video more than tweets and blog posts, and update your audience (at least) once a week. Video is the most personal method of online communication. |
10. Answer every message. Tweets, video comments, emails. Answer everything. Even if it takes you forever, reply to everyone. If you are building an audience, you have a responsibility (and note, I’m saying you, not your assistant) to reply to your audience until the project has finished. |
Earning the public trust takes time. But by following these ten steps consistently, you will be able to help your project succeed. |
In anticipation of our upcoming book, Trust Agents, my co-author Julien Smith and I want to know if you are a trust agent. What defines a trust agent? Here are the six main secrets of being a trust agent. Do any of these sound like you? |
You can do what’s come before or you can take a unique swing at the world. If you’re Hugh McGuire, you’re working on Book Oven, a whole new way to look at books and reading. You’re someone like Perez Hilton, who took on People magazine and won, as far as we’re concerned. |
Are you making your own game? |
Maybe you’re the person in your industry who’s come to the larger online conversation, like Leslie Carothers is to the home industry. Perhaps you’re the next Matt Cutts, who represents Google to lots of us. He’s more Google than Sergey or Larry, because he’s here. He’s one of us. |
Understanding leverage is what separates the hobbyists from the professionals. Do you understand how to take what you’re doing in one instance and extend it out into something bigger or better elsewhere? This is what brought Madonna from just another singer into being a worldwide brand. Leverage is behind all the most powerful people in the world, but it all starts somewhere. Gary Vaynerchuk leveraged his wine store into his video project and took that into his media project and his book deal. Gary bleeds leverage. |
Do you understand the Archimedes Effect? |
Connecting and networking and building relationships is what moves you from an individual contributor to an interdependent kingmaker. Learning how to be a core element of several networks is where we think a trust agent works best. Take Robert Scoble. He went from being a guy talking about Microsoft to a guy on a mission to be moved by what he saw around him. Robert connects with people all over, and finds himself at the core of many important networks. |
Are you Agent Zero to several networks? |
There’s a world of difference between knowing how to build relationships with people and coming off as “that guy.” You know who we mean: that person who shows up with a bullhorn to promote her projects, to blurt about her interests, and then to leave before you get a chance to say anything about you. A human artist is what we call the people who interact well in this new world, and who know how to build nurturing relationships. People like Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker are human artists. |
How do you relate to others? |
Working solo is easy. Do you share what you know to promote larger interactions? Can you create resources to help you and then thread your efforts into theirs? Building an army, especially a loosely-joined and flexible group of people from many disciplines, is the key to being an advanced trust agent. People like Danny Brown, who started a social good movement know the value of armies. Ze Frank turned entertainment into a massively multiplayer online experience, one that has yet to be replicated successfully. The implications to business are obvious. |
Are you ready to build armies? |
If You Answered Yes to Any of the Above |
You are definitely in the mindset of trust agents. Your examples might be different. You might not do as much of one of the six secrets as others (I’m still not very good with leverage, for instance). But at your core, you’ve caught on that these new online tools require a different type of person, and that not just anyone can get the most from the experience. You, however, are in the perfect position to be a trust agent. |
Your time is coming. Our book comes out August 24th. After that, you’ll have a good way to explain what you do and why you excel at it, and you’ll have a good starting point to talk with your colleagues about what you know to be the deciding factor in what will make companies and individuals successful on the web in the coming years. |
If you are a trust agent, Julien and I want to meet you over the coming months. We’re traveling the US (and sometimes abroad), and we look forward to connecting with as many of you as we can. Why? Because that’s what we do. |
I’m excited you’re part of the experience. We’ll definitely ask for your help, your input, your support, and your own experiences as part of the project. It’s how we do things. Thanks in advance. You’ve already made this all very much worth it. |
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