Which Online Methods Do People Trust The Most… and Least?
By Anna Johnson on December 16th, 2008A report published by Forrester Research and discussed in ReadWriteWeb indicates that company blogs are the least trusted sources of information among U.S. adults.
When asked ‘how much do you trust the following information sources?’ just 16 percent of the respondents to Forrester’s survey said they trusted company blogs. At the other end of the spectrum, 77 percent of people said they trusted email from people they knew.
What else is trusted or not trusted? Here’s the list:
- Email from people you know: 77 percent
- Consumer product ratings / reviews: 60 percent
- Portals / search engines: 50 percent
- Yellow Pages (offline): 48 percent
- Print newspapers: 46 percent
- Social networking site profiles from people you know: 43 percent
- Print magazines: 39 percent
- Radio: 39 percent
- Online content (e.g. news) sites: 39 percent
- Television: 38 percent
- Wikis: 33 percent
- Email from a company or brand: 28 percent
- Direct mail: 25 percent
- Message board posts: 21 percent
- Online classifieds: 20 percent
- Personal blog: 18 percent
- Social networking site profiles from a company or brand: 18 percent
- Company blog: 16 percent
I find these results fascinating. Among other things, the results indicate very clearly that the more you can become an individual (rather than a company or brand) your prospects ‘know’, the more likely they will trust you.
Source: Richard MacManus, “Report: Corporate Blogs Not Trusted”, December 10, 2008
