How Businesses Gain Back Trust Online

According to CBS News, a new study shows that up to 60% of people from several countries across the globe do not trust social media. However, this is no secret that people don’t have a good relationship with these online platforms. There have been countless instances of data breeching, false news being promoted, and other sorts of scandals that have tainted social media’s image in the eyes of its users.

Despite the fact that many Americans have lost trust in social media platforms, businesses have no choice but to continue to have an online presence if they want to survive. It’s nearly impossible to grow a brand without communicating with consumers on their level, which means connecting through social media pages. Billions of people are still using social media, and it would be a disastrous mistake for a company to not engage in that potential.

Response Time

One of the most important ways a company can interact with its audience is by responding to them directly. There are many brands that interact directly with consumers in the comments section of their posts or through direct messaging. When businesses respond directly to customers’ questions and comments, it builds up their reputation as a name that can be trusted.

https://www.garyasanchez.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Starbucks_Secret_Menu.png

We also see this when companies encourage user content that they then repost on their main page. It gives their audience an incentive to interact with their page and product while building brand awareness for the business. This is a medium that allows for consumers to interact directly with the parent company and shows that the company cares about its customers enough to want to interact with them. This is a great advantage that social media gives us: to allow a relationship to form from the company directly to the customers in a way that we haven’t seen.

Just Act Natural

One way we have seen brands try to win back consumers is through acting “human.” We’ve seen on Twitter when companies seem a little too human (just take a look at Wendy’s page), however it still has a positive impact on relating to their audience. For example, Wendy’s gained 970,000 new followers on Twitter as a result of an exchange with a teenager that went viral and resulted in the teen having the most retweets on a tweet ever. The fact that Wendy’s was able to connect on a human level with its followers allowed for the company to gain popularity online and resulted in a reputation that assures its audience that they can be trusted.

It doesn’t look good for a company when they try to be perfect. As consumers, we know that there are people behind a company, and it just doesn’t work when a business is a try hard. People like quality content, but also need a balance of content that is relatable and casual so that they aren’t intimidated by the agenda the company is trying to push. People are looking for products that make them feel valued and feel good, and the best way to achieve this is to keep things casual. Although Wendy’s does their job to promote their restaurant and their products, they are also able to have some fun with it that attracts the attention of millions and helps their company in more ways than product promotion could ever do.

This Ad is Sponsored by…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2019/02/01/Untitled_1_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRdPLSElEmrKaK7hcQaxOdEH7rpmejMrh9F70GXkkTDo.png?imwidth=1400

Another way that we have seen businesses trying to be relatable is through brand ambassadors. Companies partner up with influencers who are well known on social media in an attempt to gain the trust of a targeted audience. These businesses partner with people who are known and trusted online to show that even celebrities and influencers are comfortable with their business and its products.

There are a few skeptics with this approach because the ambassadors are getting paid to promote these products, but I believe it helps the company a lot more than any critics can have a negative impact. The company has the potential to reach an audience that might not have heard of the company or its products/services and allows the company to expand as they reach new consumers. This approach is a game changer for advertisement that doesn’t bore its audience to death the way that TV and radio ads do. When consumers can see other customers who they know and trust, there is a much greater probability that they will also learn to love the company in the same way these paid celebrities do.

Not All Hope is Lost Yet

Although Americans are overwhelming losing faith in social media platforms themselves, that doesn’t mean brands can’t have a successful presence online. Social media is not going away anytime soon, so businesses must be willing to adapt and work hard to gain the trust of their customers if they are going to have a successful social media campaign. People are going to be skeptical of social media indefinitely, and it’s the job of these businesses to give a reason to users to stay engaged with the online world and make them feel valued.