Tapping into the TRUST Fund
In our modern marketing economy, trust has become paramount in communications, and an integral component of relationships between businesses and consumers. These days, trust is engendered primarily by our peers, with social media serving as a cornerstone in the foundation of those relationships thanks to its rapidly growing influence.
In 2012, social media has come to permeate our lives to a great degree. As an outlet for marketing and advertising, networks like Facebook and Pinterest have become some of the most effective and popular ways to generate business, rivaling or even surpassing the power of the search engines that previously guided the large majority of visibility in the marketplace. A social media advertising campaign fundamentally demands that a brand relinquish control and submit to the power of its followers, but the formula isn’t as simple as just letting go.
Social media is conversational by nature, but it still affords authority to brands. Often times, it is the brand that starts the conversation that disperses through a network of peers. This power entails a new kind of responsibility for brands in terms of creating a consistent, constant, and well-thought out message in order to be effective without being overbearing or burdensome. The power of the network is undeniable; what a brand says will affect its audience to a great degree, so it is crucial to carefully measure communications to ensure a positive impact.
Such is the case in Financial Marketing, an industry presently under the microscope when it comes to issues of trust. The kind of trust that facilitates effective use of social media has been so severely damaged by the actions of financial institutions in the past 5 years that marketers’ main challenge is not to sell a product or service, but rather to simply regain the confidences of its once-loyal audience. Taking the time to ensure that all communications originating from the company on social networks positively reflect the brand will have an exponential effect as the message disseminates across the network from peer to peer.
With social media, the dynamic has changed. People have been appointed with the power to dictate the dialogue that long belonged to the brands. Tap into the trust of this set and leverage their collective voice to generate a stronger message than ever.