Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research analyst and co-author of social media book Groundswell, just posted results on Q2 data that shows consumers in North America generally don't trust corporate blogs. Only 16% do. Here's their chart that captures the results in this graph.
I find this really interesting and have a few opinions about it, especially related to Japan.
1. First, people in the survey appear to trust almost anything but blogs. Even emails from companies gets 28% trust, 12% more than blogs. Direct mail got a surprising 25%. Josh's point in his post is that corporate blogs are mainly about the company, not the customers' issues which is a hard sell to readers and doesn't build trust. He says that some company blogs like Rubbermaid's take a customer perspective for better results. I'm going to have a look later.
2. The analyst says that North American's generally don't trust companies, regardless of whether it's a blog or not. Their numbers confirm that most trusted is email from a friend at 77% and consumer product rating sites at 60%. This is no surprise to me. North Americans are generally cynical when it comes to corporations (think Enron) and bashing companies has become a national pass-time in the blogosphere. Edelman has a bit more to say about this.
3. Now this is where I'm going out on a limb and could be showing some ignorance, but it seems to me that Japanese are similar and different in some key ways to their North American counterparts. Based on no data but my 15 years experience living in Japan, I think that Japanese consumers are generally more trusting overall and less cynical about mass marketing. And I'd conjecture that compared to the low 18% trust for user generated blog for Americans, I would bet my pajamas that Japanese web users who supposedly read blogs at 52% compared to the US 25% (past Forrester research) trust blogs possibly 10-20% more than North Americans - both user and corporate blogs. From my conversations with Japanese people about companies, their is much less cynicism about companies taking advantage of consumers (expect recent Chinese manufacturers) and companies appear to take on a more governmental persona compared to the way people in North America perceive them. I suppose this goes back to the idea of lifetime employment that has only recently started to come to an end in Japan.
4. At the same time, similar to North Americans, Japanese appear to trust consumer rating and review sites, based on the success of Kakaku.com, with 38% reading user ratings and reviews, to 25% in North America (see Forrester's comparison). So I think they trust other people's opinions and use them to reconfirm their own beliefs. This obviously makes sense in a group oriented society like Japan.
I'd like to know what others have to think about this. Do you think Japanese are more trusting of corporations, company blogs and more trusting in general? Do you know of any data similar to Forrester's North American blog survey? Am I being naive (lay it on me)? If Japanese ARE more trusting, is there really a need for company blogs in Japan (ie. companies or CEOs trying to explain themselves)? If it is true that Japanese trust social media differently, then the next question is how different should social media strategy be for companies trying to use SM in Japan?
I've become a huge fan of illustrator Hugh McLeod of http://www.gapingvoid.com lately. I know, I know, so has everyone else. What I want to say here is that web 2.0/social media isn't just about the buzzing crowd, coffee-swilling developers, VC savvy dudes and clever social media strategists. A missing link is apparent and I'm not sure why it took so long for me to realize it. It's also about the creative ideas and content that are needed to make things that actually stand out and worth being there for. This doesn't say that we should usher old-school advertising back into the door. But it does say that the creatives that fueled the creative machine - the copywriters, illustrators, filmmakers, designers, animators, photographers - are still needed but in a new viral way. Gapingvoid gets it and freely distributes his illustration several times a day. He also makes money from his work as web 2.0 marketing strategist for Stormhoek Wine (http://www.stormhoek.com/blog/) and his Blue Monster series for Microsoft (http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003388.html). It's kind of an obvious turning point for me since I've been trying to actually subvert my creative direction and interactive marketing background over the past few years. The point is that creative is good and necessary and needed. And that by saying web 2.0 and social media means everybody is a creator, doesn't mean that creative people aren't needed anymore. Gapingvoid.com is sure proof of that. The difference is that MacLeod uses social media via his blog, Twitter and free distribution of his art to get his work and ideas out there. He gets it and it's viral enough that a lot of people get him too. Oh, and don't miss reading his Creative Manifesto at http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html
"We are not seats or eyeballs or end-users or consumers. We are human beings - and our reach extends your grasp. Deal with it." - Excerpt from the Clue Train Manifesto
To answer the question "what's social branding?", I need to fall back on a personal experience. My wife and I are raising two kids in the suburbs of East Tokyo. Our son is 10 and our daughter is 5. The two fight like cats and dogs and my wife does her best to handle these rascals while I'm at work. But the real troublemaker is our youngest since she always wants what her brother has and is a terror trying to get it (I love her!) So for the past 5 years we've been trying to teach her to share and think about her brother and others besides herself. It isn't an easy sell let me tell you. At some point in time all of us when we were kids had our parents teach us how to share and get along with others. We weren't taught to give up what we wanted or deserved but to learn to think about others' feelings too. Basic socialization skills, right? Can you see where I'm headed?
In a dog-eat-dog world, business as usual means companies trying to get what they want at all costs, sometimes at the expense of customers, employees or partners. What the social web has changed is corporations really don't have a choice to be spoiled brats any longer. Not knowing what the customer wants is no excuse anymore. Having a relationship with our customers isn't about some CRM program since we don't have an option to "manage the relationship" (we never really did). People demand more from us than ever before and mass marketing is dead since when was the last time anyone liked being considered just one of the masses.
Social branding isn't really about brand at all, or at least not brand as we've known it - something to control, to measure, to systemize. That's because our brand is not our's to control. It's our customers, our employees' and all the other people who think and talk about us behind or in front of our backs. To start thinking and breathing social branding means to get down on our customer's level and speak with him or her one on one like people used to do in little village stores and barbershops.
Like my daughter and her struggle to share, companies (especially the big ones) are seen as greedy and scheming on the social web and people could just as well go on having conversations without us. But there's an obvious lesson here for all of us in business if we care to pay attention. If we can learn to see the importance of others feelings and needs, then we will care enough to listen. And if we care enough to listen then we will want to say something to them. And if we have a real conversation with our customers (not press releases or ads please!) then we may start to build something substantial, something I like to call a social brand. Or we could just as well call it friendship. So come on kids, don't you think it's time to share the ball?
