“Who trusts blogs?” It’s the wrong question
Yet another survey came out this month providing comfort to those who still refuse to believe that new media forms like blogs represent a genuine threat to their businesses.
Only 18% of people questioned trusted “personal blogs”, while 39% trusted radio or magazines and 46% print newspapers.
I get this sort of stat thrown at me every time I speak to rooms full of journalists. It’s a meaningless stat, reflecting nothing. You trust what you’ve learned to trust, whether that’s one paper over another, one broadcaster over another, or one blog over another. I don’t trust “newspapers” – I trust one or two. I don’t trust “blogs”, I trust the ones I’ve communicated with.
And that’s where individual blogs have an advantage: they can have a personal conversation with the reader. The author can enter into discussion, add corrections and links. Their trust is built on a relationship, not on a brand.
More interesting in this research are the 3 sources which come out as more trusted than mainstream media: Emails from people we know (how many of us feel we ‘know’ a particular blogger?); consumer reviews (a staple of blogs); and, curiously, portals/search engines (links). And why do people trust these more than ‘radio’ or ‘newspapers’?
