Using social media to earn trust

EARNING TRUST
ON SOCIAL MEDIA
March 23, 2017
Joy Mayer
@mayerjoy

Joy Mayer | joymayer.com | ACES | March 2017

Why do people follow you
and want to connect with you?

We trust people and brands we feel a
connection with.
Advancing a relationship depends on
building genuine connections.

People make cultural and emotional
decisions about who and what to
connect with.

Know who you are and what you offer.
But also: The version of yourself you
share depends on your understanding
of who you’re with.

What does it mean to be social?

Let’s combine what we know about
earning trust with what we know
about being social.
The goal: A social strategy designed to
build relationships, not just clicks.

• How do news consumers decide what information to trust?
• How can journalists teach users to be smarter consumers and
sharers?
• How can Facebook be used to enhance the relationship between
journalists and users?
What we wanted to learn

So, what factors lead to trust?
• Theme One: Tell Your Story
• Who are you? What does your brand stand for?
• What do you offer?
• Why should people listen to you? Value you? Pay for
you?
• Don’t assume information will speak for itself. Explain
it. Market it.

• Theme Two: Engage Authentically
• Listen and respond.
• Show humility and personality.
• Be willing to explain yourself.
• Meet people where they are. (That requires
understanding them first.)

• Theme Two: Engage Authentically
• Lots of parallels with the medical profession
• From Jan Oldenburg, who works in patient
engagement

• Theme Three: Deploy Your Fans
• Social media is based on a culture of sharing.
• Users share their lives, but also ideas, products and
services that they find some sort of value in.
• Get the people who already trust you to help spread
the word.

We turned those themes into social
media strategies.
• We wanted to test the strategies in diverse newsrooms
(geography, mission, medium).
• We invited newsrooms to sign up to help.

What we asked
newsrooms to do:
• Pick strategies that fit with their goals.
• Make one social post per week for each strategy they
signed up for.
• Continue for about three months.
• Log what worked.
• Agree to have results published.

• Newsrooms tried
Snapchat, Instagram and
Twitter as well, but we
only had enough useable
data from Facebook.

How we assessed success:
• Specific Facebook metrics were attached to each
strategy.
• The quality of reactions/comments was included.
• Posts were compared to the newsrooms’ average
engagement rate.
• Journalists logged their reactions.

What they learned
• Most important: You have to really understand the people
you’re trying to reach.
• What do they want? Need? Feel? What can they relate
to?
• Across the strategies, successful posts anticipated users’
needs, moods and motivations.

Results: Tell Your Story
• Demonstrate that your newsroom reflects your audience’s
values.
• Look for reasons to point out what makes your staff
credible or knowledgeable on a specific topic.
• Explain the process behind a high-interest newsroom
decision or project.

This works for nonprofits and brands, too.

Think about timing.
What stories are people in the mood to hear?

Results: Engage Authentically
• Highlight emotion — yours and your audience’s. Talk/write
like a human.
• Value conversation. Host conversations people are eager
to have.
• Reward productive comments and publicly challenge
harmful ones.
• Don’t ask for more than you’ve earned.

Results: Deploy Your Fans
• Encourage sharing on topics users will WANT to share.
Start with easy asks (posts that are obviously helpful,
positive or fun).
• Invite sharing on posts that are in the public interest.
• Are users likely to share because they're proud, outraged
or excited? Did you frame the post that way?
• Remember: People share things that contribute to the
social identity they’re cultivating.

It’s like building trust with someone
you’re starting to date.
1. Talk about things the other person is interested in.
2. Listen as much as you talk.
3. Reflect back what you’ve heard and learned about the
person.
4. Don’t ask for more engagement or intimacy than
you’ve earned.
5. Be on the lookout for things the other person would
enjoy, then pass them along.
6. Know what you want your relationship to look like,
and check in periodically to see if it’s “working.”

Ready to get started?
• Remember, it’s about understanding your audience well
enough to give them something they can relate to.
• On TrustingNews.org, you’ll find:
— DIY worksheets for each strategy
(under “What We Learned”)
— Almost 500 Facebook posts to search

Trusting News project:
what comes next
• Face-to-face interviews with news 100+ news consumers

Questions? Ideas?
— joy@joymayer.com
— @mayerjoy
Thank you.

Using social media to earn trust

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