Trust in Social Media is Up

Social media outlets including blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, have had an upsurge in credibility over the past year, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer 2012 (@EdelmanPR), which examines trust in 4 key institutions — government, business, media, and NGOs — as well as communications channels and sources, measuring attitudes across 25 countries.

Trust in government shows an exceptionally sharp drop in the 2012 Barometer. Trust in business is also decreasing. But trust in social media has taken a dramatic increase.

Overall, there is a huge drop in trust for CEOs while trust in persons such as regular employees and “a person like yourself” is increasing dramatically. In other words, people tend to distrust messages communicated by CEOs through traditional corporate channels, but have increased trust in messages from their peers, communicated through for example social media channels.

Read more here.

In this video, Richard Edelman introduces the findings from the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer.

Read the Executive Summary.

See the Slide Presentation.

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