Making Friends Out There: 6 Ways to Increase Social Trust

When setting up a brand nowadays, a logo alone is surely not enough. In order to get connected to the world, you need a well-presented online persona. This may include a smart implantation of colors, a clear presence of your core message, a series of content that can show your professionalism in a certain field, etc. However, after got all these ready, do you have the power to pass them to your targeted audience? Of course it is easy to copy and paste content into your social media accounts. The problem is, are people really ‘listening to’ what you say? For most business owners I know, this is not an easy pitch.

There could be a wide range of reasons why your communities are reluctant to ‘make friends’ with you. One of the most common reasons is that they don’t trust you. Trust is the basis for any relationship, online or offline, for business or in person. People only pay attention when they think you are reliable. Otherwise, everything you say becomes suspicious. Building trust is not a task that can be completed overnight, but still, there’re some tips that you can rely on to help increase your online credibility.

1. Be Yourself

Yes, the No. 1 rule you need to follow is this simple. Doing social media is not like handing someone a business card. In the online community, all your information – raging from your office address to the latest customer review towards your product – is just a few clicks away. Faking to be someone ‘better’ (as you think) will never get you far. If there’s an issue on your product or service, don’t rush to hide or cover it, listen to what others say about it and give your feedback honestly. A frank talk will always be a good start for any relationship.

2. Show Your Professionalism

In most cases, professionalism is one thing that will not go wrong for businesses. People usually value professional opinions more than a chit-chat, and tie more credibility to the person who offer this kind of opinion. So it’s important that your content on all social platforms scream results. It’s also necessary that you know all your stuff well and are able to talk one step further on any topic that you’ve started. Leave things that you’re not familiar with aside, but never be afraid to ask questions.

3. Introduce Your Friends

Offline relationships rely heavily on word of mouth, where one person talks to another person who knows good or bad about you. Online relationships are sometimes just the same. People may prefer to ‘talking’ with someone who knows you to find out more about you. In order to prove who and what you are, you’ll need a dozen of friends who would stand by your side and speak aloud to the world for you. Some great examples of this include testimonials, customer reviews, partner references, links to work completed, guest posts you have contributed, links to blogs where you and your content has been cited, white papers, ebooks, and so on. However, the No. 1 tip still works here. Don’t be ashamed even if you only have 5 followers on Twitter. A record of 1,000 ‘dead’ fans will only make things worse.

4. Find the Right Companions

Though it’s a nice thing to have friends with various styles, it’s still important to be aware not to get wrong friends. Be sure that you hang with people you can learn from, people who build you, empower you and make you a better person, not people who kick you down, criticize you and envy your success. Establish real relationships and work together. Take time to know and research the people you connect to. Don’t just trust everyone on first tweet. Just as you need to establish trust with your community, expect the same of those you bring into your circle.

5. Take Time to Do Your Art Work

There’re numerous guides, tutorials and ebook on how to use social media as a business strategy these days. However, being able to find a step-to-step list doesn’t make social media a science work. Actually, it’s more an art work – the art of relationship building and managing. Social media platforms as tools can be easily making use of by almost everyone. It’s how you deal with the relationships within those platforms that may differentiate you from all your competitors. If you find yourself having problem dealing with persons behind those social accounts, then chances are that you are not spend enough time on taking care of your online relationships. Try to get more interaction by asking questions, adding comments and sharing stuff that your audiences are interested.

6. More Deeds Than Words

Businesses are ‘done’, not ‘said’. It’s always more important to let people see what you could do than what you could say. Everything about your online persona – your website, social profiles, blogs, etc. – should have something to back them up. If you claim to be the best dentist in New York, then take the time to help your clients with their teeth problems. You are your own best social proof and will be amazed at the number of clients you will get if you start doing this!

Trust is invaluable, yet not so expensive to build as you may think. Be an honest and nice member in the online community and wait for your neighbors to embrace you back.

This Guest Post is coming from Kevin Gao who the founder and CEO of Comm100 Live Chat, a leading provider of live chat software for business.

Tagged as: social media, Social Trust

Kevin has written 1 articles .

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