The Guardian reports that companies are beginning to read blogs (or hire media consulting firms to do so) in order to get a sense of what the hoi polloi are saying about their products — good and bad. Media coverage and pundits tend to be reactive — grass-roots opinion tends to be a lot more valuable in letting companies respond to problems (or opportunities) more quickly.
“The PR firm Edelman does this great ‘Trust Barometer’, which measures the trust we place in certain types of people,” Hart explains. “After a doctor, the person we would most trust is the average person who’s ‘just like us’ – a company CEO is eighth on that list. It’s the same for news sources about companies. After specialist business magazines, we trust family and friends and colleagues; journalists are sixth.
“So it’s a pretty shocking piece of research that shows we trust people who we feel are like ourselves and are not out to promote something. That is why blogs have such power. We trust them, and if we disagree with an opinion, we normally have the option of adding our say.”
Interesting.
>a company CEO is eighth on that list
A CEO is eighth? Who’s seventh? A used car salesman? Baron Munchausen?
The current data appears to be here (web site here).
I can’t find the “eighth” place showing in the data. In the US, though, regarding the question “In general, when forming an opinion of a company, if you received information from a/an [INSERT PERSON] about this company, how credible would the information be?” the answers were, in order:
Doctor or healthcare specialist
Average person, like yourself
Academic
Accountant
Non-profit organization or NGO rep
President/ Prime Minister/ Chancellor
Financial/ Industry analyst
Banker
Religious leader
Regular employee of company
Author
Broadcaster
CEO of company
Lawyer
Legislator/ parliamentarian
Union representative
Company’s public relations rep
Entertainer/ Athlete
In Europe they trust lawyers and financial/industry analysts far more, heads of state and religious leaders far less. In China and Brazil, the “average person” ranks significantly on top.