As today is a time where digital communication is key, particularly in fields like social media, understanding the barriers to building trust and strategies for rebuilding it when broken is crucial. In this article, read about insights on trust in social media with Former Strategic Communications Manager of Wellington City Council Seamus Boyer, a speaker for the upcoming 6th Annual Social Media for Gov NZ.
In my experience, the most common barrier is a lack of understanding. Those outside the social media team generally have a patchy understanding of strategic social, often based on their own limited personal use of a few platforms. This means they think they know more about it than they do, or at least are not thinking about it in the same way as the experts. Educating the organisation on your approach, using real examples, can help to build trust in the social media team and social media as a function, and I think deliberately upskilling the organisation in whatever your area of expertise is, is generally a valuable use of some of your time (and something most of us don’t do enough of).
If trust is broken with your audiences, you need to address it head-on. We can tie ourselves in knots trying to come up with the perfect words and key messages on social media, but most of the time what people want is a genuine, human response. The best organisations give their social team room and freedom to articulate responses in ways they see fit – the social advisors are the audience experts after all. Often trust is broken simply by veering too far away from your mission, or the implied ‘content contract’ you made with your audience when they first followed your page. By consistently sharing quality content and not doing random stuff you can build and sustain trust over time.
So many government organisations cling to ‘trust and confidence’ as the be all and end all of metrics, but it is very hard to directly measure on social media (without surveying audiences and asking whether, based on personal experience of your channels, they have more or less trust in your organisation). But having said that, we can use things like follower growth, sentiment, or engagement as proxies for trust. Following an organisation’s social media page – actively agreeing to listen to what they have to say – is showing trust in a less direct but still meaningful way, I would argue.
More on communications: Measuring Impact: How Communicators Can Demonstrate Impact Beyond Coverage Volumes
Physical distance is rarely the biggest issue – it’s a lack of meaningful contact more generally that can be a problem. Turning up consistently on your channels (and within your organisation) will go a long way to building and maintaining trust.
The two go hand in hand, and should be considered together. I often hear social media advisors complaining that they aren’t trusted by their organisation to post and moderate how they see fit on their channels, or that the sign-off process is too onerous. But I rarely hear the same people saying, ‘I am the expert, I will be accountable for how this post lands and any backlash or negativity that comes from it’. If no one wants to own the potential consequences for the approach, there is an opportunity for you to fill that void. This can be scary, but if the alternative is doing work you know to be ineffectual, it might be worth it.
Seamus Boyer is a speaker for the 6th Annual Social Media for Gov NZ. Check out the event here.
Adrianne Saplagio is a Content Producer at Comms Room, where she combines her passion for storytelling with her expertise in multimedia content creation. With a keen eye for detail and a knack for engaging audiences, Adrianne has been instrumental in crafting compelling narratives that resonate across various digital platforms.
