V8.41: Maintaining Trust in the Age of Security Breaches and Privacy Issues

Let’s talk about trust. It seems almost impossible in today’s day and age of security breaches and data leaks. How does your brand maintain trust in all of this? It might seem like a daunting task, but it is possible.

Let’s talk about a few ways to build up brand trust. Medium.com wrote 8 ways to build brand trust through social media and we had to share our favorites with you!

1. “Start Your Own Blog or Website” You all know that thought leadership is a great way to prove out your wealth of knowledge. Having a blog/website with accurate and relevant content will prove you to be an expert in your field. This will definitely build up trust in your knowledge and ability to succeed. 
2. “Be Consistent Across Channels” Consistency is key! Create content that your audience is interested in and consistently deliver excellence. It’s fairly simple really! Give the people what they want. It is also important you communicate across your social platforms in a similar voice. Of course you aren’t going to speak in the exact same way across all your platforms– that would be silly. We use each platform differently and you have to make sure to align to that platform’s unique perspective. With that in mind though, you should still keep the same brand guidelines across all platforms to avoid confusion. 
3. “Build Brand Trust via Networking” If you want to sell to a community, you need to be a part of that community. Seems pretty obvious to us, but you’d be surprised by how many brands just want to take without giving. You have to network and engage with these communities if you want them to do so with you in return. Trust is a two way street! 
4. “Be Transparent” Transparency is so vital if you want to keep the trust in today’s world. If you are caught hiding anything- no matter how small- you will get fried for it. So, keep it simple and be as transparent as possible. It will serve you so much more in the long run than trying to hide your flaws. 
5. “Be Accountable” And speaking of flaws… you have to be accountable. If you mess up, own that and work to fix it. People just want to know that, as a brand, you want to continue bettering yourself. Keep yourself accountable and people will trust and respect you. 
6. “Use Testimonials” Nothing works better than third party validation. Testimonials are a great way to prove trust in a short period of time. When people see that others trust and rely on you, they will follow. Leverage your brand advocates to build up your brand reputation!

Now that we have these tools in our back pocket, who’s ready to tackle their brand reputation in market?