What's trust got to do with it...

For too long we have heard that social media reach is decreasing and organic reach is drying up... While those are valid points, they also focus on the half empty part of the glass. We live in a time where business opportunity is growing exponentially for those who are listening to the market and truly care about proving world class experiences to their target audience.

As a social marketers ourselves, we know how hard our job can be, between increasing consumer expectations, having to prove ROI, compliance rules such as GDPR, and the list goes on. We live in a world where Trust is a currency. Consumer trust in brands started to erode after a year filled with social media scandals. According to a study from Edelman, 70 percent of respondents said fake news, clickbait, cyberbullying and hate speech all contributed to lowering their trust in social media.

“The best opportunity brands have to build relationships with their customers are through social media. So the more that trust erodes in those platforms, the worse it is for brands.” - Kevin King, Edelman Digital global chair

Truth to be told (pardon the pun), this is an exciting time to be in Marketing folks. We have entered the fourth industrial revolution and can improve humanity quality of life by bringing back honest, genuine conversation into our communication thanks to AI, machine learning, internet of things, AR, VR and whatever else is being cooked up by tech genius' around the world.

These advancements will help us have genuine conversations through different means, without loosing our USP. Now is the time to leave the traditional marketing funnel behind and focus on having conversations with our customers and clients build back their trust.