Would have been good to be there, but sadly wasn't.
Suffice to say Ian has a good round up and rasies some good points that segue with Stuart Bruce's thoughts on why not many businesses are adopting blogs/social emdia.
Stuart suggests it is down to attitudes and an over-reliance of businesses on marcomms. That is, simply pushing products and services without really trying to understand the fundamental shift that's happening in the way we (as in 'we') are thinking and behaviouring as a collective, societal whole.
This is what Ian refers to when he points out that while the Barometer finds only 6% of the public who trust bloggers, 45% trust 'someone like me'.
For me, there is very little difference between the two. It's like the difference between a 'blog' and a 'website'. It's semantics.
What the findings reinforce is that we no longer live in an age of deference but one of reference. people want to be talked to, not shouted at.
The faster busiensses/NGOs etc recognise that and adapt their worldvew the faster a) they will adopt to social media and b) they will find they're running in step with the vast majority of the public.
Phew!
Call me naive but I trust of all the blogs I currently read. I do find it interesting that there is no mentions of Journalists in the mix...were the figures too low?! Seriously I would like to see how many people would trust something they read in a newspaper as opposed to a blog and why they would believe one over the other, is it simply a case that newspapers are around longer? Is it that they are seen to stick to a series of guidelines (even though a blogger is putting their personal reputation on the line if found lying.) One other question, if the people trust the newspapers, what about the newspapers blogs? If a story was broken on a blog first would they wait until the paper printed it to confirm it? It'll be interesting to see the figures in five years time too.
Posted by: Sam Wilcox | January 25, 2007 at 09:18 AM