CopyDiva

This week in his Excess Voice newsletter, Nick Usborne’s article asked the question: what is trustworthy information online? Apparently, blogs and other social networks are moving down in credibility among consumers. In fact, according to a story in Brandweek, a new study by Jupiter Research reports that only 21% of consumers trust the product information found on social networks like blogs and forums. And, get this – they are twice as likely to trust the information they find on corporate web sites.

If you’re in charge of the content on your web site, use this to your advantage – don’t abuse the trust. Don’t hype. Give site visitors the real information they want.

The whole trust element I find personally interesting as it relates to the book reviews I post here. I wonder, and I posed this to Nick as well: would it be more valuable content for readers if book reviews were not all just glorious praise? What if I reviewed a business book that I ended up thinking wasn’t very useful? Should I post that on my site? Certainly, no one would buy it based on my review, so why post with an affiliate link to Amazon? ‘true that the books I review are just ones that I find helpful. Is there a place for a broader spectrum?