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"Newseum: Do You Trust Blogs?" by Rogers CadenheadBy Larry Kilbourne

Last week I blogged about an eMarketer article entitled "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bloggers?" that shows while the impact of social media such as blogs is growing, they exert little influence to date on consumer buying behavior.

A new article in eMarketer casts some light on why this may be so.  "Does Anyone Trust the Media?" presents a subset of results of a worldwide survey undertaken by TNS Global late last year.  The 16-country study involved nearly 28,000 individuals aged 15 - 55 years old.  Its report, "Digital World, Digital Life," focuses on how the Internet is impacting the lives of people around the globe.

One of the questions it attempts to answer is the amount of trust people have in online sources of information versus traditional news sources.

It is these results eMarketer highlights in today's article.  The results are remarkably consistent across regions of the globe, with the top trusted sources of information being friends (42%), TV news (41%), online news (40%), and newspapers (39%).

Private blogs, by comparison, rank as the least trusted source of information across nearly the whole spectrum of countries. (Click on thumbnail below for larger image of chart)

The implication I draw from these two recent articles is that the relatively low standing blogs are accorded as trustworthy sources of information is an important if not decisive factor in their relative lack of influence on consumer buying habits. 

So, while it is true that social media is growing rapidly as a source of online information, its growth is disproportionate to its influence on us as information consumers at this point. 

While the morphing of the Internet from a "read only" medium into a "read-write" one has had an undeniable impact in terms of democratizing the dissemination of information, it seems clear that not all information sources are perceived as being equally valuable or trustworthy.

In other words, if Web 2.0 and evolving social media are creating a virtual Speakers' Corner for individuals throughout the world, the role of - and respect accorded to - expert opinion seems largely unchanged.

Not a surprising consequence when you think about it.  But one that has definite implications for marketing as it incorporates social media at both the strategic and tactical levels.

Copyright © 2009 by Larry Kilbourne, Ph.D. Dr. Kilbourne is an independent marketing consultant. He may be reached at lkphd@yahoo.com.