10 Reliable Methods to Increase Trust on Social Media

After dedicating considerable effort to establishing your brand, it’s important to ask yourself: is being recognized by both competitors and consumers enough to ensure its longevity?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Brands may come and go, and to maintain success over the long term, trust must be established on social media platforms.

In a recent global survey conducted by PwC, it was found that consumer trust in a brand strongly influences their shopping preferences. Specifically, 35% of participants indicated that “trust in brand” was among the top three factors that influenced their decision to shop at a particular retailer, while 14% identified brand trust as the main factor after price.

The study also revealed that opinions shared on social media, whether by acquaintances or strangers, exert a greater influence on purchasing decisions than factors under the direct control of retailers, such as advertising and pricing.

Clearly, social media represents a critical arena in which to build trust. To help you establish a brand that endures, here are ten techniques for cultivating brand trust on social media.

1. Share High-Quality Content

Once you have set up your social media profiles, the key to success is providing valuable and high-quality content that engages your visitors. This not only affects how long they stay on your site but also how much they interact with you on social media. It’s crucial to establish a loyal following by consistently delivering great content that keeps them coming back for more.

By posting informative and relevant content, you demonstrate that your brand is an expert and not just focused on making money. This is the foundation for building trust with your audience on social media.

To become an authority in your industry and provide content that resonates with your target audience, you need to identify their needs, wants, and motivations. Additionally, analyzing your competitors’ content and identifying gaps in their offerings can help you create better content that meets your customers’ needs.

It’s important to remember that your content should not solely focus on promoting your products or services. Instead, a good approach is to follow the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your content is informative and non-promotional, while the remaining 20% can promote your brand or products.

This principle should guide your overall content strategy, the structure of your blog posts, and your social media posts. By sharing interesting and engaging content that provides value to your audience, you can gradually introduce more promotional content without annoying or overwhelming your followers.

By establishing your brand as a thought leader, you can attract a loyal following on social media, which can lead to more opportunities to strengthen your position in the market. Even if your followers are not yet customers, they will be more likely to remember your brand when they need what your company provides.

By focusing on delivering high-quality content and avoiding excessive promotion, you can build a strong and engaged following on social media that trusts your brand and is receptive to your promotional content.

2. Nurture Interaction on Your Social Channels

Social media serves the purpose of connecting with others. Simply sharing your content without engaging with your audience is insufficient. To maximize your reach, it is essential to interact, respond to inquiries promptly, foster conversations, and express gratitude to customers who mention you by utilizing free social media management tools. The more you engage with your audience, the more likely you are to attract additional followers.

By establishing yourself as a reliable and responsive brand that values customer input, you will inspire confidence in those who use your products or services. Employing these tactics will help to establish a trustworthy reputation and, eventually, foster a community around your brand.

3. Encourage User-Generated Content

Encourage customers to post pictures and videos of your products on social media to increase interaction. UGC enables marketers to share this information through their social media accounts in order to develop social media trust. Today’s consumers want to see actual people using a product before they buy. Real consumers are included thanks to UGC. Your authenticity ratings will skyrocket as a result, and your clients will be thrilled to see their material shared or retweeted.

The data supports this. User-generated content is shared by consumers twice as frequently. This implies that your brand could receive two times as much exposure. UGC-based advertisements have a click-through rate that is three times greater than regular ads, according to Facebook research. UGC is influential, as suggested by these and other statistics.

A highly effective UGC campaign at the Loews Hotel used Instagram photographs posted by visitors to advertise their travels. With the help of its #WelcomingYouLikeFamily campaign, which gave potential customers an honest impression of what a stay at the hotel is like, effectively interacted with potential customers. The photographs taken by actual guests served as evidence. The campaign was a huge success and is still going strong today.

4. Ask Customers to Review Your Company

Reviews are crucial for establishing brand confidence. Before making a purchase, many customers will read customer reviews and ratings on websites like Yelp, Google Business Profile, and Facebook. Even though Facebook is a social networking site, it features a section dedicated to page reviews that assigns a page a rating out of 5 based on whether or not users would recommend it. By posting a review, people can further comment on their viewpoint.

In order for potential customers to feel reassured and convert when they read what others are saying about your company, you should encourage your customers to submit reviews and share them on your social media networks.

Reviews can showcase the caliber of your brand as well as individual encounters customers have had with your customer care representatives, employees, and the actual product or service. Like UGC, accumulating positive reviews can help to foster a trustworthy reputation.

If you are diligent in responding to customer feedback, even negative evaluations can benefit your business. When you address criticism promptly and constructively, it demonstrates the dependability and openness of your brand. Few clients demand perfection from your business, but if they witness your good response to a bad review, they will feel more comfortable doing business with you.

Thus, be careful to consider client feedback when they take the time to leave it for your company online and to answer as quickly as you can.

5. Use Trustworthy Links in Your Posts

Your brand’s relationship to the internet community is made through links. It’s crucial that your links point to trustworthy websites, whether you’ve utilized content curation tools to locate hot items or are sharing industry news.

When distributing curated material, provide links to industry leaders and utilize a personalized link shortener for social media so readers can see what they’re clicking on.

After the slash, a custom domain name and a keyword are combined to form custom short links. Users may be certain that the content you provide won’t direct them to spam or phishing sites when they see your brand name attached with it. The term also provides a hint as to where the link will take them. The additional trust and communication can increase click-through rates by 39%.

6. Provide an Insider’s View

Transparency is brought up again when you provide your customers a behind-the-scenes look at your company on social media. You can see you have nothing to conceal. Exclusive sneak peaks, however, can also entice customers and make them feel valued.

Giving a behind-the-scenes look can help showcase your brand’s personality and beliefs. They will be able to look beyond your logo to the passionate community behind your business, whether it’s a photograph of the chef in the kitchen or a video taken backstage at a fashion show.

Because you trusted them with the inside information, your followers will get more familiar with your brand and will trust you more. Also, the FOMO effect of exclusive material can skyrocket your engagement rates.

7. Make Sure Your Branding Is Consistent

Any brand that wishes to gain the followers’ trust must stay true to its brand message. If your behavior doesn’t match what you say or what you care about, don’t pretend otherwise.

Volkswagen’s efforts to project an image of being environmentally concerned were utterly undermined when it was discovered that the company had lied to both customers and governmental agencies about the emissions of their vehicles.

It goes without saying that the brand was severely hurt. Although this is an extreme case, social media has the ability to spread swiftly. Thus, be sure that the social media actions and content of your business align with the tone and personality of your brand.

Hence, if you claim to care about the environment, act on it rather than just saying it.

A professional, trustworthy image for your business can also be developed by maintaining consistency in the appearance of your logo, brand colors, and other design components.

8. Stream Events Live

Using live video is a fantastic approach to increase social media engagement and take advantage of customer inquiries, requirements, and desires. Live video events promote conversation and put brands in direct contact with their audience.

When you answer queries in real time during live video promos, you can humanize your business and build viewers’ trust.

Live, unscripted events you host demonstrate that your business has nothing to hide. And this is the ideal approach to do it if you want to gain the trust of audiences that are becoming less receptive to polished marketing materials.

There are no second takes, elaborate productions, or editing gimmicks. This is a breath of fresh air that can help brands feel more honest and authentic in a world where material is carefully curated and chosen.

9. Share Your Social Values

People today want to know that the businesses they support are caring! This will increase people’s faith in your brand if it stands for anything other than just financial success. Utilize your social media channels to showcase any corporate social responsibility initiatives and to draw attention to problems that are important to your business.

Starbucks ran a campaign in 2016 that emphasized the value of social responsibility as a way to build trust. In honor of National Voter Registration Day, it hosted a Facebook Live event in New York. Starbucks requested its patrons to submit questions in advance for the CEO and the artist Common.

Both spoke during the occasion, emphasizing the value of voting, and then responded to questions. It was a productive event that combined social media engagement, live video, and civic duty.

10. Get Others to Advocate for Your Brand

While customer evaluations are really helpful, it’s important to share any other hat tricks that you receive on social media.

Involve influential people and other reliable brands. Share any media coverage you’ve received throughout your social media accounts and retweet any mentions of your firm made by other brands.

Building your reputation will be aided by allying with other reliable companies and publications. Work with brands in your industry to hasten this process. Together, you could write an ebook, trade blog posts, or co-host an event. Of course, you should then advertise it on social media. With only half the work, your content will reach twice as many people.

Send your items to some relevant influencers, invite them to an event, or enlist the aid of an agency. Influencers can do a lot for your company.

The influencers you work with will vary depending on your goals, industry, and company size. But make sure they have a high interaction rate because this shows how much their fans believe what they say. In contrast to someone with only a broad audience, you want your brand to be suggested by a reliable source.

building trust on social media requires a multifaceted approach that involves creating high-quality content, engaging with your audience, and demonstrating a genuine interest in your customers. By consistently implementing the ten reliable methods discussed in this article, you can cultivate a trustworthy reputation on social media that can enhance your brand’s credibility, customer loyalty, and ultimately, your business growth.
At Sunnyday Consulting, we specialize in providing expert guidance to help businesses establish and enhance their social media presence. Our team of experienced consultants can assist you in developing a comprehensive social media strategy that incorporates the latest best practices and customized solutions tailored to your unique business needs. Contact us today at support@sunnydayconsulting.com or check our website at www.sunnydayconsulting.com to learn more about how we can help you achieve your social media goals.