Reputation matters

Hot on the heels of David Armano's successful and generous #Daniela outreach, I'm seeing charity requests start to crop up for all kinds of causes.

Simultaneously, reports of phishing online and Ponzi schemes offline are on the rise as well.

Reputation matters.

This brings numbers come into play, i.e. friends and followers.  Links to many people hint at a conspicuously public presence, where one would have little to hide.  But numbers aren't everything - certain figures like 2,000 friends on Twitter should be a warning sign.

So relationships matter.  If people you know are participating or connected already, then you might be inclined to join in.  When you receive a friend request from someone on Facebook who you can't place, the ability to view mutual friends may help you decide to confirm.  But as our grade school teachers rhetorically asked us, "if everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you?"

Thus we require personal interactions to help bridge the trust gap.  These consist of content and quality within direct conversation.  Recency and frequency matter here which should temper the "monetary"/intangible risk of any action.  Behavior bundles in here as well.

These three factors work best together as a set - think of it as a bridge of trust between two people.  (The image in my mind is illustrated above, inspired by Tropic Thunder...and as Tugg Speedman knows, sometimes your understanding turns out to be all wrong and you need to blow it up.)

So with a half-hearted apology, that's why I'm not going to blog about your PR spam, trade links with you to game search engines, or help you transfer $17.7 million out of Burkina Faso.  Even if you really did write the email with tears, sadness and pains.  It's also why I steer clear of grey areas like sponsored blogging.

Reputation matters.  After all, in a world of weak ties, what else do we have?

Comments

[rick murray]

Brilliant, Peter. Bang on and bloody well said.

[JustinSMV]

Reputation is king, whether its good or bad. I don't sponsor blog too and you have to stay true to your values, after all thats whats makes us human right?

[Jim Mitchem @smashad]

It's all about the dialogue in this new order. Sincerity is king. Both commercially, and personally. If you're sincere (of which honesty is part), then both you and your followers win.

[Scott Drummond (Come Together)]

Excellent post Peter, and your image is brilliant :-)

The factors you list - numbers, relationships and interactions - all contribute to an overall 'feel' we have for a person and whether we can trust them.

Those factors contribute to the social capital those individuals possess, something we all need to assess before we dive into anything.

[Leslie Gaines-Ross]

A person's good name, whether online or offline, is all we have. I concurr wholeheartedly that reputation matters and is what is left at the end of the day. lgr

[Nathan McGee]

The good thing about twitter is that you can also check out what the person is twittering about.

If they follow me, than I will take a look and see if it is a person who is involved and twittering actual information, responding to others and just participating in general rather than just spamming the heck out of everyone. Then I will follow them back :).

@nathanmcgee

[evan shaw blackerby]

Very true. Kudos. We could be very proactive with our reputations, but most of us choose not to....

[Lucretia Pruitt]

Reputation is everything. But I think perhaps there's a left turn in there that not all of us take. "It's also why I steer clear of grey areas like sponsored blogging." Seems to be making the assumption that sponsored blogging can lead to a poor reputation. Honestly, I'd say that if someone is going to have a poor reputation, it's more due to their own actions than whether or not they accept sponsored posts or ads on their blogs or anything resembling monetization.

Armano's campaign worked because he already had the trust of his network. When someone in mine asked me how I knew this wasn't a scam before she contributed, my response of "I've known David for over a year - if I thought there was any possibility this was a scam, and I don't, I wouldn't have retweeted it at all" lent *my* reputation to his in order for her to decide to participate.

Had David posted a sponsored blog post instead, and she asked a similar question of "how do you know this is an honest review and not just bought?" I would've said the same. That would again be lending my reputation to his to someone who doesn't know him.

There are people I would not do those things for - because they have not built their reputation and trust with me sufficiently that I could claim that. However, I likewise suspect that in my own network there are people who have yet to form that level of trust with me too.

But for those who have gained a reputation of trust, the keys are not to abuse it, and to maintain the standard that got you there in the first place.

A sponsored post by someone I don't know or whose reputation hasn't been enhanced by that of someone I do trust who trusts them? Pointless. The obverse, however, is fine with me.

[Peter Kim]

Hi Lucretia - I guess we disagree on this point. I believe that monetization leads to loss of objectivity sooner or later. This post from David Churbuck at Lenovo sums it up for me: http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress/?p=2358

[Hessie Jones]

As a Marketer and someone who understands the social media space I continue to ensure that my clients truly understand what's acceptable behaviour in this space. I have read David Churbuck's post about Shooting fish: Blog Sluts and I think he has polarized the view of bloggers. For many of my clients trying to reach customers in this space and having to build credibility in that outreach will take time. Remember that they are driving their business as well and don't have the luxury of "time". Sometimes, the reach effort involves tapping into existing influencers with established networks to help accelerate their efforts. Please keep in mind that the bloggers/influencers that we outreach are not "paid" or forced to post content on behalf of a company who has requested some help. We ensure they have totally, on their own, buy into the strategy and direction presented to them and they can choose not to be a part of the initiative. I agree that there are bloggers out there who use their expansive network to take advantage of advertisers who want the reach. The content posts they initiate will not necessarily be authentic or even perceived as such and so their credibility will be taken into question the more they enter into these types of relationships. I truly believe that relationships with bloggers and advertisers can be just as strong as a friendship. Overtime, the conversation builds into trust and the efforts defined by each are indicative of that trust.

[Ethan Bauley]

Wait a minute...how do we reconcile Chuck's post from December 2008 with the [totally great] sponsored Olympic athlete blog program Lenovo ran in September 2008?

http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress/?p=2131

I can discern many differences between former and later...but talk about a "gray area"...!

[Peter Kim]

Would be great to get his take on it. To your point, the difference is the content of his personal blog vs. his company's sponsored program. The direct comparison would be Churbuck (unpaid/unsponsored) vs. athletes (paid? I don't know - good question for Rohit Bhargava from Ogilvy).

Disclosure: I have never had Lenovo, IBM, or Ogilvy as direct clients in any capacity at any company.

[Ethan Bauley]

I saw Rohit present this case study at BlogWorld...the athletes were all given Lenovo laptops and cameras, and got to keep them.

In general, I think it's great for brands to get involved and help create some information or relationships that would have never happened without them. Whether or not that's they way most marketing people grok this...

Maybe I'll try to ping David (oops, didn't mean to call him "Chuck" in that last comment ;-) if I can. Pretty curious about the difference since the Olympic program was so good and he clearly has no patience for whatever it is that irked him.