How to measure the trust that today’s audiences require
The pandemic has made trust more important than ever. Here are some ways you can survey your stakeholders to see if your credibility is waning or waxing.
Trust has never been more important for engaging your many stakeholders—from employees to investors and consumers. And yet, there is a crisis of trust in many institutions, a pattern documented by recent editions of Edelman’s Trust Barometer.
Communicators must ask: Does my audience trust me to deliver factual, authentic news and updates? Or do I have work to do to build up trust and earn implicit respect?
Katie Paine, a leading authority on comms measurement and publisher of the Measurement Advisor, shared guidance at Ragan’s Media Relations and Measurement Virtual Conference on tracking whether your organization is gaining or losing trust.
First, consider the key ingredients that lead to trust between an audience and a communicator:
Paine offers several types of actions or efforts that can influence trust. A mixture of ethical integrity and business competence is required for both services and products that consumers interact with—as well as clear leadership communication and vision.
Is your audience buying it, though? Paine offers a series of phrases you can use in surveys (using a Likert scale) to measure respondents’ implicit trust of your message and organization as a whole.
You can find Paine’s full presentation on Ragan Training, and check out her regular contributions to PR Daily.
