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Now that you’re blogging, don’t forget face-to-face

As we’ve been discussing here, more and more companies are getting their online efforts on track these days with smart blogging and social media strategies.   That’s good, since individuals are not only increasingly looking to online sources for news and information about companies, products and brands and everything under the “sunflowers,” they are also contributing mightily to that content as well.  Chief among these contributors are the top bloggers, those with high “authority,” as defined by Technorati, or numbers of other blogs linking to them. 

That makes these top bloggers influential, right?  The answer is yes and no.   They are certainly influencing other bloggers.  And any media relations professional worth their salt knows that a juicy story that starts on the blogosphere can become front page news soon after.  Just ask Bill Clinton and Barack Obama about the stories the Huffington Post broke during the recent Democratic primary campaign.

There’s sometimes so much focus on bloggers today that the larger truth, and opportunity, can get missed: bloggers as an emerging source of authority are not highly trusted overall–not yet anyway.  In fact, research shows that people–consumers, customers, people like you and me–have headed in the opposite direction to date.  We are reserving our trust for the people we know in what we call our day-to-day hub, the inner circle of friends, family members, colleagues and others we know well and regularly communicate with. 

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester recently did something of a research summary on this issue on his blog post, “Who do people trust? (It ain’t bloggers).”  It’s certainly not the only reference point out there (my colleague at Jack Morton, Liz Bigham, did a nice summary last fall on the Jack Morton 360 blog).  But it’s an updated discussion (with 94 comments) that drew my attention to a study published in April by Canadian research firm Pollara which had the following finding: social media is still more a channel for sharing opinions and learning about products, services, organizations, and brands than it is a channel for influencing people’s ultimate decision-making. 

One possible explanation is that the “mode” of how people seek advice and recommendations is still largely face-to-face and offline.  But the interesting thing is that Pollara’s findings apply to social media users themselves, as summarized by this write up:

“According to a new study from Canadian research firm Pollara, self-described social media users put far more trust in friends and family online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace ‘friends.’

Of more than 1,100 adults polled in December, nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by ‘well-known bloggers.’

‘This shows that popularity doesn’t always equate to credibility,’ said Robert Hutton, executive vice president and general manager at Pollara. ‘Marketers might have to reconsider who the real influencers are out there.’

…Overall, social media remains chiefly a mode of communication and personal expression, rather than a source of credible information.”

Some active social media users will strongly disagree (I know from reading the comments on Jeremiah Owyang’s post).  But I think it’s a good reminder for agencies and marketers alike to not miss the forest for the trees when developing campaigns or simply communicating and building relationships.   Yes, by all means, engage in the blogosphere and other social media.  Case in point: I found Jeremiah’s blog post by following him on Twitter and then to friendfeed.  By all means, harness social media to listen to your audiences, build a dialogue, and spark word-of-mouth conversations in the offline world, one of the key roles online plays in the marketing mix in diverse categories from banking to technology according to research.

But don’t overlook the larger opportunity to engage influencers and identify advocates in the real world where the lion’s share of word-of-mouth discussions are taking place, and where traditional sources of expertise and influence still matter and need to be in the mix.  The biggest impact we can make will undoubtedly be when we bring the best of the online and offline worlds together in compelling and authentic ways, including those who are influential among bloggers and have large social media followings but also the people who truly influence customer and consumer decision-making when push comes to shove: the people in their day-to-day hubs.

Image source: Digital vision, Getty images