Thinking about Trust Agents

Trust Agents is a book by noted bloggers and web denizens Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.  It's a fascinating look at how the web and social media sites are changing how we do business not only in this country but all over the world.  The biggest change has come in the way we communicate on both business levels and impersonally.   I'm such a dinosaur that I can remember the days of mailing news releases and then having high quality prints made for sending out photo releases via USPS!

This means that today's communicators need to have a good grasp of the web and social media.  In the book they give some very good reminders about not sending what could be perceived as spam to friends.  They also talk about the differences between trust agents, consumer advocates and brand evangelists using a variety of examples from Big Business.  In their view, trust agents care more about people and work to grow relationships.  They talk about how trust agents planting seeds that might create a positive image of what ever brand they are out to promote.

They suggest finding communities of people with shared interests on  the web and on social media sites, since geography isn't a consideration anymore for networking etc.  Something that really touched me in the book is their sense of humans being more important than a bottom line.  They advocate doing nice things for people, just because, with no sense of quid pro quo.  It's almost as if these guys are trying to bring the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you) into the business arena, something that is sorely needed in this day and age.

While Brogan and Smith are right on about using the web to expose more people to your products, they don't touch the subject of how to target your market on the web, especially for such "personal" products as art or theatre.  I say personal because art, like beauty or theatre, is a very subjective thing.

Providing a free service is seen by them to be a leveraging maneuver.  They also suggest using recommendation engines like Digg or Stumble Upon, so that your audience will help you spread the message.  Offering needed resources on your blog is another way to  leverage according to them.  Crowd-sourcing is seen as a way to find our audience and leverage their power.  Other suggestions include getting a personal assistant (which I'd love but it's hard to find smart, saavy people who will work for free) and by delegating work.

They suggest that a product that is both "sticky" and "spreadable" is the product that trust agents can more effectively promote on the web.  Reaching out to those who are coming up the ladder is seen as another way to marshall resources as is helping folks get the word out on their projects.

Brogan and Smith have a word of warning to PR people - they don't want a traditional press release with the who, what, why, where and when in it!  They are looking for information to interest their audiences from the PR community.

In summation, they contend that the web is just a bunch of people - like you and me - who have specific interests.  In their eyes, the web differs from other media in that the advertisers weren't "in" on it from the get go like they were in print, radio or TV.  They are right on the money there!  The internet was "created" as a way for scientists to share information. 

My only disappointment with the book is that they don't give any examples of how to locate one's audience in cyberspace for niche-type products.  But I highly suggest it for anyone who has not considered the power of the web in promotion.