LinkedIn – one of Australia’s least trusted brands?
Smack in the middle of Page 3 of Friday’s (24 September 2010) The Australian, amidst the pre-game excitement of the impending grand final clash between the Saints and the Magpies, was a table titled ‘Australia’s Top 10 Brands’. A quick scan of the names and logos for 2010 revealed no real surprises. However, at the bottom of the ‘Least Trusted’ column I was surprised to see LinkedIn listed at No. 10.
What the …? As a long term (so long I can’t remember) member and advocate of the LinkedIn service, I’m somewhat shocked to see that it is regarded in the ‘least trusted’ category of brands alongside FHM, casinos and Nutrient Water.
No further explanation or analysis regarding the table was offered – it had been inserted against a loosely related article on tech gadgets.
A quick online scan reveals that the information has been sourced from ‘the latest Brand Asset Valuator (BAV) study’ published by BrandAsset Consulting. This study reportedly:
… examined 1000 brands covering 120 different categories, with 2000 Australian consumers surveyed online.
Right … An online survey of consumers has been used to rate a list of consumer tech-related brands like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, etc., with online community sites like MySpace and LinkedIn. The relevance of the survey is starting to elude me …
BAV Research director David Evans states:
“Brands that are seen as betraying consumer’s trust, that don’t deliver on value and customer service, are being punished. Australians don’t trust casinos; men’s magazines or flavoured mineral waters, while Easy Off Bam, Fox Sports and Theo’s Liquor are being trashed because they are seen as customer unfriendly.”
I’ve got to agree with David there – I don’t trust casinos, men’s magazines or flavoured mineral water. But I am a big fan (and subscriber) of FoxSports – and don’t see them as ‘customer unfriendly’.
Nutrient Water
I started to wonder how many of these ‘consumers’ were actually users of the services provided by LinkedIn – or if they even understood what services were provided by LinkedIn?
According to the ‘What is LinkedIn?’ page ‘over 75 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities’ by:
- Staying informed about your contacts and industry
- Finding people & knowledge you need to achieve your goals
- Control of your professional identity online.
I would concur with all of these statements – its why I am a subscriber to LinkedIn.
As an example, the weekly alert email that lists updates to the profiles of my ‘connections’ is a much anticipated and valued read – through this service I see how people that I know are moving and interacting within their professional careers. No other service offers me this – Facebook certainly doesn’t.
But how would I rate LinkedIn in terms of ‘trust’? Do I trust the LinkedIn service from a ‘brand perspective’? I fear that asking this question is to trivialise and probably misinterpret the concept of ‘brand’ and the services provided by a social media platform such as LinkedIn.
The power of LinkedIn comes from the content put into it voluntarily by the users of this service – there is no editorial control over the content that I put in regarding my profile. As a professional networking tool, users are encouraged to detail their professional experience, roles and education. Users are also encouraged to connect to other users of the service.
Do I trust the content within LinkedIn? Yes – more so than I would trust the equivalent content within a resume that was sent to me via email. Why? Well first of all the content is highly public – anyone can search LinkedIn. Secondly, through the use of connections it is relatively easy to find someone that you know who knows the person of interest and can therefore offer an opinion on the accuracy of content within that person’s profile on LinkedIn.
[Image courtesy of: http://nowsourcing.com/2009/04/28/social-media-motivators/]
So, how would I rate the ‘brand’ LinkedIn in terms of ‘trust’? I would probably put it in the top 10 rather than the bottom 10 because I know, understand and value the services provided.
How would I rate LinkedIn against Sony? I’m not sure I can … They both provide me with very different services that I value, but to compare the two is to compare apples with oranges – or rather product vendor with online community. It simply doesn’t make sense.
One thing this survey highlights to me is that, particularly in the case of new social media platforms, poorly interpreted survey results plastered on Page 3 of a national paper can hurt a brand – but, more importantly, they devalue the perception of credibility of the survey provider.
Related Links:
FHM and Star City named Australia’s least trusted
I do feel that Linkedin is a trust-able source. Just like what you said, within top 10. There is nothing can be absolutely reliable but balance the percentage of the useful information that can be found in Linkedin, it does provide such a efficient, easy and reliable platform to share a bit more professional information than Facebook or HR agents’ website. However, just like all other collaboration platform, the protection of the sensitive privacy is critical for it. Sometime, the concern about privacy leaking is the biggest enemy to improve such service.