Time 16:22

Chris Brogan and Julien Smith have this thing about trust. Their new book Trust Agents is a journey for companies and individuals to determine whether each is worthy of trusting each other. After all, all this access to information and opinions makes the world a very uncertain place, and the number one element of fear for companies and individuals is the unknown.

During a conversation tonight with a recently retired and senior Fortune 500 executive, I was reminded of the capitalist’s mantra, shareholder value. You can line up all the other metrics you want, you can argue to various degrees of accuracy that these other metrics impact shareholder value, but those educated in the ways of the corporation will come back to the shareholder number.

In this second and last part of my conversation with Chris Brogan we get into how corporations should adjust to maximize their benefits from social media. Brogan shares parts of his conversation with GM CEO Fritz Henderson, bottom line, the new GM wants to listen.

Brogan and I also get into the current state of social media. I think it has hit a plateau, it’s a time when we’ll see who trusts and who was just in a quick marketing fling. What’s your take? Have too many companies and consultants jumped into the social pool because they want low cost sales or a chance to make a buck telling people how to set up a Twitter account?

The Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies shows there is an initial spike of usage, a decline and then a refocus on some of the more practical and thoughtful applications of the emerging platforms. I pose that social media in general is toward the decline on the first peak.

Maruggi’s Social Company Trust Test

1. 1) Have a company-wide process to handle learning and comments from social communities
2. 2) Develop multiple social media participants
3. 3) Response plan in place for social media originated hot topics – I won’t say crisis here because if the company is participating online, the likelihood of a socially inspired crisis is reduced.
4. 4) Develop metrics unique to social participation that roll up to shareholder value

Book Drawing

We will hold a drawing next week for Trust Agents – send an email to marketingedge AT providentpartners Dot net – include the word Trust in the subject line.

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