Discount Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

Written primarily for individuals working for themselves or large corporations, seeking to gain business advantage using social media, Trust Agents is a handy resource for the novice and beginner user, offering them insight and tools to gain influence and trust in online communities. Filled with case studies and examples, the early chapters lay the theoretically foundation for Brogan and Smith's paradigm-shifting proposition: seek to give to your customers instead of seeking to get something from them. In an increasingly transparent online world, becoming a trust agent is hard work and, according to Brogan and Smith, entails: 1.writing your own rules to a system you can control; 2. putting yourself in the shoes of your customers and learning to be genuine and honest; 3. leveraging everything at your disposal (technology, people, resources) to accomplish your goals; 4. being the center of your network, orchestrating the transfer or deployment of resources on behalf of others in your network; 5. learning people skills; and 6. involving a large group of people to accomplish a tall task.

What Brogan and Smith do well is demystify the process of establishing an online presence into easy actionable steps that inspire you to get started right away. They dispel the ROI myth that blogs and social networks are big moneymakers. Most don't make money or significant returns necessary to justify the investment. They clue you into the fact that the web is a conversation and employing in-person rules of etiquette online will garner success. Everything flows from being involved actively in the conversation in your particular area of expertise.

If you participate in social media, most of the writings can seem oversimplified. Sections on interacting with people on the web seem like common sense. You'll also find they don't delve too deep into any particular topic. Often, insights are interrupted with the obvious such as "including a profile photo helps build trust online." Also, their attempts at jargoneering aren't terribly memorable.

For people looking for trenchant thought leadership in the realm of social media, this offers nothing all-too original or earth-shattering. But what it does offer, especially to the beginner are good portions of inspiration in tidy, digestible morsels.

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