Trust Me

I’ve heard a few colleagues say email is on its way out and Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are here to stay. We probably said that about email when it first arrived, right? Social media works because of trust from the person on the other end. We screen who our “friends” are on Facebook, we pick and choose who we want to “follow” on Twitter, etc. There is a certain amount of trust with the message.

From Stephen Nold, “Because we trust the people accepted into our Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn groups. Not that we know all these people. But we have full control of who belongs in this group and we can remove them if this trust is abused. The sender is accountable to the messages sent. Not so with email.”

He goes on to say, “Well if these tools start cannot protect the integrity created through the trust factor, they will lose their value.  Just recently both Twitter and Facebook suffered some serious viruses that diminished the ability to confirm the sender.  If in the future I cannot rely on the security and trust established by these tools, they quickly lose value.  The value created by establishing a trusted source is huge.  Lose this trust and social media will quickly become the ‘fad’ of 2009.

So for now, Social Media is the great connector.  Lose the trust and the connection deteriorates. “

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