More statistics on the power of influence

Some of these statistics are probably old news for us in the industry but they're still worth drawing attention to. This is from Edelman's Trust Barometer via eMarketer and highlights how people trust each other as credible sources of information about a company.

Why is this important? Because when we design web experiences and online marketing programs, we generally ignore the fact that people trust each other more than any other form of communication. We also don't recognize that people trust their known peers much more than the anonymous blogosphere. To effectively reach consumers today, you have to reach them through people like themselves. 

Finding those people is the challenge. That'll be the subject of one of my upcoming articles on Social Influence Marketing.