Who do people trust in online?

Outbrain, a company that offers premium content services asked the people who are they trusting the most in online and how is their acquisition’s decision influenced.

They discovered, this way, that there are people that trust the brand’s posted content, more than they trust what are their friends posting.

The research study, applied on more that 1000 consumers from the Great Britain, shows that 34% of time online is spent consuming content that the individual did not set out to find.

What does that mean? Outbrain emphasize the importance of the native content, which is not intrusive. This aspect is sustained by the fact that the respondents listed those recommendations from editors’ content to be the most interesting ones.

The trust is higher in traditional publishers

Actually, the study puts the accent on the high rate of trust in traditional publishers.

Two thirds from respondents confirm that publishers such as The Guardian or The Sun are reliable.

The traditional publishers were rated the most reliable sources when it comes about the tourism and financial advise content. Social media was rated reliable for healthy, sport and fashion content.

“The marketing specialists have to keep in mind the innovation and creativity need”, says the Outbrain, North Europe Director, Stephanie Himoff.

“Consumers are spending less time reading reviews about services and products, comparing with other types of content. It would be wise from the marketing specialists’ apart to use catchy content in those most trusted environments for consumers: publishers’ websites.”

It’s getting harder and harder to gain consumers’ trust in social media

The study’s result showed, as well, that despite the fact people tend to spend their most free time in social media, the trust is a rarely thing met in these environments.

Interesting is that 77% from respondents considered that the familiar brands are really reliable information sources. Comparing to 67%, who considered the same thing, but about that shared content by their friends.

54% from the respondents considered very useful and relevant the recommended content. They confirmed they would prefer to be guided and in that way they can be redirected to products and services they might find them useful.

The dimension of the content read by a person differs very much, depending what is he looking for. The clients tend to read 3 pieces of content before making an acquisition, while reading about tourism or finances is increased up to 5 pieces.

Download the full report from HERE