Digital trust in the epoch of social media refers to the amount of faith the users have on a platform that it’ll protect their data and value their privacy stated Bahaa Abdul Hadi. The degree of safety provided by a platform extending to the creation and engagement of contents is a part of this. Two other important factors influencing digital trust in social media users is that of targeted advertisements and sponsored posts.

According to multiple studies stemming from the US, the trust placed by users in social media platforms is slowly dwindling every year. The studies looked into many platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Pinterest, Tumblr, Whatsapp and YouTube to name a few.

Why should we care about digital trust?

Today, social media is used for everything like staying connected to our loved ones, catching up on news, shopping and entertainment. This has gradually increased the number of hours the average human spends on social media, constantly exposing them to the various factors affecting digital trust. This also means the data shared by users has significantly increased over the years, also hiking the continual exposure to vulnerability. For these reasons, it is now more important than ever that social media businesses invest in building and maintaining the digital trust their audience have in them. All it takes is one incidence of a data breach or inappropriate ad to lose their long-standing credibility in the minds of the audience.

5 Core Tenets of Social Media Trust

Social media experts over the years have identified 5 key avenues where the digital trust placed by users on a social media platform should never diminish.

Privacy

The number one factor driving digital trust in the minds of audience is privacy on social media platforms. This includes everything from the content they share online to the registered user information stored by platforms. Companies need to tighten policies surrounding privacy as it holds the lion’s share in building digital trust.

Security

How safe a digital ecosystem is can also impact the digital trust on social media. To prevent data leaks, hacking, financial frauds, impersonation, sharing of abusive or sexually explicit content, companies need to invest in updated technologies that foster security on the platform.

Frequency of Advertisements

These days it has become the norm to be inundated by advertisements on social media and the frequency of this exposure is only rocketing. If you’re putting out enough ads to annoy users, it defeats the purpose of investing in advertising.

Relevance of Advertisements

Personalised ads are a commonality on social media platforms but businesses need to ensure they’re spending money on data analytics to see the effectiveness of such ads. Only a small percent of users feel they’re received ads that are pertinent to them.

Authenticity

This covers the information being shared on a social media platform and the likeliness of it to be legitimate and accurate. Over the years, there has been a rise of clickbaits and misleading contents being shared which directly affects digital trust.

If you’re a company who deals extensively with social media users, it will do well for you to invest in the software and skills required to boost your digital trust in users. Etching out a special team under your social media department who solely focuses on building digital trust is a good place to start.

The blog has been authored by Bahaa Abdul Hadi and has been published by the editorial board of Identity Herald. For more information, please reach out to www.identityherald.com