What is Online Credibility?

Pete Blackshaw outlines six core drivers of online marketing credibility in his book, "Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000." These drivers consist of: (1) Trust (2) Authenticity (3) Transparency (4) Listening (5) Responsiveness (6) Affirmation.

Although, each of these components are certainly important in assessing and responding to credibility detractors and/or enhancers, credibility itself can be understood at a more granular level. In fact, credibility transcends the online world both in time and in understanding. Persuasion and communication’s researchers have by studying credibility for nearly 50 years. Founders of social cognition and persuasion such as William J. McGuire identified two primary components of a communication’s level of credibility: expertise and trustworthiness. Expertise refers to the receivers’ perception of the messengers’ ability to make correct claims, while trustworthiness is the receivers’ perception of the believability of the claims made.

Without expertise and trustworthiness, a company will not appear to be credible in the minds of the consumer. In fact, trustworthiness and expertise are features that can develop overtime via a series of interactions or can develop very rapidly perhaps in the form of a positive or negative review/recommendation. They are also susceptible to many biases, but one would expect that the 'true credibility' of a company would quickly emerge in today’s world of connectedness via online communities, blogs, and mobile devices.

Therefore, companies that lack credibility as defined by a deficiency in trustworthiness and/or expertise will in fact detract from their base level of ‘online credibility’ if they endorse the remaining drivers of online credibility as stated by Blackshaw. For example, further transparency into a company that lacks the expertise to produce high quality products will only further illustrate the inadequacies of the company. As such, it is vital that a company take an inventory of their trustworthiness and expertise before proceeding with Blackshaw’s six drivers of online marketing credibility.

However, what is important to note is that Blackshaw’s drivers of online marketing credibility allow marketers to measure and understand how trustworthy or expert they appear in the minds of their consumers through listening strategies. Once both trustworthiness and credibility are assessed, marketers should proceed with strategies to incrementally improve both of these components before proceeding with added drivers such as transparency, responsiveness, and affirmation.