The Infinite Dial

In research conducted by Edison and others over the past few years, two things about mass media have become increasingly clear: your audience has never trusted you less, and has never needed to trust you more. As cynicism about the media continues to filter its way into mainstream consciousness, more and more news and information seekers are building their own filters--becoming their own "program directors"--and assembling their own customized media channels around fragmented sources they trust. One of the interesting things about "trust" in 2009 (as opposed to 1979) is that "trusted" doesn't have to mean unbiased. Trusted simply means transparent--I don't care if there is a bias, as long as it is transparent, out in the open, and I can process that information how I choose.

I get my news most nights from Brian Williams and the NBC Nightly News. Brian is a trusted source for me not only for his cool, measured and unbiased presentation of the news--I trust him because I feel like I know the guy behind the suit, thanks in no small part to the show's blog, The Daily Nightly. In the blog, Williams and other contributors detail the process of the news--and why certain stories are heavily reported, while others may appear to have been given short shrift. Williams doesn't lose his objectivity by taking sides on an issue, but he does come off as a passionate, thinking and feeling human by being passionate and transparent about the news process. In short, BriWi is a trust agent for NBC, and NBC Nightly News generally gets my attention because of him.

The obvious trust agents for your station are your on-air personalities, but there are other sources of trust (and magnets for listener cynicism) at work off the air, as well. With "corporate" the most frequently used prefix to "radio" by an entire generation, the cynicism about how radio stations select and rotate music has never been higher. I have written here in the past about opening up your weekly music meeting to listeners, and it seems to me that there is no better way to establish your music/program director as a trust agent than by making this heretofore opaque, black box process a more transparent exchange. The parallels to "The Daily Nightly" are obvious here--listeners (especially millenials) may not agree with your decision to play or exclude a given song, but if they can see the passion, the heated exchanges, and the integrity behind those decisions, than your station has gone a long way towards rebuilding some of the trust that "corporate radio" has lost over the past decade.

"Trust Agent" is such a great term that I really wish I had coined it. That honor, however, falls to Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, who just released their book, entitled (appropriately enough) Trust Agents. I just got my pre-order copy over the weekend, and it's a keeper. If you are looking for a concise, actionable primer for using social media to bank a little karma with your listeners, I can think of no finer guides than Brogan and Smith. I got the chance to meet Chris Brogan while speaking at his company's Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco earlier this year, where I was fortunate to hear some of the latest thinking and best practices in social media marketing and strategy. Brogan's site alone is a vast treasure trove of best practices, smart thinking and practical tips to navigate the waters of social media, but if you want the short course, this book is what you are looking for.

And, as always, in keeping with Edison's spirit of kaizen, what can we do to serve as trust agents for you? We're always open to topics, critiques and suggestions. Post them here, or pop me an email. You can trust me to get back to you.