Becoming a Trust Agent: A PR Professional’s Best Tools (Part 8)

If you are keeping up, a large amount of this blog’s subject matter delves into the realms of social networking. I firmly believe reaching out to people through internet websites like Twitter and Facebook is the way of the future. Public relations professionals are making this a priority in pushing brands and companies in different and new innovative ways. In the vast consumer market of the internet, more and more information is available in different and varying forms about companies. The biggest problem with this veritable flood of data is gaining a customer’s trust, and it’s how we employ proper uses of social networking. But how do we break into the growing practice effectively; making a good name for whomever we work for?

Enter Trust Agents, a book by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Both social media veterans, they detail some of the very best ways of utilizing their craft for the layman and experienced professional alike. The basic premise of the book is quite simple, it effectively shows how to add a human element on the web to whatever endeavor you choose; be it blogging, tweeting, podcasting, video etc. Brogan and Smith walk the reader through using these outlets to gain trust of potential customers or peers by “mastering the latest one-to-many communications methods” online and build a good reputation.

The book is quite easy to read, using real-life examples of people who attribute their business success to social media. With break-out types like Perez Hilton, a celebrity blogger, to Robert Scoble, a trustworthy former Microsoft executive; Trust Agents brings home the goods on how to hack your own system. Hack the system? This probably sounds like we are talking about the Matrix. In the book, the term “hacking the system” means finding short cuts to take though established barriers, making yourself recognized in whatever goals you want achieved while using social networking.

The reader can also find analysis on some of the better websites to use, and just how many people they can effect for their efforts. The reader definitely finds out the results can be quite astonishing. Being that I have read the book, I learned quite a good amount of building a network online and how much of a boon it is. I highly suggest this it to anyone wanting to understand the growing opportunity that is becoming the bread and butter of our chosen career field. Check it out!