It’s easy to tell businesses that social media is an important part of an effective local search campaign, but whether or not consumers are finding this information trustworthy is the real question. eMarketer’s “What Makes Social Media Trustworthy” provides its latest results for social media; it measures the sources and features for which users perceive information to be most trustworthy.

It’s not surprising, but across all of the situations measured, the highest percentage of votes did not happen within the “trust completely” category. Now I’m not knocking social media (I’m completely addicted), but that doesn’t shock me. Social media is still a very new tool for advertisers and consumers. Have you ever heard of the saying, “the older you get, the wiser you get”? Well as social media gets older, marketers and consumers will really begin to understand the full potential of social sites.

Facebook seems to have come the furthest thus far; 41% of users find that posts by their friends on Facebook are somewhat trustful.  Posts by brands were found to be neither trustful nor distrustful, which is good news; consumers are listening! Users also said that the most important feature for gaining trust on a social site is open dialogue with both positive and negative comments allowed.

I don’t want to give away all the fun facts, so I’ll let you read the whole article for yourself! And remember, social media is an important piece of your media mix, but instilling consumer trust requires work and dedication.