Digital Trust : Social Media Strategies to Increase Trust and Engage Customers

Digital Trust proposes new strategic models to create and reinforce consumer trust and build corporate value through social media platforms. Digital Trust provides an overview of how e-SMEs can use social media platforms to conduct their own research into increasing trust and engagement, with the positives and negatives highlighted for specific industry considerations. For enterprises that rely on e-commerce, engaging customers and building brand trust is vital for driving sales and achieving long-term success. Trust plays a critical part during the online shopping process and is a key precursor for consumer patronage, and social media can provide the ideal environment for SMEs to gain customer trust as part of their online operations. This book covers the challenges that e-SME branding is currently facing in the rise of digital and social media platforms, which facilitate and enable greater transparency, consumer empowerment and online activism. As a result, new strategies are required for optimizing these opportunities as well as avoiding potentially disastrous pitfalls. Developed from his own research, Barry Connolly explores the ways in which e-SMEs can successfully and authentically engage within social media communities in order to positively influence their brand trust and reputation.