Digital trust is going through a meltdown.
What started as an age of opportunities where social channels and open sources platforms opened up publishing, networking and business building possibilities with real, human connections has evolved into a new age of privacy concerns, fake news, fake accounts, bots, unwanted solicitations and spam.
What can brands do about it? Take a more active role in the context where their messaging and ads appear. Monitor the audience being built. Manage and measure customer experience and rely on first-party, not third-party, data.
Here are 30 facts to explain the breakdown in digital trust.
- 583 million fake accounts were identified on Facebook last year. Facebook says they removed them in the 1st Quarter of 2018 to try to improve digital trust.
- Nearly 48 million Twitter accounts are bots.
- 89% of consumers now read businesses’ responses to reviews to see if they should trust the business.
- 86% of consumers prefer security over convenience.
- 81% of Facebook users say that they have little to no confidence in Facebook to protect their data and privacy.
- Yet, 77% of Facebook’s US monthly active users access the app on a daily basis, and this daily habit of hundreds of millions of Americans will be a difficult one to break.
- 77% of Americans believe mainstream media reports fake news.
- 68% of Californians believe the tech industry is under-regulated and 69% of people who work in the tech industry in California say their companies could increase oversight to improve digital trust.
- 66% of consumers trust Amazon to obey privacy laws; 62% trust Google to obey privacy laws and 41% trust Facebook to obey privacy laws.
- 66% drop in trust for Facebook since the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- 65% of consumers want Facebook to disclose how they use personal data they collect.
- 62% of US adults get their news on social media.
- 57% of consumers will only use a business if it has 4 or more stars.
- 56% of Americans trust Facebook the least of any major tech company with their personal information.
- 54% of consumers believe organizations will sell their data.
- 54% of B2B marketers say Facebook is their most important platform.
- 48% of consumers have stopped using the services of at least one organization due to a data breach and breakdown in digital trust.
- 44% of the general population gets news from Facebook.
- 44% of Facebook users say they recently changed their privacy settings on Facebook, and were sharing less with friends and followers. 80% say it’s due to negative stories about Facebook and privacy.
- 43% of Californians trust cannabis growers more than social media companies which only 33% of Californians trust.
- 40% of consumers only take into account reviews written within the past 2 weeks – up from 18% last year.
- 32% of consumers say a good thing about Facebook is that it is the best way to remember birthdays.
- 31% believe mainstream media reports fake news regularly.
- 30% of marketers think Facebook offers the highest digital ad ROI.
- Only 24% of U.S. internet users think Facebook will do enough to protect privacy in the future,
- 18% of US adults get news for social media often.
- Only 6% of US internet users say they trust media and ent ertainment companies.
- Only 6% say they trust social media.
- Only 3% say they trust marketing and advertising firms.
- Facebook ad revenue has increased 2X in last 3 years.
- 91% of all cyberattacks start with an email for systems not protected by a cloud email security solution.
Do these facts explain the breakdown in digital trust? Could your company be doing something to improve digital trust with your audience?