Why Building Trust is The Most Important Thing You Can Do For Your Brand

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Anyone who knows me, knows I bang on about trust a lot. 

To me, it’s fundamental to gain trust, and to keep it. 

It takes time and solidity to build it.

We undertook fascinating research a few months ago, asking 400 HRs in the US and UK about their strategies and buying intentions. 

Amongst some key findings, we found a whopping 70% of respondents said that it was important to use HR products or services from brands with a strong reputation in their field. And then 52% said they thought it was confusing to understand which brands they can trust to support their organisational needs and strategic goals. 

Both findings are understandable and we often speak to brands who want to become known as the ‘go to’ provider. The question is, how do they achieve the reputation and trust they strive for?

For us, this means being seen, reliably, continually, showing wisdom and guidance. We’re not talking every now and again pushing a press release out or paying for a half page ad. 

This is all about presence. Being a brand that journalists trust and approach for comment, the ones who are known for providing valuable opinions and insights to their market area. The fail-safe teams who know their stuff.

HR communities thrive on trust and awareness and by continually collaborating with publications and journalists, brands are able to build their reputations.

However, there’s another string to this bow, Cision’s State of the Media Report 2024 revealed that journalists across all sectors have the same issue. They need to maintain credibility as a trusted news source, often combating accusations of ‘fake news’.

According to the report, “42% of journalists say maintaining credibility as a trusted news source/combating accusations of “fake news” is their biggest challenge.”

With this shared interest in maintaining credibility, the importance of journalists, brands and PR’s needing to work together for a credible outcome is amplified.

This goes beyond having an interesting angle. Having the facts and figures to back-up stories, using credible sources, being extra diligent when it comes to details and ensuring the end result is accurate and informative are all essential building blocks for PR stories.

Data is key as it’s often how journalists plan their editorial strategies. If PR can follow trending topics, quickly leveraging content, data, and sources to pitch stories that will appeal to a journalist's audience, then the chances of coverage increases.

From the sources journalists have access to for news stories, Cision found that 68% of journalists find press releases most useful for generating content or ideas, followed by 47% finding direct pitches and industry sources useful.

These results inform us what journalists want and need, and how we, as PR professionals, need to provide it.

So what can HR suppliers do?

From PR in HR’s report HR Strategies and Buying Decision 2023-2024, we found that often the issue is with visibility and credibility in this noisy, complex market. HR brands need to clarify and differentiate their messaging to ensure their voice is heard, while meaningfully demonstrating brand values to build awareness and trust.

We found that 69% of the HR respondents said that listening to or reading content from brand experts is important to increase their understanding of the latest HR issues, context and solutions. This could be in print or online magazines, newspapers, podcasts, blogs or social media channels.

As well as being informed by experts, HR brands surveyed went on to explain brands can increase their trust through personal experiences and the content produced by the brand, such as their website and social media.

Word of mouth and personal experiences are, without doubt, essential to HR people. HRs tend to be well connected and supportive of each other, plus the old adage of people buying from people sings in this sector.

Using data and trend insights, and/or employer stories to highlight messages can result in key messages being disseminated across a variety of communication channels. Gaining ‘earned media’ (ensuring company expertise is featured in unbiased articles, news stories in publications, podcasts, TV or radio) is a highly influential way of positioning your brand and expert insights.

3 PR tactics that can be used in the media to support HR needs and promote your brand are thought leadership content, client case studies and market/data research. All of which we delve into in our report.

It’s clear that Subject Matter Experts are an extremely important part of marketing communications. Creating content and messaging that helps educate HR on the issues they face - and support available to them - is vital.

When HR brands talk to the media - it should always be about issues and guidance, what you know, rather than what you are offering. Product pushes don’t work.

Education, guidance and insights do.  

If you want to talk to us about how we turn your messaging into media-ready information, message Kay on kay.phelps@prinhr.co.uk