According to a Guardian Survey Britons online are a discriminating bunch who trust specialist advice sites and their friends' social content more than the views of celebrity bloggers or tweeters, according to a survey conducted by ICM on behalf of the Guardian and first direct.
The survey, of a random sample of 752 adults, asked Britons from a nationally representative online panel for their opinions on trust in the digital age. (You can see the full results in graphical format here).
The over-riding conclusion is that we're a cautiously trusting bunch - 56% of respondents thought that "most people can be trusted", whether online or in the real world.
But some people are seen to be more trustworthy than others. Many brands long for – and in many cases pay for – celebrity endorsement, but they may be wasting their time and money. Only 30% of respondents trust the opinions of celebrities or personalities who blog or tweet online to any degree. A tiny 3% trust them "fairly strongly" or "very strongly".
That compares to 94% who trust to some extent specialist information and advice sites such as NHS Direct, and 88% who value the opinions of internet experts such as Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert. Most people trusted such sources "fairly strongly". So it's good news for the professionals - there may be wisdom in crowds, but you can't beat specialist knowledge.
People have nearly as much trust in friends' recommendations on social networking sites (66%) as they do the online opinions of newspaper and magazine reviewers (68%), according to the survey. But before any editors get carried away with the power of their writers' virtual pens, most trust such sources "just a little". That's hardly an overwhelming endorsement.
Interestingly, friends' recommendations on social networking sites were trusted far more by people aged 18-24 (75%) than those over 65 (54%). This is not all that surprising – younger age groups are likely to be more at home online than older people.
Offline as well as online, the survey shows, it's not what you say but who you know. When respondents were asked to name people who they generally trusted, 89% said friends and 80% family, but only 3% trusted strangers.
Strangers we meet on the internet, it seems, are trusted even less than those we meet in the real world: 30% of us say we trust strangers on the street more than we strangers online, while only 3% of us say it's the other way around. Perhaps it's got something to do with being able to see the whites of someone's eyes.
But that doesn't mean people don't seek the opinions of strangers online. Far from it: 65% said they visited customer review websites such as reviewcentre.com, Kelkoo, which.co.uk and tripadvisor.co.uk – and significant minorities visit such sites at least monthly (27%) or at least weekly (12%).
Some 43% of us think online customer reviews are influential to at least some extent, compared with 15% who do not. But that gap widens as respondents get younger: in the 25-34 age group, 59% find such reviews influential, while only 3% do not – showing that in younger demographics, customer reviews are a key part of online decision-making. This is slightly anomalous, given that people don't generally trust strangers. However, it could be that if enough strangers say the same thing, then we do trust them. Consensus is a powerful force.
Comments on the survey suggest that people have developed fairly sophisticated strategies for working out which opinions to trust or ignore online.
"If there are many and varied reviews," said one survey respondent, "then I begin to trust the reviews and then get an idea of the current trend. Reviews do help credibility. But I also note that sometimes people only leave feedback to complain, or if there is only good feedback I wonder if they are somehow affiliated with the product."
People spend considerable time researching purchases online. Some 60% of people who say they buy financial products, for example, spend more than a day online researching their decision.
Only 15% of those who bought financial products said they did not research their decision online at all, meaning that the vast majority of respondents go online as a matter of course when making important financial decisions such as opening a bank account.
The survey shows that most respondents (66%) trust banks less than they did five years ago. Asked what online banks could do to enhance trust with customers and the public, survey respondents named security, communication and transparency as the three biggest issues.
Half (50%) said they wanted online banks to "increase website security", while 28% wanted portable card readers for enhanced security. Nearly half (49%) wanted an easy-to-find phone number on the website and 31% wanted an "online messenger service" with a direct communication link to banking advisers online. More than a third (34%) wanted more transparent terms and conditions.
Meanwhile, the survey offered a bit of help to companies looking to build their brand in the digital world: focus on your own website.
Some 30% of respondents said they trusted a brand's official website "fairly strongly" or "very strongly" – compared to less than 10% for other forms of digital advertising. A further 46% said they trusted a brand's website "just a little".
* ICM Research interviewed a sample of 752 adults aged 18+ using an online method between 27 January and 1 February 2010. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/digital-trust/trust-in-the-digital-age-survey-analysis