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Holy kaw, just when you had this whole word-of-mouth, social-networking, transparent, follower, friend, mayor thing all figured out, Advertising Age and Edelman drops this bomb: the number of people who consider their friends and peers credible sources dropped from 45% to 25% since 2008.

Richard Edelman opines, “The events of the last eighteen months have scarred people. People have to see messages in different places and from different people. That means experts as well as peers or company employees. It’s a more-skeptical time. So if companies are looking at peer-to-peer marketing as another arrow in the quiver, that’s good, but they need to understand it’s not a single-source solution. It’s a piece of the solution.”

The credibility of TV dropped twenty-three points and radio news and newspapers dropped twenty points too.

My explanation is that “friend” has a very different meaning these days. It used to mean someone you’ve known for years in a face-to-face manner. Now many friends represent the click of your mouse. I have about five “real” friends, and I trust them more than ever.

Full story at Advertising Age.

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