This week we’ve asked five guest bloggers to contribute to the “Our views” section of Reputation Online. Today’s post comes from Robin Hamman, director of digital, Edelman.

Trust is an important aspect of building or maintaining reputation. The 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer found that audiences believe industry analysts, articles in business magazines, and conversations with employees are more credible sources of information than news coverage on the radio or television, news articles, corporate communications, comments on social media sites, or advertising. Academic and industry experts, in particular, fared well – with 64% and 52% of respondents agreeing that they would find information from these types of people credible.

Many businesses have corporate intellectual property at their heart, whether it is a deep understanding of the core markets for their products and services, research that underpins their work, a powerful corporate ethos that makes the brand what it is, or knowledge that can be deployed on behalf of their clients.

Over the past few years, many businesses have experimented in using social media, usually for marketing and corporate communications. Some have set up corporate blogs in an effort to participate on the same level as consumers and stakeholders. Others have pushed advertising campaigns out virally. A few forward-thinking businesses have set out to involve their customers directly in business processes, such as coming up with great new product and service ideas.

What most haven’t done very successfully, however, is position themselves as trustworthy by encouraging those who have been hired for their knowledge, experience or creativity – the people who create and build upon organisational intellectual property – to step out from behind the firewall to have conversations directly with audiences, consumers and stakeholders.

Not everyone is a natural communicator, nor can every member of staff be expected to feel comfortable participating socially online. It’s important, therefore, to ensure, as Emily Bell, formerly comment editor at The Guardian famously said a few years ago, that only those with an “inner blogger” should be encouraged to do so.

Once candidates have been identified, they’ll need training, as well as guidelines that empower and support them as they engage with audiences online. They must understand that, when they participate on third party social networking services and content sharing sites, they should do so with transparency of purpose, and follow the social norms and rules of the environments where they choose to engage.

They’ll also need tools – ranging from basic free tools that help monitor conversations online to more professional tools that can do this more widely, providing detailed insights along the way.

Positioning, too, is important. In the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, we found that regular employees received a much lower credibility rating (32%) than experts (64%). If an employee is genuinely an expert in what they do – some aren’t, and positioning them as such would lack transparency and likely backfire – then they can and should be positioned as such.

Trust is only one aspect of building and managing reputation, but it’s an important one. Thankfully, it’s also one where positioning – something that is, to some extent, under the control of communication professionals – matters. Find your position of trust and maintain it to secure your reputation online.

Tags: edelman, guest bloggers, reputation management, robin hamman, trust