Who Do You Trust? Brand Advocates, Subscription Boxes & Social Media

How many websites do you check out before purchasing a product? Are you reviewing the websites for price comparisons or are you looking to genuinely find the product that best suits your needs? Today’s consumers have seemingly unlimited choices when it comes to researching and purchasing products. It’s not like the old days where you could only buy what you could get at the store. You were limited to only specific brands and didn’t know what other consumers thought of the product. You now have access to millions of product reviews and promotional information to help you make an educated decision on which product is best for your needs.

But who do you trust online? Do you trust the information that is on a brand’s website and social media pages? Do you trust bloggers that are given an incentive by the company? Do you trust your friend who purchased the product last week? Chances are, you’re going to trust your friend. If they don’t have any skin in the game, their review seems more honest, right? Today it seems like the further a person is removed from the corporate brand entity, the more you as a consumer trust their opinion. You want to trust a person who is considered to advocate for the brand without any benefit to themselves or being compensated by the brand. Personally, I trust brand advocates. I feel that many of you feel the same.

I love subscription boxes (you know, those themed boxes that you sign up for to receive in the mail evert month). But there are so many of them to choose from and some of them are pretty expensive. I don’t personally know which ones are the best for me and I don’t want to waste money on ones that I might not like. So what do I do? Turn to brand advocates. For subscription boxes, the brand advocate that I trust the most is the Ramblings of a Suburban Mom blogger, Jennifer V. While she has a disclosure on her site stating “This blog does accept complimentary product in exchange for honest blog reviews. No monetary compensation is received for blog reviews, however, posts may contain affiliate links and / or referral links”, I really trust her opinion.

From my personal experience following her on the blog and social media, she is very honest and her reviews are accurate. They often reflect my feelings when I receive a new subscription box. I not only follow her blog, but I follow her posts on Instagram and Facebook as well. She often talks about her family and posts pictures of them. That helps me see her as more of a person to trust then a corporation pushing marketing jargon on me (I am a marketer, so I know why they are doing that, but still, that information is very biased).

So what does she gain by posting subscription box reviews other than free subscription boxes? Blog traffic! On her blog, you’ll notice that she sells a heath/diet system called Advocare. Perhaps she talks advantage of her blog and social media traffic to help sell this product? As a follower, I’m ok with seeing an Advocare tab on her blog. I really trust what she has to say. More subscription box companies should send her free boxes to review. It’s the best review site of it’s kind on the web in my opinion.

A Question for my Fellow Marketers: How well do you trust marketing material or a corporate website/social media account? Do you feel that your opinion is skewed because you work in marketing?