Book Review - Learning from Trust Agents @chrisbrogan and @julien

The book, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust, has been on my reading list since I first heard about it as I follow @chrisbrogan and @julien on Twitter and also try to read their blogs (chrisbrogan.com and julien’s in over your head blog) when I can. It took me a while to get around to reading this book though as I expected it to be another book about social media. Granted it would be a book by a couple of social media gurus but I was looking for something different.

Now that I’ve read the book, I wish I would have read it sooner as I’ve been writing a lot about how to make your marketing more credible and this book has a lot of material that fits into that concept. I guess the title should have tipped me off and the intro clearly says this is a business book and not a technology book but I was still surprised, in a very good way.

In fact, I’m not even sure I’d call this a business book as the lessons you learn from it could apply to everything you do online and even offline for that matter. The strength of this book lies in the fact that both Chris and Julien realize that technology changes fast so to write about how to use Twitter in your business, for example, would be quickly dated.

Instead they focus on what people can do to become Trust Agents, which is far more useful I find. Covering the tools is better done on blogs or better yet in communities, such as Third Tribe Marketing, which Chris is a founding member of and I am also a member (that needs to be more active).

The book looks at 6 key behaviors that define what a trust agent is: Make Your Own Game; One of Us; Archimedes Effect; Agent Zero; Human Artist; and Build an Army. While trust agents use all of them, it’s important to look at each and work from your own strengths according to Chris and Julien.

This definitely got me to think about what I need to do to become a Trust Agent. For example, my strengths exist in the behaviors of Make Your Own Game and Human Artist but I need to work on the Agent Zero and Build an Army behaviors.

Defining these characteristics and looking at each in detail helped me and I believe it will help others as they apply it to themselves and their business. I also know I’ll return to the book as a reference as I try things online, another key point raised in the book, and look for more understanding.

Now I don’t want you to think the book is all theoretical or full of these abstract concepts and nothing else. Chris and Julien explain everything using examples from their own experiences and other online case studies. They also touch on some of the tools used today but don’t go into them in detail as they will change.

As I’ve said a lot in this blog over the last few months, your marketing needs to be credible for your company to be successful. I’ve looked at several tactics and strategies you can deploy to make this a reality, including becoming a thought leader. I would now add becoming a trust agent to this list and strongly recommend that start-ups and their leaders read this book to learn how.

Thanks Chris and Julien for the lessons and insights. I’m working on them, slowly but surely, and I hope others do too.

[Image courtesy of the Trust Agent website]

Comments

[Satyam]

Brendan, have been following your blog for sometime very interesting always.

[Brendan Ziolo]

Thanks for reading Satyam. Definitely let me know if there are any topics you would like me to cover.