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Product Description

How to tap the power of social software and networks to build your business

In Trust Agents, two social media veterans show you how to tap into the power of social networks to build your brand's influence, reputation, and, of course, profits. Today's online influencers are web natives who trade in trust, reputation, and relationships, using social media to accrue the influence that builds up or brings down businesses online.

The book shows how people use online social tools to build networks of influence and how you can use those networks to positively impact your business. Because trust is key to building online reputations,, those who traffic in it are "trust agents," the key people your business needs on its side.

  • Delivers actionable steps and case studies that show how social media can positively impact your business
  • Written by authors with over ten years of online media experience
  • Shows you how to build and wield influence online to benefit your brand
  • Combines high-level theory with practical step-by-step guidance

If you want your business to succeed, don't sit on the sidelines. Instead, use the Web to build trust with your consumers using Trust Agents.

From the Inside Flap

There's no question that the Internet has changed the way we do business—especially when it comes to marketing. Consumer environments are short on trust and populated by consumers who are cynical, savvy, and informed. Though it's easier than ever to reach your customers, it's less likely that they'll listen. Today, the most valuable online currency isn't the dollar, but trust itself.

At the same time, social networks and personal connections have far more influence on consumers than your marketing messages ever will—unless your business knows how to harness them. In Trust Agents, two social media veterans show you how to tap into the power of these networks to build your brand's influence, reputation, and profits.

Trust agents aren't necessarily marketers or salespeople; they're the digitally savvy people who use the Web to humanize businesses using transparency, honesty, and genuine relationships. As a result, they wield enough online influence to build up or bring down a business's reputation. This book will show you how to build profitable relationships with trust agents, or become one yourself.

In an online world defined by its transparency, becoming a trust agent is no easy task, but once you've established your reputation, you can build influence, share it, and reap the benefits of it for your business. When you've learned a trust agent's secrets, your words can carry more power and more weight than any PR firm or big corporate marketing department.

Learn to use the power of the Web and social networks for your business now. Trust Agents gives you all the tools and strategies you need to do it the right way—honestly, effectively, and profitably.

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Product Details

More About the Authors

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Chris Brogan
Chris Brogan
Julien Smith
Julien Smith

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Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
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Customer Reviews

64 Reviews
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4.7 out of 5 stars (64 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Analysis of important but disturbing trends, September 18, 2009
I've met Chris Brogan several times (who is impressive in person despite a penchant for thinking that foul language is cool), and I have a great admiration for Seth Godin, who enthusiastically praises and endorses this book. Trust Agents is well-written, and the authors certainly are leaders (i.e., trust agents) in social media. The problem is that the book reflects a disturbing philosophical shallowness within our society, as well as a mindless pursuit of celebrity. Hey, it's a good book, and worth reading, but there is nothing profound within the covers. Trust Agents glorifies the current trend toward acquiring great quantities of snippets of relationships, and assumes that the value of quantity over quality in our relationships is the appropriate focus. Yes, this acquisition probably is the most effective means for business success now, however it ignores a fundamental destruction of the true fabric of our humanity. I am surprised that Seth Godin praises this book so highly, since it has so little to do with relationship quality, excellence, and the pursuit of remarkability.
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars These guys go way beyond a business book. Superb!, August 17, 2009
Chris Brogan and Julien Smith say they set out to write a business book. "Perhaps you've been noticing that the older approach to marketing, PR, advertising, business communication, and other activities on the web aren't pulling as well as they used to...Trust Agents is the answer to the question: `What do I do now?'" Eventually, it suggests that its message can be more broadly applied. "You will get the job you want without a resume. This book will teach you how....By the way, this works with talking to attractive members of the opposite sex, too." And finally, at the end, "Though we've written the book to be a business book about using the web, the skills of a trust agent relate to many offline possibilities." Disclosing this so late may have been intentional. Or, seeing how the narrative develops, perhaps it was something the authors realized only after the whole thing had been written. Regardless, they're absolutely correct.

People will believe what tends to conform to their own social circles and the people that they trust. Generally, we trust our friends. And on the web, those friends can be everywhere. The ones who set out to gain our trust are called "Trust Agents." "Trust agents use today's web tools to spread their influence, faster, wider, and deeper than a typical company's PR or marketing department might be capable of achieving, and with more interest in people, too. We need to become them and harness them...A Trust Agent builds networks almost reflexively by being helpful, by promoting the good work that others do, by sharing even their best stuff without hesitation, and by finding ways to deliver even more value on top of all that without asking for anything in return."

Business needs to cultivate its Trust Agents, some of which will be under company control, most of which will not. Personally, so do we all. I recommend this book for everyone, both business and personal.


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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars From zero, to Agent Zero, to Trust Agent., September 5, 2009
By F. D. Soto (Buena Park, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Why Bother with Social Media

I've had a Facebook account for almost 2 years now. I thought that it was a great way to reunite with old friends and find out what they have been doing over the years, but I didn't care too much to know that they were going to the mall, watching a movie with friends, or changing their children's diapers; Nor, did I care to let my friends know what I was doing at every second of every day. The constant barrage of status updates and invitations were of no value to me, and quite honestly annoying. Time is what I value most in life, and I was not about to waste it.

I purchased Trust Agents on the recommendation of bloggers that I admire, and upon reading the first few pages I was met dose of reality: I have been wasting time for 2 years. Whether you like it or not, social media is the new revolution in communicating and getting things done. Relationships that you build through major social networking sites are not empty; Rather, they are an amazingly effective way of gaining knowledge, building your professional reputation, and creating an army of like-minded individuals that can help you to syngergistacally achieve your goals.
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Relationships Are the New Market

Before the social media, entrepreneurs and big businesses marketed themselves like battering rams at the gates of your potential patronage. They would hammer away via commercials and advertisements that told you of their greatness and how you needed their product like a fish needs water. Now, these same people - through the advent of social media - are no longer high and mighty intelligentsia looking for a buck, but are like-minded individuals in the same boat as the rest of us. Producer and consumer now have a new relationship of sorts - one of pseudo-friendship (and sometimes real friendship).

By taking social media seriously, within a matter of 2 weeks I have connected with several successful entrepreneurs and business professionals that I would have never communicated with before such as Guy Kawasaki (who folows me on Twitter. How sweet is that?), Jun Loayza, Jenny Blake from Google, and others. Under old media marketing, these folks would view me as a potential sale. But under the new social media there is a relationship of mutual purpose, respect, and a sense that we need each other to achieve our goals. Would I buy products from these people, almost without hesitation. However, it is not because they convinced me of how great their gadget was, but because I trust them.
Getting Things Done Via Social Media

The beauty of social media lies in its efficient means of simultaneous action by multiple individuals. Since reading Trust Agents, I have had a variety of instances in which I have been able to leverage the knowledge and actions of others to do things that would otherwise take hours or even days. Whether it is requesting book recommendation or asking friends to take action on a particular project of mine, the results have been astounding. For example, just this week I sent an email to my pastor asking if I could redesign his parish's shabby website. After I sent off the email, I let my friends know what I had done. I now have a multitude of very persuasive God-fearing ladies poised to mention to pastor the that the Church's website needs a facelift, and that they know just the guy that can do it.

Summary

Overall, the book is a great introduction to the power and the possibilities of social networking. I highly recommend it to anyone, who like me at one point, finds the whole concept confusing or not worth using. Like those who witnessed the birth of radio and television and refused to take advantage of their respective potential, those who ignore the new social media will find themselves one day chasing after a wagon that long left them behind.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Home Run...
What a terrific book. It lays out the ways in which interactions are not that different from in-person to on-line and how we need to ensure that we are doing the fundamentals of... Read more
Published 1 day ago by John J. Knight

5.0 out of 5 stars A seminal work in the field of marketing
Chris Brogan is, in my mind, one of the great thinkers in the world of online marketing. He has teamed up with a technical maestro, Julien Smith, to get readers thinking way... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Elizabeth H. Cottrell

5.0 out of 5 stars Trust Agents: We need more of them
Trust Agents is written by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, and is a book designed, by its subtitle about "Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. Read more
Published 15 days ago by Kathy Nicholls

5.0 out of 5 stars There's a Lot to Learn from Brogan and Smith
There's a lot to learn from "Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust" by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Read more
Published 19 days ago by Glynn Young

3.0 out of 5 stars Dale Carnagie 2.0
This book - with such a cool title - was somewhat mediocre IMHO...While the two authors certainly do a great job of inducing you to "like-them" and try to come across as "one of... Read more
Published 28 days ago by Joe Marks

4.0 out of 5 stars Stuff you can use immediately
I read Trust Agents over the course of a Saturday in preparation to deliver a talk to a sales group about using social media. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sam Davidson

4.0 out of 5 stars Earn the Trust and build Reputation for a successful business in 2010
"These two guys have it figured out too. This gets into a bit more theory with good stories of why you need to become a Trust Agent with Social Media. Read more
Published 1 month ago by T. Townsend

3.0 out of 5 stars Are you Trying to be a Trust Agent?
Yes? Then you have probably already read at least part of Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, the new book from Chris Brogan and... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Douglas E. Cornelius

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Introduction for Newbies; Nice Review for Veterans
I've been following Chris Brogan for quite some time now on the web. I've always enjoyed and found his work useful. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Brett H. Mckay

5.0 out of 5 stars Why I chose @ChrisBrogan over @guyKawasaki
Part of my current mission is to help people raised on rotary phones and Gilligan's Island re-runs learn the value of using social media to grow their business or find their... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sean P. Harry

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