Credibility matters more than content

Are you spending too much time building content and not enough time building credibility?

With all the worry about misinformation and disinformation, organizations spend a lot of time crafting messages they hope will land. But they miss an important point. When it comes to communication, the messenger is more important than the message. People believe – and act on – messages from people and organizations they like and trust. Without that relational credibility, the message will fizzle. ?That’s why character matters more than content.

Want to boost your own credibility as a messenger? Here's what to keep in mind:

Prioritize relationships. Knowledge and expertise matter, but not as much as human connection. Expertise is more persuasive when it’s mixed with a dose of humanity. Between the COVID years of 2020 and 2022, trust in Canadian public health officials dipped dramatically – down from 59 percent to 37 percent. But trust in local health providers remained relatively stable. One explanation has to do with relationships. Health care providers were in personal contact with the public. They could allay fears and express empathy one-on-one. People could look them in the eye to assess their trustworthiness. But since health officials were online and distant, more like talking heads, they held less credibility over time. Finding more ways to communicate with people directly, letting them experience the ’real you’ in real time is one way to grow trust and credibility. Plus, sharing your own doubts and fears and admitting that you don’t have all the answers doesn’t undermine credibility. It builds it.

Be coherent. Coherence is more than clarity and intelligibility. It also relates to whether information holds together logically and contextually. Without intellectual rigour, credibility will decline. Several years ago, a columnist suggested the job requirement of the modern politician is to appear frequently in public and make preposterous claims that neither you nor anybody else believes. Our Canadian government provides a good example. It claims to be subsidizing traditional media outlets with hundreds of millions of dollars in order to "protect democracy." But media who accept government handouts are less credible since they are seen as an arm of the state, lacking objectivity and more likely to uncritically amplify government messages. By ignoring the erosion of public trust, this ham-handed attempt to protect our democracy is more likely destroying it. The vast majority of the public recognize this incoherence. Lack of coherence may be why less than a third of Canadians have a good or great level of confidence in either the Federal Parliament (32%) or Canadian media (31%). We would all be better off if governments stopped bailing out media and instead incentivized reader-funded news. If you want to be credible, be coherent.

Signal trustworthiness. If you want to be trusted, trust first. People who display trusting behaviour are perceived to be more trustworthy themselves. The perceived trustworthiness of the leader motivates reciprocal trusting behaviours in teams, promoting an upward spiral of trust that makes people more likely to believe and act on ideas and information. One way to communicate trustworthiness is to listen. Engaging with an audience to understand their needs and perspectives – and then acting on their feedback – builds credibility. Another way to communicate trustworthiness is with tone. While social media algorithms reward provocation, a denigrating and critical tone can undermine credibility. Instead, uplift and affirm. Using a positive tone -- and speaking to common humanity, common values, and common goals -- fosters affiliation and cooperation.?Show people you believe in them, and they will believe in you. One more way to signal trustworthiness is to measure and report on outcomes. You boost credibility by showing results. People will trust -- and follow -- those who know how to make real change happen.

Misinformation and disinformation are real problems. But the easy solution -– fact-checking, censoring and regulating online content –- is equally discrediting. Fact-checkers are perceived to be biased in their own right. Censorship undermines public trust in authorities and creates a false consensus which can further erode trust in public institutions. Solutions like adversarial fact-checking and constructive journalism offer greater hope for restoring public trust in information than censorship. A healthy democracy requires an educated public who can be trusted enough to think and debate and decide for themselves. The crisis of trust has less to do with content and more to do with the character of the people behind the keyboards. They don't have to be perfect, but they do have to be trustworthy.

How are you prioritizing credibility over content?