Just back from attending HiveFire’s user conference for content curators. Content curation has taken off! My learning from the conference is that the reason why has much to do with TRUST!

What is content curation, you ask? Simply put: content curation is the process of sifting through the boatload of information “out there”—blog posts, tweets & news feeds—and passing on the golden nuggets others in your network find valuable.

After sitting in this curation conference and being bombarded with the “T” word, I was struck by the incredible potential content curation has for salespeople to virtually build trusting relationships as the foundation for generating sales and referrals.

I found this trust theme particularly interesting having just read a blog by Steven Woods, CTO at Eloqua, on “Trust, Reputation, and Inside-Sales”.

“There is a significant shift underway in how we establish and build trust… [having] numerous profound implications for society in general, but more specifically, it is causing significant shifts in the way that people buy… the evolution of trust is opening up new opportunities for inside sales teams.”

“As the emphasis on face-to-face interaction as a way to build trust decreases in lieu of other ways of building trust, the need to be “in the field” also decreases. It is unlikely that field sales as a discipline will disappear any time soon, the economic bar at which a face-to-face interaction is “necessary” is in the middle of a dramatic shift.”

Marketers are all over the power of content curation for building trusted reputations of brands and products. According to Hivefire’s B2Marketing trends 2011 survey, 82% of B2B marketers now use content marketing as a strategy in their marketing programs. Forrester Research cites the use of online content curation to build thought leadership and authority relationships as one of four critical emerging technologies for B2B sales and marketing.

Posting a Youtube video occasionally on Facebook to share with friends or sharing links to articles of interest with your network are forms of content curation. Chances are you already do this to some extent. Now think about someone you know professionally you consider as a go-to person or expert. My guess is that they regularly share information on a particular topic you find valuable. By doing so consistently, they’ve established themselves as a trusted source.

Bottom line: every communication you send—and online interaction you have—is an opportunity to build trust capital you can leverage strategically to boost sales. Continuously earn deposits in your prospects’ trust banks by routinely sharing valuable, golden nuggets of information. Here are a few content curation tips to help you get started:

1. Add real value by selecting content of specific interest to an individual prospect or customer. Make sure it’s information your reader truly cares about; do not be guided by what you find interesting or stimuating.
2. Less is more—don’t overload your prospect with too much information.  Remember, too much information and they will shut down (read more in my previous blog).
3. Don’t be afraid to share information about your competition; it is a critical way to show that you are trustworthy.  Nobody wants to do business with an “information censor”.

Stay tuned for future posts with additional practical tips to help you create a simple, disciplined routine for continuously discovering and sharing valuable information with prospects and clients.

How are you building trust virtually? Is content curation one of the trust-building tools you use?

Peggy Kriss, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in Newton, Massachusetts and a consultant to VisibleGains. Stay tuned for more psychology informed blogs by Dr. Kriss.

Conversion is Key!

MediaPost’s Jack Loechner reported yesterday that 64% of respondents in the GetResponse “2010 Email Marketing Trends Study” didn’t use video emails last year, but plan to use in 2010. Wow, that’s quite a swing. Many will attribute this to general popularity of video, including the continue explosion of YouTube, but the real reason for such a dramatic shift is that video converts. More than 65% of marketers in the GetResponse study believe that video email marketing can have a moderate to significant impact on conversion. That’s impressive.

So how will marketers use video? What stuck out to us was practical application of video for product demos, customer testimonials and product offers. As we’ve been building what we call “video-enabled marketing apps” alongside our customers, we’ve repeatedly seen specific applications like this – what we call “apps,” emerging as important conversion drivers that are being added on to traditional marketing campaigns. Along these lines, we’re also seeing demand for apps that promote events (such as webinars), new content (such as white papers) and new products.

Interest in using video to improve conversion through traditional digital marketing tactics – as well as exploring new frontiers – is why we’re working to create pre-configured apps that step customers through the process of shooting video, adding interactivity (which the GetResponse study doesn’t mention, but we see as critical) and getting the app ready for email distribution and/or uploading to a landing page.

The GetResponse study comes as no surprise to us, but we love seeing metrics that support the value of video for business.