Does Hong Kong trust social media?

When it comes to trust in media, public relations experts are split on whether Hong Kong holds more trust in social or traditional media channels.The panel, hosted by the Hong Kong PR Network as part of Social Media Week, was split over the question of whether traditional media, in print or online, was regarded as trust worthy.Earlier this year data from Edelman's Hong Kong Trust Barometer showed trust in media was higher than business and government. In fact its 2012 research found media only institution to see trust rise.Jon Walsh, PR and communications manager at Regus Asia Pacific, said in China, and to an extent Hong Kong, social media can be easily manipulated by government and consumers should be wary.Walsh remained sceptical that Hong Kong's trust in traditional media was slowing. Hong Kong's newspaper, he said remained robust and well read."You come out of the MTR station every morning to see the number of newspaper being consumed," he said."I can't see people turning them down. We're taking them day after day and unlike iPhones they don't crash, they don't run out of battery and you don't mind if you leave it on the bus."And traditional media, produced by professional journalists who verify their facts, was still a quality in high regard."Social media can be easily manipulated, especially in Hong Kong and that is something we need to be wary of.But perhaps trust is really just a generational divide and a shift in perception of social and traditional news sources.For Venus Mak, a PR executive at Brunswick and the youngest of last night's panel, social media is the first port of call for news."I'll get the news first in social media and if I want to verify it or if it's interesting I will go back to traditional media. We still rely on traditional media, but more and more it is about social media," she said.A suggestion from the audience speculated that PR professionals do in fact trust traditional media channels over social, but Steve Dahllof, regional CEO Ogilvy Public Relations, said this will chance in time."If that's the case it will migrate away from that. But we're going to see different kinds of social media, we can't put it all into one big vat. There are so many conversations taking place in so many different environments.And Dahllof said that hopefully the public relations should be looking to include a wider perspective of traditional and social."All of us are hopefully doing that all the time and getting our bits and pieces of news from either traditional first then going to social to verify and dig deeper than what is in traditional media."In planning a media relations and public relations communications programme we have to include all of that. We have to know that the point of entry is different for different consumers and audiences.Interestingly, the debate mirrored Edelman's data which showed traditional media trumped online and social media channels on trust, with traditional at 33%, while online and social lagged on 28% and 14% respectively.Walsh, said he will continue to consume it all."I like to look at digital, I like to look at Twitter and read the newspapers, I like a good broad mix of everything and I think somewhere between all of those you can find the truth."