Building Trusted Social Media Communities: A Research Roadmap for Promoting Credible Content

A growing body of literature and inspirational examples provides guidance for aspiring social media community leaders. We know that design principles for websites can make a substantial difference in getting first-time users to return and to trust commercial, academic, government, and other websites. By contrast, building credible social media communities requires large numbers of regular content contributors guided by inspirational and committed leaders. This chapter offers a defining framework for discussing the social, technical, and content foundations that encourage trusted contributors to contribute credible content to social media communities. Each component of the framework—the trusted contributors, credible content, reliable resources, and responsible organizations—can be undermined. Therefore, researchers and community leaders who attend to each component have a higher chance to produce positive outcomes. This framework provides a road map for research on and management of credible communities.