Edelman has released the results of its eight annual Trust Barometer. The announcement was made using a traditional news release and a social media release.

The social media release is not in and of itself a part of the conversation, but rather is fodder for the conversation packaged in a way that is readily usable by those so engaged. Because the release provides for comments, it has some element of a kick-start to it, particularly when bloggers are able to cite what kind of feedback the release itself generated. The availability of the release, however, does not preclude any of Edelman’s staffers from blogging about it as a direct contribution to the conversation, which in fact they should. Too bad Richard Edelman, who provides one of the quotes, didn’t blog about it so the quote could be lifted directly from his blog.

But Richard did acknowledge the importance of the conversation. The conversation itself and the fodder that sometimes drives it just don’t strike me as mutually exclusive. Here’s Richard’s quote from the release:

The growing trust in ???people like me??? and average employees means that companies must design their communications as much on the horizontal or the peer-to-peer axis as on the vertical or top-down axis. CEOs should continue to talk with elites, such as investors and regulators, but also provide critical information to employees and enthusiastic consumers who spur the peer-to-peer discussion. Third parties with credentials, like academics and physicians, are also critical.

When I talk about the content packaged in a manner that is usable in the social media space, I’m referring to:

• Facts and news in bullet format so it can be quickly scanned and the elements of interest dropped into a blog post, should the blogger desire
• Quotes from appropriate Edelman staff split out (and I’m willing to bet these are real, not fabricated—at least, my fingers are crossed)
• Technorati tags already set up so anybody can instantly start additional research
• A downloadable PowerPoint presentation on the study

There could have been more to enhance this release, like a purpose-built del.icio.us page, the ability to Digg the release, and links to previous years’ results. But the idea here is to provide cleanly parsed information in a format that bloggers and online journalists can use with far greater ease than they can use a traditional release. The idea that some staffer blogging should find a way to cram all this information into a blog post (or worse, a video, where it can’t be copied and pasted) doesn’t make sense to me; it sounds like pounding a square peg into a round hole. Let the staff blog about the dimensions of the study they find interesting and the release serve as the repository of facts about it.

In other words (and yeah, I know, I’m hammering on this point), this is a resource for the social media (or maybe I should just say “media,” right, Steve?) space. I just don’t get why anybody would have an issue with a company providing a usable resource like this.

The research itself is interesting, pointing to the fact that (per the release) “Business is more trusted than either government or media in every region of the globe.” Then there’s this nugget:

In many countries, ???conversations with friends and peers??? is as trusted a source of information about a company as ???articles in newspapers??? or ???television news coverage.??? For example, within the nine European Union countries surveyed, 44% trust conversations with friends and peers while 33% trust articles in newspapers.