Earlier this year, I saw Daniel Levine speak. He used a phrase that has stuck with me since: The Tyranny of Transparency. The sharing of data and opinion is giving consumers insight that they’ve never had before. Right down to the street corner.

Consumers are more empowered than ever. This is a good thing. We can all embrace transparency by being better at what we do.

But that doesn’t mean transparency doesn’t have its irrational side. The latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey asked over 25,000 consumers in 50 countries if they trusted a number of forms of “advertising.” The most trusted source was “recommendations from people known” at 90%. No surprise there. But number two was a tie between “brand websites” and “consumer opinions posted online,” which both registered 70% of consumers reporting that they either completely or somewhat trusted these sources.

So 70% of Red Sox fans are at least somewhat trusting of the opinions of anonymous Yankee fans’ online? Would they say that face-to-face sitting in Section 312?

While this pendulum will likely swing back at some point, these numbers are actually all “up” from an identical study done in 2007.

Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere reports that 82% of bloggers post product or brand reviews and 89% post about brands that they love (or hate). As I mentioned here a few weeks ago, 62% of consumers go online to share opinions.

If 70% of consumers are trusting of these opinions, your brand has a new high-level priority on its hands. You need to manage your brand’s reputation online. Or, clearly, somebody else will.

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