The very best point that ever happened to social media marketing was the hacking of the 2016 US election of Donal Trump by the Russians. Why? Simply because it laid bare what a lot of in social media advertising has recognized for a prolonged, extended time: that social media platforms are a joke, their valuations are dependent on imaginary consumers, and their integrity lies somewhere in between Lucifer and that dude who eats people’s faces in the motion pictures.

For advertising and marketing consultants this sort of as myself, recommending present social platforms this sort of as Fb, Twitter, and Instagram has been more and more challenging, due to the fact -quite frankly- several of us don’t have faith in the metrics.

And why must we? Fb will not.

This is from Facebook’s 2017 SEC filing (emphasis mine):

The numbers for our important metrics, which contain our every day energetic customers (DAUs), month to month energetic users (MAUs), and typical profits for every consumer (ARPU), are calculated using inside organization information based mostly on the activity of person accounts. Whilst these figures are based on what we think to be realistic estimates of our person base for the applicable time period of measurement, there are inherent issues in measuring usage of our products across big online and mobile populations around the planet.
The biggest info management company in the entire world states it isn’t going to truly know if its quantities are accurate. Estimates? What marketing skilled would like approximated results right after the simple fact?

It will get even worse. Emphasis mine:

In the fourth quarter of 2017, we estimate that copy accounts may have represented roughly 10% of our around the world MAUs. We think the share of duplicate accounts is meaningfully higher in establishing markets these kinds of as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as in comparison to more created markets. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we estimate that bogus accounts may possibly have represented approximately three-four% of our worldwide MAUs.
Permit that sink in. Fb is admitting that “about” 10% of its month-to-month energetic users are phony. Interestingly, they will not point out what percentage of their every day lively consumers are bogus.

And that is the dilemma with social media. You never know what is true and what’s faux anymore.

Social media has not been true for a even though.

As marketers and advertisers, we pride ourselves on accuracy. In the olden occasions of marketing and advertising and promoting, we obsessed over ranking quantities of tv set shows, readership for print promotions, and supply success rates for direct mail.

In all circumstances, the platforms of the day have been heavily audited. You knew, with fair certainty, was the audiences had been for any distinct medium or channel since there was normally a point of review someplace for the quantities.

Classic media this sort of as radio, Tv set, and print experienced been close to prolonged enough that there ended up countless numbers of case scientific studies a single could study the achievement or failures of individual strategies. Simply because these mediums ended up portion of the community file, it was effortless to work backward to see what combine of media and price range worked and what did not.

As an business, we could swiftly establish benchmarks for accomplishment – not just based on our individual experiences- but in the collective experiences of quite obvious strategies laid bare for every person to dissect.

public relations marketing Properly, that all went out the window with social media.

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram’s figures have been always a joke.

In times of yore, company valuation was based on revenues, property, and human capital, and efficiency.

That all altered when someone came up with the principle of “every day lively customers.”

The race to obtain customers became the driving pressure for social media platforms in a way that we have never observed just before. Now, the obsession with user progress opened the doorway to marketing and marketing fraud on a scale that just was not attainable earlier.

Let’s get some thing obvious: any platform that allows for people to create 1000’s of bogus profiles so other folks can acquire likes, followers, retweets, or shares is harmful to advertisers and brand names alike.

Now, I recognize that the term “permits” is performing a lot of function in that sentence, so enable me grow a little bit what I imply.

I don’t consider I’ll get numerous arguments when I say that -regardless of what I feel of them- the most productive social media platforms on the planet are also some of the most advanced technological enterprises on the world. They have -arguably- some of the ideal AI about, as their entire organization models revolve all around being ready to crunch figures, specifics, and obscure items of knowledge hundreds of thousands of times a next.

They are also substantial corporations, with an military of attorneys and IP bulldogs waiting around to safeguard their brand against any hostile outdoors forces.

So make clear to me, how is it, that even right after all we have observed in the news individuals can nevertheless buy Fb likes, or Twitter followers, or Instagram enthusiasts?

The reason: it was often a scam. And we acquired conned together with every person else.

If your organization is valued on your number of end users and the activity of individuals customers on your system, what do you care if they are fake or not? If you did, you’d hire an armada of auditors to make sure the integrity of your userbase. I don’t believe they at any time did and will in no way do this.