Social Media Marketing Is a Joke It is Time We Confess It

best reseller panel that ever transpired to social media advertising 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 and marketing has acknowledged for a long, extended time: that social media platforms are a joke, their valuations are primarily based on imaginary users, and their integrity lies somewhere among Lucifer and that man who eats people's faces in the movies.

For marketing consultants this sort of as myself, recommending current social platforms this kind of as Fb, Twitter, and Instagram has been ever more challenging, because -very frankly- a lot of of us will not trust the metrics.

And why should we? Facebook doesn't.

This is from Facebook's 2017 SEC submitting (emphasis mine):

The figures for our essential metrics, which consist of our every day energetic customers (DAUs), month to month active customers (MAUs), and common profits for every person (ARPU), are calculated utilizing interior firm data dependent on the action of person accounts. While these figures are based on what we believe to be sensible estimates of our person foundation for the applicable time period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring usage of our products across huge on the web and cellular populations around the world.

The largest knowledge administration organization in the planet states it does not actually know if its quantities are accurate. Estimates? What marketing professional wants believed benefits after the fact?

It will get even worse. Emphasis mine:

In the fourth quarter of 2017, we estimate that duplicate accounts might have represented roughly ten% of our throughout the world MAUs. We feel the share of copy accounts is meaningfully greater in creating markets this kind of as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as compared to a lot more designed markets. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we estimate that bogus accounts might have represented about three-four% of our around the world MAUs.

Allow that sink in. Facebook is admitting that "approximately" 10% of its month to month energetic customers are phony. Interestingly, they will not point out what share of their daily active consumers are fake.

And which is the difficulty with social media. You don't know what is actually real and what is actually fake any longer.

Social media has not been true for a while.

As entrepreneurs and advertisers, we pride ourselves on precision. In the olden occasions of marketing and advertising and marketing, we obsessed above score figures of television displays, readership for print promotions, and delivery achievement charges for immediate mail.

In all instances, the platforms of the day were greatly audited. You understood, with reasonable certainty, was the audiences were for any specific medium or channel since there was typically a level of evaluation somewhere for the quantities.

Conventional media such as radio, Tv set, and print experienced been all around extended sufficient that there ended up 1000's of situation studies a single could study the success or failures of specific campaigns. Simply because these mediums had been portion of the public file, it was straightforward to function backward to see what combine of media and funds labored and what did not.

As an business, we could quickly set up benchmarks for success - not just based mostly on our individual ordeals- but in the collective activities of very very clear methods laid bare for absolutely everyone to dissect.

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

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram's figures ended up usually a joke.

In days of yore, business valuation was based on revenues, belongings, and human funds, and functionality.

That all altered when a person arrived up with the concept of "everyday energetic users."

The race to acquire customers grew to become the driving drive for social media platforms in a way that we have by no means seen ahead of. Now, the obsession with user growth opened the door to marketing and marketing fraud on a scale that just was not attainable beforehand.

Let's get anything very clear: any system that allows for men and women to produce hundreds of phony profiles so others can purchase likes, followers, retweets, or shares is harmful to advertisers and makes alike.

Now, I recognize that the word "makes it possible for" is performing a whole lot of work in that sentence, so allow me expand a little bit what I suggest.

I never think I'll get many arguments when I say that -regardless of what I feel of them- the most productive social media platforms on the earth are also some of the most innovative technological enterprises on the world. They have -arguably- some of the greatest AI close to, as their entire enterprise types revolve about becoming in a position to crunch figures, information, and obscure pieces of information millions of instances a second.

They are also substantial firms, with an army of lawyers and IP bulldogs ready to shield their model from any hostile outdoors forces.

So explain to me, how is it, that even after all we have witnessed in the news people can nonetheless get Fb likes, or Twitter followers, or Instagram enthusiasts?

The reason: it was constantly a scam. And we obtained conned along with everybody else.

If your business is valued on your number of consumers and the activity of individuals customers on your system, what do you care if they are phony or not? If you did, you'd hire an armada of auditors to make certain the integrity of your userbase. I do not imagine they at any time did and will in no way do this.