Why Brands Are the Next Fake News Victims

Marketers must shed the ‘click’ fetish and make social platforms more trusted havens for their consumers.

- David Berkowitz

The specter of fake news debatably made an impact on the past presidential election, forced Google to take new steps to mitigate the problem and spurred Facebook to make changes to its Trending section. Now brands are starting to feel the effects.

There’s little doubt that the influence of social media and a hyper focus on serving relevant content have created huge marketing opportunities for brands, but at what cost?

According to eMarketer, social media advertising is expected to hit almost $37 billion, more than doubling in a very short time. What’s more is that digital advertising spend is actually passing television ad spend in the U.S., representing 37 percent of total media ad spend. But, within the algorithmic battle between relevance and authenticity, can brands actually be hurt? The answer is yes, and the marketers that power those brands should prepare to be the next collateral damage. Here are five reasons why:

This is now the era of personalization non grata.

Marketers have benefited from algorithms, particularly on Facebook, that serve people highly relevant content and ads. But one of Facebook’s methods of fixing its Trending stories is serving the same stories to everyone regardless of users’ individual interests. What if you don’t care about what Natalie Portman is wearing to award ceremonies? Too bad—everyone gets the same menu. Digital media is reverting back to broadcast analog methods.

Unscrupulous advertisers practically invented fake news.