The 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 numerous in social media marketing has known for a extended, extended time: that social media platforms are a joke, their valuations are based on imaginary users, and their integrity lies somewhere in between Lucifer and that guy who eats people’s faces in the videos.

For marketing and advertising consultants such as myself, recommending present social platforms such as Fb, Twitter, and Instagram has been increasingly tough, because -very frankly- several of us never believe in the metrics.

And why must we? Fb doesn’t.

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

The quantities for our key metrics, which contain our every day lively consumers (DAUs), regular monthly active consumers (MAUs), and common income for each person (ARPU), are calculated utilizing inside company knowledge based on the action of person accounts. Even though these quantities are primarily based on what we imagine to be affordable estimates of our consumer foundation for the relevant interval of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring use of our products throughout large online and cell populations all around the planet.

The largest info management company in the planet claims it will not genuinely know if its figures are accurate. Estimates? What marketing and advertising professional wants approximated benefits right after the fact?

It receives worse. Emphasis mine:

In the fourth quarter of 2017, we estimate that duplicate accounts may possibly have represented roughly ten% of our worldwide MAUs. We think the percentage of replicate accounts is meaningfully higher in creating marketplaces these kinds of as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as in comparison to far more created markets. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we estimate that bogus accounts may have represented about 3-four% of our throughout the world MAUs.

Permit that sink in. Fb is admitting that “approximately” ten% of its monthly lively customers are faux. Interestingly, they will not point out what percentage of their everyday active users are faux.

And that’s the dilemma with social media. You do not know what is real and what’s faux anymore.

Social media hasn’t been true for a whilst.

As marketers and advertisers, we delight ourselves on precision. In the olden times of marketing and advertising and advertising and marketing, we obsessed above score numbers of tv displays, readership for print promotions, and shipping good results costs for direct mail.

In all instances, the platforms of the day were heavily audited. You knew, with reasonable certainty, was the audiences had been for any specific medium or channel because there was typically a stage of assessment someplace for the figures.

Conventional media these kinds of as radio, Television, and print had been around lengthy adequate that there were 1000’s of case studies a single could examine the good results or failures of personal strategies. Simply because these mediums ended up component of the general public record, it was effortless to perform backward to see what blend of media and funds worked and what didn’t.

As an business, we could swiftly set up benchmarks for achievement – not just based mostly on our personal experiences- but in the collective encounters of quite obvious strategies laid bare for absolutely everyone to dissect.

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

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram’s quantities had been always a joke.

In times of yore, company valuation was based mostly on revenues, property, and human funds, and overall performance.

That all modified when someone came up with the concept of “every day lively users.”

The race to obtain users grew to become the driving pressure for social media platforms in a way that we have by no means observed prior to. Now, the obsession with consumer expansion opened the door to advertising and marketing and advertising fraud on a scale that just was not achievable formerly.

Let us get something distinct: any platform that makes it possible for for people to generate 1000’s of faux profiles so other folks can get likes, followers, retweets, or shares is toxic to advertisers and brands alike.

Now, I understand that the term “allows” is performing a whole lot of operate in that sentence, so allow me increase a little bit what I indicate.

I don’t believe I am going to get many arguments when I say that -no matter of what I believe of them- the most effective social media platforms on the world are also some of the most sophisticated technological enterprises on the planet. They have -arguably- some of the best AI all around, as their whole organization designs revolve all around currently being capable to crunch figures, information, and obscure pieces of knowledge millions of instances a second.

They are also substantial corporations, with an army of attorneys and IP bulldogs waiting to protect their brand in opposition to any hostile outdoors forces.

So clarify to me, how is it, that even soon after all we have witnessed in the information men and women can still get Facebook likes, or Twitter followers, or Instagram enthusiasts?

The cause: it was often a fraud. And we received conned together with every person else.

If your business is valued on your amount of users and the action of these customers on your platform, what do you treatment if they are faux or not? If social media marketing firm did, you would hire an armada of auditors to ensure the integrity of your userbase. I do not think they ever did and will never ever do this.