The greatest factor that ever took place to social media advertising and marketing was the hacking of the 2016 US election of Donal Trump by the Russians. Why? Since it laid bare what a lot of in social media marketing has recognized for a extended, lengthy time: that social media platforms are a joke, their valuations are dependent on imaginary consumers, and their integrity lies somewhere amongst Lucifer and that dude who eats people’s faces in the films.

For marketing and advertising consultants this kind of as myself, recommending present social platforms this kind of as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has been ever more tough, simply because -really frankly- a lot of of us do not have confidence in the metrics.

And why should we? Fb does not.

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

The figures for our crucial metrics, which incorporate our daily energetic users (DAUs), monthly energetic end users (MAUs), and average income for every person (ARPU), are calculated using interior business data based on the activity of user accounts. While these figures are primarily based on what we believe to be realistic estimates of our user base for the relevant time period of measurement, there are inherent difficulties in measuring usage of our items across large online and mobile populations all around the world.
The premier information management business in the world states it doesn’t genuinely know if its figures are accurate. Estimates? What marketing and advertising professional needs approximated outcomes following the fact?

It will get even worse. Emphasis mine:

In the fourth quarter of 2017, we estimate that duplicate accounts may possibly have represented around ten% of our globally MAUs. We believe the share of copy accounts is meaningfully greater in establishing markets this sort of as India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as in comparison to much more developed marketplaces. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we estimate that untrue accounts could have represented about three-4% of our globally MAUs.
Enable that sink in. Fb is admitting that “roughly” 10% of its regular monthly energetic consumers are fake. Apparently, they will not mention what proportion of their daily active end users are bogus.

And that’s the dilemma with social media. You will not know what’s real and what’s phony anymore.

Social media has not been genuine for a whilst.

As marketers and advertisers, we satisfaction ourselves on accuracy. In the olden moments of advertising and advertising and marketing, we obsessed over rating quantities of television demonstrates, readership for print promotions, and shipping and delivery achievement charges for immediate mail.

In all circumstances, the platforms of the day were intensely audited. You knew, with honest certainty, was the audiences had been for any particular medium or channel because there was usually a point of evaluation someplace for the figures.

smm providers of as radio, Tv, and print experienced been about lengthy enough that there were countless numbers of circumstance reports 1 could review the accomplishment or failures of specific strategies. Simply because these mediums have been part of the community record, it was effortless to work backward to see what blend of media and spending budget worked and what didn’t.

As an industry, we could swiftly build benchmarks for achievement – not just dependent on our personalized encounters- but in the collective activities of really clear techniques laid bare for everyone to dissect.

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

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram’s numbers were usually a joke.

In days of yore, firm valuation was primarily based on revenues, assets, and human funds, and performance.

That all changed when someone came up with the notion of “day-to-day energetic users.”

The race to achieve end users turned the driving power for social media platforms in a way that we have by no means witnessed prior to. Now, the obsession with user progress opened the door to promoting and marketing fraud on a scale that just was not achievable previously.

Let’s get something very clear: any platform that makes it possible for for men and women to develop hundreds of phony profiles so other people can purchase likes, followers, retweets, or shares is poisonous to advertisers and manufacturers alike.

Now, I recognize that the term “enables” is doing a whole lot of function in that sentence, so let me expand a bit what I indicate.

I will not feel I am going to get numerous arguments when I say that -no matter of what I think of them- the most productive social media platforms on the world are also some of the most innovative technological enterprises on the earth. They have -arguably- some of the best AI close to, as their complete company versions revolve all around getting able to crunch numbers, details, and obscure pieces of knowledge millions of times a 2nd.

They are also substantial corporations, with an military of lawyers and IP bulldogs waiting around to defend their model against any hostile outside forces.

So make clear to me, how is it, that even after all we have noticed in the news folks can even now acquire Fb likes, or Twitter followers, or Instagram enthusiasts?

The purpose: it was usually a rip-off. And we got conned together with absolutely everyone else.

If your business is valued on your quantity of end users and the action of these users on your platform, what do you treatment if they are bogus or not? If you did, you would retain the services of an armada of auditors to ensure the integrity of your userbase. I do not imagine they ever did and will never ever do this.