Misinformation and fake news dominates today’s news agenda as malicious parties aim to influence, twist or dictate popular behaviour. The battleground for consumer attention of course is increasingly social media, with Google, Facebook and others being the sole source of information for a lot of the population. The release of the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” has for many rekindled an understanding of how these platforms, whilst originally amazing environments to connect friends and family, have now been almost exclusively optimized for advertising not answers. The sole aim is to maximise ad revenue from us, not help us to broaden our horizons or get a balanced view. Which makes it even more alarming that they have become the source of truth. How many people 20 years ago would’ve said they get all their insights & perspectives from TV advertising?! Ridiculous right?
Of course, when we think misinformation, we think biased political content and subterfuge. But the world of fake content has even come to the cozy world of baking. Check out Ann Reardon’s Youtube channel, “How To Cook That”. She is a baker & cook who started to question the many recipes being put up online. You know the sort, put rainbow Skittles in with microwave popcorn and you get multi-coloured popcorn (spoiler alert : you don’t. you get a burnt mess). But in busting these recipes Ann uncovered an underbelly of content farms churning out literally hundreds of baking videos (yes, crazy I know!). For example “Mr Cakes”, which is operated by a Vietnamese business called YumUp Co. Get this, YumUp operates over 100 cooking channels, attracting a mind blowing 220 million views. Importantly, to recipes that are fake, Why? Not because they have a passion for baking. But because its great click bait that can be sold on to advertisers. And if you’re a legitimate baked goods company, that’s a serious issue. That’s a lot of attention being siphoned away (in fact its equivalent to two thirds of the US population).
And if it can happen to baked goods, believe you me its coming to B2B. As the industry has reluctantly become more digital in its marketing (i’ve been through every phase : do I really need a website? do i really need social media? do webinars really work?) our brands have had to increasingly exist and compete in this misinformation world. Its happening already in several areas - insurance brokers, business computer hardware, office cleaning services - where spurious vloggers, bloggers and commentators define the customers’ perception of their product and/or services, for objective content. Search for “fastest Dell business laptop”. You get a whole bunch of publications and geek sites for something with is totally objective and should come straight from Dell. But as it stands, Dell has to buy its way to the top to own ITS OWN ANSWERS.
But there is hope. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the failings of search engines, and more and more are turning to the brand’s website directly. So, the time is now to act. Invest in digital, get really good at search, and more importantly make sure your own website is kick-ass at answering any customer question. Content farms & click bait are heading your way, so get ahead of the future. For who knows, one day you may be outbaked by Mr Cakes.