The impact that fake news had on the last US residential election highlighted one of the most damaging phenomena for digital marketing and its true impact not only in terms of metrics, but also in its influence when creating perceptions and expectations. it is about. Figures published after the election show the seriousness of the problem. According to the Per Research Center, 44 percent of adults in the United States assured that they Peru Phone Numbers consulted information about political campaigns through social networks, to access content that will allow them to make a better decision when casting their vote, but the data is It is alarming when it is understood that 38 percent of the content shared on the platform on conservative issues – read Republicans – were “false or inaccurate” and 19 percent of liberals – or Democrats – had the same characteristic as reported by the BuzzFeed News research.
During the three months leading up to the elections, the amount of fake news on Facebook grew exponentially, registering higher audience participation rates than content generated by truthful outlets. In fact, the same source indicates that the 20 best-performing news stories from fake sites and hyper-partisan blogs generated 8 million 711 thousand user shares on Facebook, while in the same period the 20 best-performing stories from 19 recognized news sites reached 7 million 367 thousand 000 interactions through the same social network.
These numbers speak to the post-truth environment in which brands try to engage with their consumers. In a column written for Merca2.0 , Paco Santamaría, founder of InTrend, states that “many false news generate powerful audience engines in the digital life of many new readers and not only this type of information and content has a large audience and every second Phone Number List Millions of readers, too, post-truth is capable of influencing the decisions and lifestyle of many human beings, whether to buy products, deflate brands or vote against or in favor of candidates or referendums ”. We are talking about a phenomenon that, in the first instance, could be classified as adverse for brands in their quest to build a strong and relevant brand presence in an era in which control of this task seems not to be in their hands.