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Two Truths and a Lie: trust, #ad and privacy

August 27, 2018 by Susan Getgood

Gregarious Narain is on vacation until the end of the month. We’ve got a couple guests lined up to join me in his absence, but this week was a little hectic so (truth) I did not have time to prep them properly, so this week it was just me, and a slightly shorter show.

Would you like to join us on the show? It’s pretty easy. We broadcast live on Fridays at noon eastern for about 20 minutes. I send you a link to connect to the broadcast platform in the morning along with any show notes we’ve prepared and you log in by 11:50 am for an AV check. Sometimes you’ll be joining Greg and me, other times it is just me.

What will we talk about? We are open to discussing any topic related to marketing writ rather large — digital and social media, advertising, influencer marketing, technology , but also Internet culture, consumer behavior, digital fraud, privacy, artificial intelligence. If YOU have a topic you’d like to bring to the table within that rather large brief, we’d love to build a conversation around it with you. Email me at sgetgood@getgood.com or message me on Facebook.

Now to this week’s topic — consumer attitudes and trust. Joining me are my two guests this week, Mr. Rogers and Captain Rogers, two icons of honest integrity.

I only have 2 topics this week, because both are both truth and lie. The first is that consumers don’t like or engage with sponsored content the same way that they do so-called organic content. I wanted to discuss this (again) this week after reading a great op ed in Ad Age, In Defense of the Lowly Hashtags #ad and #sponsored by Natalie Zfat. Written in response to the statement “nobody likes the hashtag #ad” at an industry panel (filled with marketers), she shared her pride in using #ad because it meant she was able to successfully monetize her content while creating valuable content for readers.

This strikes a chord with me because I think treating sponsored content as a second class citizen is lazy thinking. Fact: transparency and best practice would dictate that we disclose relationships that might impact an endorsement even if the FTC Guidelines did not. But also Fact: the FTC guidelines in the US and similar guidelines in other countries DO dictate that we disclose when the content we create is sponsored or influenced by payment, business relationship or free product. And finally FACT: people are not as black and white in their consumption of content as the conceit organic:good, sponsored:less good makes it seem. I have seen more than a little organic content that is AWFUL and quite a lot of amazing sponsored content.

It is not that we don’t like advertising. It’s that we don’t like bad advertising. Whether an ad or a sponsored Instagram image. It is incumbent upon us as content creators to create quality content, full stop. When it is sponsored, we disclose, because it is the right thing to do. Cap agrees!

On social media, there is no situation where you do not have to disclose that the content is sponsored. Not even for celebrities. The reason for this is that on social, we have none of the cues that inform us that the endorsement is an advertisement that we have in other media. When we see a celebrity on Ellen, we know she is pitching her new movie because that is inherent in the talk show format. When we see an athlete in logo gear, we assume that he or she is sponsored by the brand, because that is how sponsorship works at that level. When we see the same celebrity promote something on Twitter or Instagram, her post looks just like all her other posts, and just like all the other posts of all the other people using the platform. There are no cues to clue us in that this post is sponsored. When an advertisement doesn’t look like an advertisement, it must be disclosed. Just this week I ran across another article about celebrities failing to disclose, this time in the UK. This is one time where wishing won’t make it so. Wishing you didn’t have to disclose or inventing all sorts of reasons why it doesn’t apply to you won’t change the facts. Because it is all about trust. Right, Mr. Rogers?

So, while it is true that people do treat sponsored content differently, the difference, in my opinion, is largely in the minds of the creators. If we stop assuming that people view sponsored content differently, create amazing quality content and honor the trust of our readers by being honest about our business relationships, we can be proud of #ad.

This week’s other part truth part myth is also related to trust. In this case, our trust in the social platforms and websites. Axios Media Trends reported this week on Census Bureau Data that indicates Americans are less worried about online privacy, largely, the report surmised because we have become accustomed to trading it for access and services.

But we are still concerned about data privacy, security and integrity. Witness the Twitter storm caused by the fake billboards in London last week.

They struck a chord because there is an underlying cognitive dissonance between the value consumers perceive they get from Facebook and the value they are increasingly aware Facebook gets from them. GenZ is already replacing it, including on college campuses, with new “facebooks” coming online, also reported in Media Trends this week.

I have been following the digital privacy conversation for more than 20 years, sometimes closely, sometimes less so but I am convinced we are finally at the inflection point where it matters as much to consumers as it does to advocates and geeks, and it is an increasingly informed consumer who understands that there are 3 issues: privacy security and integrity. Being willing to give up a little personal data in exchange for access is a fair trade but we are no less concerned about the protection of that data.

So. The truth is Americans may be less worried about privacy in general, but it is because they have become more informed. And we are very likely still very worried about how our information is used, whether information is true and whether bad actors can breach the walls. We just are more willing to accept the risk.

Two Truths and a Lie: the “if it seems too good to be true” edition

August 19, 2018 by Susan Getgood

This week we opened the show with a brief rundown of the BlogHer Creators Summit, and then moved to the main event, our discussion of fraud, the responsibility of the social platforms to remove hate speech and meme accounts.

It was my 14th BlogHer (not counting food, business etc., the offshoot shows of which I missed a few) but just the “main” summer event. The format was a bit different than past, with most of the action on the main stage throughout the day. Some of the highlights were: Christy Turlington Burns and Kirsten Gillebrand discussing maternal health and the need to VOTE, P&G exec Shelly McNamara on her experiences as an out gay executive in corporate America, Mattel’s new career Barbies and meeting Voice of the Year honoree Dr. Alaa Murabit.

Fraud is still very much in the digital media news. Instagram fraud had the headlines a few weeks ago, and likely will again (!) but last week saw an expose in the New York Times about YouTube fraud and concerns from advertisers about GDPR fraud in the form of false consent strings.

Truth number 1 this week is that if it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t. True.

Impressions, views, page views are all important starting points to understand DELIVERY but we need to focus on the engaged audience, and our results in that context. Looking at engagements instead of reach starts to counteract the fraudsters. Not completely, but a start. Artificial Intelligence cuts both ways. It is easier for the bad guys to create fake accounts and fake comments, but it is also getting easier to spot them. When we remove the suspicious activity from the results, we can look at the legit activity and engagements, for a better answer.

At long last, this month the platforms began (finally) to take action against hate monger Alex Jones. Apple removed it from podcasts, Spotify, Facebook and YouTube took action, removing content and deactivating accounts but there is still a great deal of inconsistency within the platforms. And Twitter did nothing.

Truth #2 is that while we should be grateful for less Alex Jones on the Internet, we need to hold the platforms accountable to do more.

Any action by the social platforms to reduce the volume of hate speech and lies by bigots like Alex Jones is a GOOD thing, no matter how excessively long it took them to get there or how incomplete the response. There is LESS Alex Jones on the Internet today and for that we should be grateful. But…. it did take far too long and we must hold them accountable. They do not get a pass on resolving the inconsistencies among their different services.

In the SNCR fake news survey last fall, marketers said that platforms had a responsibility to resolve the problem of unsafe, untrue content. Part of the response must include clear consistent policies across all services and enforcement thereof.

The myth or lie —
Bots and Meme accounts can replace authentic influencer content, and since they are much easier to control, are a good alternative to customer activation. No, no, a thousand times no.

If you want to make a SOCIAL BOT or use chat BOTs in your strategy, that is a legitimate choice, and can be very successful, but be honest about it. If you are mimicking actual human SOCIAL engagement, the consumer deserves to know she or he is chatting with a bot. It won’t matter to many, especially Gen Z that is already so accustomed to engaging with digital avatars. But they should be informed.

As far as memes go, by all means use them. They are a crucial tool for earned social shares. But don’t think meme accounts can replace the voice of your customer as an influencer, not just a re-share. Use them alongside influencers but not instead.

Two Truths & a Lie about Brand Safety

August 16, 2018 by Susan Getgood

This summer is flying by. We skipped Two Truths last week, largely because I was at the BlogHer Creators Summit for 2 days and the atmosphere was bustling! Way too noisy to record a Facebook Live show with my minimal equipment. I’d probably forget to plug in the mic again 😉

When I started pulling together the posts for tomorrow’s episode, I realized I never posted the August 2d one. So, here it is, very late, but oddly the content is still timely.

The Truths
1. Both YT and FB blocked Alex Jones this week, but it seems like a drop in the bucket for the fake news problem and advertisers concerned about the context in which their ads might appear. Brand Safety is cited by advertisers as a top concern; consumers care about fake news / want to trust social platforms. but FB and Twitter both took a hit in their stock price because user growth dropped and resources were applied (however grudgingly) to these areas. This implies that taking an action / stance on privacy/data integrity has a cost beyond simply the expense of doing the “thing.”

2. Influencer platforms are rushing to release their “fraudometers” to show the integrity/quality of their networks. We discussed some of the models, but there is no standard for this. Everyone’s just applying their own opinion, whether human or machine derived, to define “fake” follower. In the end, it is also the wrong question. Understanding the fraudulent followers is an exercise to tick off a box. What we really want to understand is what percentage of an audience engages with the content, and then if we are a brand, what percentage of THAT engages with us.

Myth
Brand Safety is a myth. You cannot control all aspects on digital and social. You can get closer with advertising with ad tech tools and things like ads.text, private marketplaces, and guaranteed programmatic, but on social media? People are messy. You can’t control the comments or reshares and sometimes even your influencers go off script and do wacky stuff. Think PewdiePie and Logan Paul. On social, relationships are the keys to brand safety.

Resources mentioned in the show: Five Charts Explaining the State of Brand Safety

Is Facebook vulnerable?

April 21, 2018 by Susan Getgood

For the first time since its very early years, Facebook is vulnerable. The Cambridge Analytica mess highlighted an important but oft-overlooked fact about Facebook’s business model. Facebook’s business is data, monetized through advertising, not community or social networking. Social networking and community are merely the means by which it gathers and aggregates data and delivers advertising.

This was easy enough to forget in the feature wars and fight for online social dominance, but the public now is generally far more aware than ever that if you aren’t paying, you are the product. It’s also now clear that Facebook’s business models skirt very close to violating consumer privacy, if not outright violations. When working as designed, by the way, not through some breach or hack into the system.

While Facebook has announced changes in the face of governmental scrutiny in the US and Europe following the Cambridge Analytica revelations, the response still seems pretty superficial. Lipservice, not customer service.

As a result, while I wouldn’t sign a death certificate for the platform any time soon, consumer trust in Facebook has seriously eroded, and it isn’t doing such a terrific job at getting it back. At least so far. I’m not sure they can. So many of the problems are built into the very infrastructure. This leaves an opening for competitors.

Others agree.

When asked by NY Mag whether a new platform could get a seat at the table, Dan McComas, former SVP of product at Reddit, said:

I think it’s absolutely possible, but it takes a couple of major factors. I think a start-up needs to think about the monetization and how it can work with the users instead of against the users. I think they need to figure out the right funding mechanisms and incentive structures that also work toward the users. I think they need to have the right product team in place to focus on users.”

Angel investor and entrepreneur Jason Calcanis has put some skin in the game, announcing via his newsletter this weekend a competition called the LAUNCH Open Book Challenge to find Facebook’s replacement. Seven winners will receive $100K investments from the LAUNCH Incubator. In his newsletter, he stated he is looking to fund a social network that is good for society, that will:

– Respect and protect consumer’s privacy
– Respect and protect our democracy from bad actors
– Respect and protect the truth, by stopping the spread of misinformation
– Not try and manipulate people by making them addicted to the service
– Protect freedom of speech, while curbing abuse (not easy!)”

If you’d like to follow along, or think you might like to enter, details are at openbookchallenge.com. The competition is open to existing projects as well as new ideas/paradigms, but ideas alone are not enough. The main criteria for selecting the semifinalists and the eventual winners will be ability to execute.

Reddit, Snapchat and perennial second place finisher Twitter are also in the hunt, but they may have too much baggage (and their own privacy violations) to prevail.

Something will succeed Facebook. It’s not a matter of IF, only of WHEN. Right now, WHEN feels a whole lot closer than it has before.