The presence of hundreds, if not thousands, of fake social media accounts used to fuel politically motivated marketing campaigns, has recently been brought to light. These online personas drive agendas of certain individuals. Could the same be true within a marketing context? Marketers generating, pushing and pulling content to discredit others and benefit clients and their desired outcomes?
Online influencer marketing, for example, has become a major part of guiding consumer decision making and driving sales. Influencers, however, often purchase fake online followers in order to inflate their own perceived importance and make themselves more appealing to businesses seeking so-called ‘ambassadors’. Rendering their services and their ‘loyal’ following somewhat meaningless.
Yes, digital is a crucial part of marketing today and some random, unstructured attempts to gain product awareness may work. Importantly, though, lies the intangible and untraceable nature of online consumers. Understanding their authenticity may be difficult, if not impossible. Trusting, therefore, the results of your online campaigns can be risky. One could ask the question, “Who are we really ‘Reaching’?
Online metrics such as ‘Reach’, ‘Views’, ‘CTR’, ‘CRR’ et cetera, are utilised by a plethora of businesses to measure the success of their online campaigns, but in the end, there’s only one metric that doesn’t lie- ‘Return on Investment’.