Bot bytes: Prepping for the social media apocalypse

20 million, 95 million, and 1.3 billion. That’s not a morning, afternoon, and close of business daily earning summary for Jeff Besos. It IS, however, the number of fake accounts deleted from Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in 2021, respectively. These social media imposters, AKA “bots,” have been on the rise for several years and now their army of byting dead may be too strong to defeat.?

“It has reached a point where I cannot, in good faith, recommend to clients that they invest heavily in a Facebook strategy.”?

Those thoughts were shared with me in early 2021 and they came from a higher ed advancement peer who I have known for close to ten years. Like me, they had spent countless hours at their institution and on the road at conferences, pleading with other alumni relations colleagues to get serious about social media. “You need to go where your people are!” we demanded. But now, where there was once an unapologetic cry for more social media investment, there is now a moral dilemma and questions about the reliability of social communities.?

Companies and institutions have never been more aware of who they do business with. Every year there are brands who announce they’re no longer doing business with someone or some place, based on their social commentary or enforcement of certain laws. Higher education has become increasingly mindful of who lectures on campus and who the institution takes money from. When I was a fundraiser, I was required to put a potential donor through an extensive background check if their gift was over a certain dollar amount. This policy was in reaction to a growing number of national news stories that resulted in names coming off academic buildings. Similarly, student protests have led to more than 100 schools officially, or committing to, divesting in fossil fuels.?

If schools are sending seven/eight-figure gifts back to their alumni and removing investments that stand to have a sizable impact on their endowment, is it so far-fetched that they would tell campus communicators to stop using social networks that some believe play a significant role in the proliferation of false information and even hate speech? Just two months ago the trending topic on Twitter was “where are we all going now that Twitter is dead?”

The writing is on the wall:

• Meta just cut its workforce by 13% (Forbes)
• Met has lost 2/3rds of its value since peaking in September 2021 (CNBC)
• As of January 2023, over 500 Twitter advertisers have halted spending since Elon Musk purchased the company (Reuters)
• On January 17th, 2023, it was reported Twitter’s revenue was down 40% year over year (Reuters)

What’s the plan if that day comes and you have to say goodbye to the thousands/millions of followers you have on these various networks? What’s the status of your digital doomsday bunker?

So, about those millions of followers…?

There is debate as to exactly how many bots are staggering about the social media world. Some researchers who have attempted to quantify it have suggested the number could be around 15% of all users are bots. (CloudFlare) But unlike the walking dead of film and television, these zombies are spreading disinformation and taking bites out of your online security. Social media is the perfect breeding ground for these accounts to prey. We all want more followers, more likes, more comments. We don’t know how many of our followers are ACTUALLY relevant to our engagement goals, we’re just happy to see more of all of them. I know I was when I was a community manager.?

What fake people do to people on social media is obviously a concern, but so is what social media does to real people. Social media usage has been linked to anxiety, depression, and several other mental health ailments. Social has been blamed for a dramatic increase in teenage suicide/self-harm, particularly amongst females. We now have terms like “doomscrolling,” when you commit to scrolling through social sites looking for bad news. What I used to refer to as a “playground” has quickly (relatively) become a post-apocalyptic wasteland. What 24-hour cable news did to the ethicality of journalism, social media has done to our psyche and human relationships in general.?

It wasn’t always this way. The original Facebook, The Facebook, made sense. Connection to people you already know or with whom you share an affinity. The idea of creating and cultivating valuable networks is a good one. Afterall, the connection between alumni and the institution is made by personal relationships. The shared experiences alumni had as a student is the chief motivator for engagement. Memories of the marching band, an influential faculty member who helped you get your first internship, or a coach that taught you how to persevere through tough times. We’ve come to a point in the short history of social media where we have to admit that we’ve created a monster that may no longer deliver what it once offered, or we assumed that it offered.?

The genie is out of the bottle, as they say. We’re not killing social media. But as more of the dangers and pitfalls become apparent, it could start to turn the way of tobacco and alcohol- things that exist and are legal, but that we’ve sunk billions of dollars into educating our communities on how harmful they can be. Doctors and scientists are already ringing these alarm bells and it could be just a matter of time before colleges and universities pursue divestment.?

Is it time to flee this voyage aboard the S.S. Meta and head for the lifeboats? No…well, not yet. There are still billions of people using these platforms, many of whom are your target audience. But just like it was important to build digital/social media teams at your school, it’s equally important to recognize the ever- changing landscape of the online communities that broadcast your brand and benefit from the engagement you inspire. The creative energy that drives your digital content is supposed to connect your people back to the institution, not feed them to Zuckerberg’s advertisers.?

Even if you don’t believe the current social media giants are equivalent to a cigarette addiction, ask yourself tough questions about what they actually deliver. Are they truly connecting alumni back to the institution and their classmates or are they only offering you the opportunity to celebrate “brand awareness?” They are your alumni, they already know about you. There will always be times you need a megaphone (it’s also called email). But ultimately, you need DEPTH. You need to tap into the hearts and minds of your people with tailored content and experiences that resonate. That affinity is what gives a school a fighting chance against an increasingly noisy, needy, planet.?

Tap into those hyper-focused affinities! In the 2020 VAESE Alumni Relations Benchmarking Study, schools reported a drop in the usage of private, online communities for alumni. There could be several factors for this, but my guess is they find it's impossible to compete with social media. Alumni can easily create their own Facebook and LinkedIn groups. The bigger factor though, is alumni being unwilling to participate. An invite to a large, broad, alumni community software that requires a new login/password is not going to inspire participation. You need to match affinity AND usability if you want engagement. As the social media "end times" continue, this is where digital advancement pros must pivot. Like bringing back bell bottoms or high-waisted jeans, we don't need "Facebook 10.0", we need " The Facebook 1.0." The future is in the past.

It’s not in my nature to be an alarmist. I don’t have a doomsday bunker. I have a backyard garden that MAYBE yields a handful of tomatoes and a cucumber each year. I also like to think I’ve been one of the most vocal social media advocates in all of higher ed advancement. I’ve tirelessly defended it over the years. But it would be hypocritical to get mad at the industry for continuing to invest in analog strategies that have passed us by, while refusing to acknowledge tech strategies that are becoming counterproductive. To embrace the power and potential that digital media offers alumni relations and fundraising is to also accept that technology moves incredibly fast and if we don’t move with it, we get left behind.?

Now, who wants to buy some seeds?

Keith Hannon is Senior Account Manager at BrightCrowd where he works directly with several dozens schools to create private, affinity-focused, digital communities for alumni, students, and donors.