Rise of the Native & information warfare for the attention of the very last customer!

(Please note proper disclaimer at the very bottom of this text)

 WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?

It is about money! It is about economics behind experiences which overrule us all. And about relevance. Recent reports claim that People cannot differentiate false vs. truth anymore. Global most web based, social media dominated, content flow gets blended with news reporting, shaking companies, stocks, politics and governments. Internet radically changes rules of impactful influence marketing and accelerate fall of media empires. But who is the winner behind paradigm change? And more importantly, reflections about how Your Company can win in this new media world order?

Key words: Impact, Adtech, Martech, Ads, Relevance, Fake news, Native ads, Advertisement industry, traffic, Conversion rates, sales, marketing, digital, social and old media

2017 Rise of the Dark side. Fake news & Native. Media Disruption par excellence

Did you notice the hype that rose in the end of 2016, about so called fabricated, industrialized fake news phenomena? Did you also read about financial consequences of that and how it impacts companies? And how it might hurt or benefit your firm? There were few major large country elections out there, which were debated a lot in this context. However, here, the aim is to try to keep politics out of this text and focus on what matters: Money.

Wall Street Journal (21st November 2016) wrote that approx. 82% of middle-schoolers in the USA, could not differentiate real news stories and ads labeled “sponsored content”. They cited Stanford university study of 7804 students. Do you seriously think young students only are so inexperienced that they became victims of “wrong” conclusions by themselves? Consider how busy you, yourself, are while being surrounded by information overflow. In reality, look into the mirror, and ask frankly: “How critical vs. receptive are we adults under high pressure? “

Financial Times reporter seems to perceive our ability to be less so, when the topic does not cover politics. Yes, you are influenced, and under-consciously you are fine with that. Now why should we be concerned? It is not only about media landscape and news consumption. It is very much about how we as individuals build our view of the surrounding world, from those bits and pieces that get through our personal filters.

Facebook and Google claim that they are not media houses. But the flow you notice from there, influences your way of seeing the Big picture. Why does this matter? The Youth is coming to workforce and by the law of nature they shall take the power. Elder people simply & gradually retire along the way, don’t they? Wall Street Journal reminds us that by age 18, 88% of young adults regularly get news from Facebook and other social media. And that as based of 2015 study of 1,045 adults. Today,2017, trend is increasingly more!

Facebooks Zuckerberg viewpoint was that You will see more or less similar content, depending which pages you follow and who you friends are. The power of Facebook is that You decide yourself what you see, and who you decide to be in contact with, wrote Finnish major Daily Helsingin Sanomat. In that text they also debated word authentic vs. truth. Zuckerberg had said that 99% of Facebooks content is user generated authentic material.

Appears to be authentic? Eh, Truth? If Young people and social media savvy Millennials are confused, why would you not be? In Wall Street Journal article above, majority of Youth thought that there was no reason to mistrust text from bank executive, who wrote that Young people need financial planning help. Why would there be? Was it sponsored content? Was it a blog post? Was it so called “Native advertising” where content blurs with journalistic insights? It must have been credible to get through. Who wrote, where it was written and who cited it (if they link or pushed like button came from their private friends & peers?) counts.

There enters the influencer marketing into the picture. Former Bonnier group executive (largest media group in Sweden) told that according to some revealing research analysis they had done. Regardless if the “News” truthful or not, if it came from a "credible" source with your direct or indirect linkage to a person you trust, then our brains build sort of A“double verification” on it. Questionable truths become Real Truths in your mind.

Clone wars are here! When everything is available, who do you trust?

What does this have to do with money? Or how you make money, increase sales, marketing impact or cut costs? Firstly, you might have earlier thought that certain channel is the best place to advertise or reach your prospective customer directly. For awhile already Google and Facebook have broken those old monopolies down. Giving you more options, when you play your cards right.

This can be a very low cost solution to get you to wide or very specific audiences of your choice. Example of this is what Bartosz Podniesinski recently wrote, at Dagensanalys.se, that for “authentic” image purposes there is a site called Social Native. It gathers 14 million freelances, ready to work with some 250 dollars per company related picture. Their system will spread the image through social channels such as Instagram, for instance. Not impressed? This is not only for startups. Large corporates, size of Polaroid and Coca Cola have already embraced that way of working with them. The system tracks which pics get most spread, reach and engagement. Those ones are then further highlighted to empower campaigns to get their maximum impact. Why is this radical? Or relevant? Why should you care?

Organic growth, dream of every SEO expert right? Avoiding SPAM, dream of every individual, right? Getting “Authentic” relevance, user generated content and avoiding adblockers. Isn’t this the key to build that relationship with your target audience?

It doesn’t really help that News reports say that media landscape is going crazy. Already for most of the marketers work-life balance is an issue, with horrifyingly increasing demands to show ROI. You must be concerned about performance. The system is about to get faster and faster, but will you? Just when You thought You understand it all, then artificial intelligence piece #AI jumps in. Nightmare?

No, If you really want,you can find a way to get it working, and we both know, that you know You can. The systems are out there to improve efficiency. As with every new task in life, it is a learning curve. You may find yourself working longer hours, but Your Communication with chosen customer segments will improve, and sales will rise!

Wait, where are we going here? Did someone mention ethics? Yes, I will come to that later. Or if you have no patience, please scroll down immediately.

Second point of the new world order is that we cannot stop it. It relates to rapid evolution of ad tech, artificial intelligence (AI), bots, internet of things (IOT), virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR). Emerging technologies and development of the “post-post-modern” world. 

One of the very largest “quality” old news papers in Sweden, Svenska Dagbladet took up the issue with people who fabricate these false content and so called “news”. Even more, they freely mix it with real news, further confusing people. The sole aim behind it all is to make money, of course. Since they got solid ground revenue of 6000-12000 kronas (approx 600-1200 Euros) per month income rate, it became very lucrative with low effort. Just due to traffic, related advertisements and tracking inserted to their website, which was created for this cause. 

In Sweden, metro.se free newspaper has raised up “Viralgranskaren”, a service that tries to track down and inform about the truth behind increasing wave false news and accusations. That has hurt some of these “fake sites” income potential, but yet they generate revenue. That was a local Swedish example.

1st December Helsingin Sanomat made a special report about Macedonian teenagers (!) being involved with this. One can only admire that,no? They are having serious industrialized production of fake Facebook sites and linked landing pages to manipulate Western elections. And by doing so, they get pay-per-click (PPC) and other SEO traffic related cash flow. Oftentimes it is easy to fall into the trap that others are better or superior, due to training, resources, wealth, experience. But, Come on, in the end of the day hard work beats lazy talent, as they say at the local gym. Your brains are better, just use them! Clarifying matters, tools are out there, it is all there for them, it is all for you. Go get it!

Again, what does this have to do with any serious real company? Should you all start “news factories” in Macedonia? No, of course not. Examples above were top raise the point that locally and globally native and false news are generating more targeted and non-targeted traffic, with real impact to our normal lives. Sounds like If they can do it, you can do it. It does not mean that you must step to the dark side of illegal manipulation or even worse, lies. It just means that everyone can learn the mechanics of the trade.

Thirdly, the battle is far from over. It has just begun. Some countries are blamed to conduct (dis-)information warfare. Could some agencies or companies be doing the same? After the criticism, both Facebook & Google recently announced that they will try to act on and limit fake news more in detail than before. A writer in Financial times lifted that up as a moral dilemma. Filtering news leads to Orwellian world of “Newspeak”. It may also lead to old phenomena (remember French revolution?) of underground press. What is the logic? Free societies and free press should let all the flowers blossom? After all it is question about freedom of speech, is it not? FT.com text says that old media separated news from comments and opinions. But in the Twitter elections dominated world, some opinions and comments seem to transform into new “facts” of the world. Just see the Bonnier comment above. 

The Return of The Customer?

Show me the money! What does this all mean? New media spectacle has witnessed that shutting down opposite view, actually forces them into shadows. As a consequence they rise under cover, unnoticed, stronger than ever. Maybe the response is that you then must go “underground” to be true and relevant to your core users, core audience, hard core fans and most loyal customers. Is there anything wrong with that? Why would you want to speak to the whole world anyway? Stay focused as #flip-my-funnel movement has shown (just google it)!

After all that, skeptics still say: "I didn’t learn a thing here. Where is the catch? Please clarify, how do I benefit of this for real?" Listen, I try to make it crystal clear. You don’t want to spam and harass your customers, do you? You want to reach them in best most smooth way, but ad-blockers disrupt vendors within #adtech and media houses who earlier could have (and still claim to) helped you. They were supposed to have the ability to deliver you that personalized relevant touch to Your customers, weren’t they? Ok, computer. How to fix this? How do you make it work?

One of the criticisms of Spotify song listings, as an example, that you might end up to listen only certain kind of music in your own bubble. No new fresh learning, alternative insight or spices of life. Just safe choices for you and your like minded thinking peers. As you evaluate options out there to address this, what is left? To get real impact?

Feels as if this “bubble” or “tribe” creation, follows the logic of Look-alike #DMP modeling & ideal customer profile targeting. Not only pushing out engaging content with authentic messages from real people to other similar people, but also listening their moves. You want to have a tight grip of them. Focus on cutting through with relevance. Hmn, So DMP might help? What is it and where can I get it? Here is one example (link) You can make it work for you!

Anti-climax of this text is one Author (yes, a physical book writer) interview before the age of Social networks. When he was asked how he differentiates against other authors and manages to write so touching bestselling books, his response was: "The recipe is easy; Your most private feelings are the most widely shared and felt among your public”. 

Are You ready for the New Year? What is the call to action? The question is what is stopping You?

Get out there, make things happen! The World is Yours

With targeted regards!

Kari

P.s Oh, almost forgot ,that thing with Ethics? Define Ethics? About Truth, who defines the truth, a if history is written by the winners? Last year’s final meeting with Swedish marketers associations (www.mis.se) Content marketing group discussed this scandalous blurring line between proper journalism and native ads (sponsored content). Many participants referred to public laws, recommendations and guidelines, To industry “watch dog” and potential fines.

Before we jump too fast into any conclusions, let us think about it. Is this argumentation out of touch? You see Internet has, at least for a short while, democratized the world of information (and dis-information) distribution and creation to all of us with access to it.

No more dominance of the selected oligopoly; few mass Medias. Some of You can counter-argue that it is the duopoly of Google and Facebook that now dominates. But with new forums popping up (for example medium.com) You know it makes sense to embrace that change. It may continue to be challenging, but it is worth the fight!

At the age of internet, results show that anyone of us can became a “channel”. Can a sole browser control that? Facts and stats can be always twisted. Rule might apply in Sweden, but what country does the internet belong to? And finally in which environment, device, country or space does the media consumer take in the message? We become what we consume. “Nolite industria ignorare”!

P.p.s DISCLAIMER: This text is not, and will not be, a representation of any copyright, trademark, legal unit, person, firm, nor corporation. These are purely my own interpretations, reflections linking to available public sources, material and data (links in blue text above). Not direct or indirect endorsements for anyone, or anything, with any purpose. And most of all, this is not a recommendation for anyone to conduct anything illegal nor unethical in emerging media space. Fair Play!