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IN THIS CHAPTER
» What it takes to identify fakeness

» Advice on how to navigate fakeness

» Using your customers to help you

Chapter 31

Ten Tips to Navigate

Fakeness

akeness is nothing new by any means. Misinformation, false information, and
propaganda have been around from the beginning of time. We have entered
Fa new post-trust era though, where navigating the fakeness has gotten
extremely difficult thanks to all the technology changes we have been witnessing.
On November 16, 2016, Oxford English Dictionary named “post-truth” its interna-
tional word of the year, reflecting what it referred to as a “highly charged” politi-
cal twelve months. In choosing the word, the editors defined post-truth as a state
in which “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than
appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

Without a doubt, the post-truth and resultant post-trust era that we’re experi-
encing is something unique to our time. It describes a new condition we are living
in — one with deeply troubling ramifications for all of us as citizens and many
of us as social media marketers. With increasing automation, empowered by arti-
ficial intelligence and social media infiltrating every part of our lives, our vulner-
ability to fakeness has only increased. Dealing with fakeness online and in social
media in particular has become a fact of life. As a result, here are ten important
tips for navigating that fakeness. We hope they help as you embark on your jour-
ney as a social media marketer.

CHAPTER 31 Ten Tips to Navigate Fakeness 411