Page 428 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Create Shared, Mutual Goals

By its very definition, social media marketing means interacting and working with
many different people both within your company and outside it. In fact, the more
you engage with people via social media, the more susceptible you are to being
conned or harmed by fakness. Establish objectives for yourself in social media that
are aligned with those of the people you’re trying to engage with. Have conversa-
tions to better understand what your customers are trying to accomplish. This
may seem obvious but when you have clear goals and you understand the goals of
your customers, it’s hard for a third party to mislead you in some way.

Use Reflection to Override Bias

One of the reasons why we tend to fall for fakeness online is because bad actors
across the Internet know how to take advantage of the inbuilt human biases we
may have. While bias may be bad, it’s natural for everyone to have some kind of
bias or other. Researchers have found that the ability to reflect is what predicts
whether a person can distinguish facts from alternative facts. When forming an
opinion, consciously choose to delay arriving at your judgment. Let all the availa-
ble information sink in and deliberately reflect on it. That way it is less likely that
you’ll fall for any fakeness.

Engage Openly with Dissent

Most of us choose to avoid conflict. We’d rather run away from it than engage with
conflict because it’s uncomfortable and even dangerous at times. However, when
it comes to social media, if you’re trying to understand the facts from fiction and
to separate the truth from the fakeness, one important way to do this is by actively
engaging with all parties involved in a particular disagreement. Try to get as much
of a 360-degree view of the issue as you can before you make any judgments. It
may even help you understand whether your own opinion is the fake one!

Challenge Opinion and Ask for Facts

This may seem obvious to do especially because this is exactly what we’re taught
in school. However, in a fast-moving social media world, where having a strong
opinion has significant social currency, sometimes facts are forgotten. Sometimes
this behavior also influences how social media marketers act online as well.

412 PART 6 The Part of Tens