Fake news is becoming more and more popular in our everyday life. You can hear people talking about it in many industries such as entrepreneurship, politics, establishment. But why are business owners mentioning fake news so much? The reason is simple – it could have a powerful impact on the development of their business.
What Is Fake News?
First, I would like to explain what exactly fake news is. There are 4 different types I would like to highlight.
- Disinformation (false information intended to mislead the audience)
- Propaganda or spin (one-sided information)
- Subjective news (one-sided arguments and conclusions)
- Infotainment (stories about celebrities based on opinions rather than facts)
Business owners are dealing with the first and third type of fake news the most. They can make them some serious business problems, and that’s why I want to talk about them.
False News Impact
Many businesses in the world have gotten attention thanks to fake news. Publishing fake news is mostly interesting for the audience, and that’s why many entrepreneurs use this way of promoting. Yet, it can also damage your business a lot.
Sharing Wrong Pieces of Information
Fake news can easily trick you. Many business owners believe in every piece of information they see on social media. More precisely, they do not research properly the source of their information.
Eventually your audience will realize that your pieces of information are wrong. You will become an unreliable source of information, and that is the best possible way to lose followers. The reputation you have been building for years can be ruined in only one day. Is this way of promoting worth the risk? That’s something you will have to decide.
How to Avoid Fake News?
As I said, fake news can easily trick you. Start with finding a few relevant sources of information. Having 5 or 6 of them would be perfect. If only one or neither of them is sharing the certain news you saw, take your time to check the piece of information you got.
Besides that, always research who your source is. Check the previous news they published and see if they were relevant or not. More importantly, check if the writer was sharing his opinion or is the news full of facts and data.
Facebook vs. Fake News
False news is not only bad for entrepreneurs. It is harmful for the entire community. Luckily for all of us, Facebook agrees with this statement. That’s why they are making some changes in order to protect entrepreneurs from this “disease”.
The last news we got is that Facebook is changing news feed again to stop fake news. They announced the new metric called click-gap.
Click-gap is the upgraded version of Facebook’s news feed algorithm that will use to determine where to rank a given post. If the algorithm discovers that a lot of links to a specific website are appearing on Facebook, but few websites on the broader web are linking to that site, Facebook will use that signal. The reach of those websites is going to be limited.
For businesses this means protection. Besides that, it is one more reason why you should not try this advertising method. Your task should be to make a valuable and powerful content that will boost organic traffic to your website. Only in that way you are going to become a reliable source of information. They will become your most loyal fans when they realize you are not “fake”.
So, is false news worth the risk? I suppose not, but I would like to hear your opinion!
