Marketing 4 min read

3 Tips for Creative Marketing That Beats Fake News

Willrow Hood | Shutterstock.com

Willrow Hood | Shutterstock.com

In a world marked by an era of post-truth politics and fake news, media outlets struggle to repair their credibility and (re)gain consumer trust.

Edelman is global communications and public relations marketing firm that, since 2012, conducts annual studies about “trust” between populations and different institutions around the world.

Within its latest report, the 2017 Edelman Trust’s Barometer, the firm surveyed over 33,000 people in 28 countries between October and November 2016.

The report reveals the largest-ever decrease in global trust of government institutions, media, business, and NGOs. While trust in governments dropped to 41%, trust in media plummeted to an all-time low (43%) across 17 countries.

The decline in confidence of the population doesn’t spare leaders, as political leaders and CEO credibility also fell to its lowest level ever (29% and 37% respectively).

So what are you and your business to do in this new, untrustworthy environment?

Here are 3 Tips for Creative Marketing That Beats Fake News:

1. Make the Most of Positive AND Negative Feedback

According to a survey by BrightLocal, 84% of Internet users trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, 74% say they would trust a local business more if it has positive reviews, and 54% would visit a website after they read positive reviews of other users.

Online reviews and ratings of users and customers represent a valuable asset to increase your business’s notoriety, visitor traffic, and conversion rates.

You can use Google Review Partners to collect more up-to-date and positive reviews.

edelman lost trust in system

 

On the other hand, negative reviews are part of the equation and can paradoxically be turned into a marketing tool. Customer negative feedback is constructive and represents an opportunity to identify and work on the weak points of your business.

A polite, constructive response to a negative review can also make a good impression on discerning customers. People understand that there is always two sides to any story. A page with zero negative reviews could strike some customers as a fake.

Try honest marketing that beats fake news.

2. Work User Reviews Into Your SEO Strategy

Customers can and must be integrated into your general SEO strategy to boost the ranking of your website in SERP. Users should be able to leave their feedback spontaneously from several channels (the website, the shop’s web page, the product page, and customer review platforms)

For example, structured data markups allow search engines to generate “rich snippets” and show the most relevant information to users (review widgets). This will help visitors to quickly visualize, with stars and ratings given to your brand or product.

The Edgy Labs lexicon is rich in information that will help create an SEO blueprint for your business that integrates all the necessary elements toward better indexation of your web pages and search results.

3. Leverage User Generated Content

With the aid of social media, businesses are turning to consumers for original content and creative ideas that they share with potential visitors. User Generated Content (UGC) is a way to differentiate your business and improve your brand image with original and search-engine-friendly content.

Stop by Edgy Labs for tips on marketing that beats fake news.Click To Tweet

And because users trust each others’ original content (particularly reviews) more than professional recommendations, you should encourage your customers to speak freely and creatively about your brand, its products, and services.

It could be that the rise of fake news is an unwitting acceptance of the surreptitious nature of successful marketing in our current economic environment.

That is, we’ve been trying to trick customers for so long (color psychology, using $.99 USD instead of an extra dollar) that the creators of fake news and the practitioners of black hat SEO see their function as justified.

The only problem is that people are now increasingly aware of these marketing ploys and have lost trust in the institutions that implement them.

The best thing you can do to create marketing that beats fake news is to be honest, diligent, and accepting of your product’s or service’s true value to a given customer.

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Zayan Guedim

Trilingual poet, investigative journalist, and novelist. Zed loves tackling the big existential questions and all-things quantum.

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