Enough Is Enough With The Online BS

Enough is enough with all of the online BS!

I don’t know about you but my patience has run out, and I’m shaking my head in disgust.

What am I referring to? Unfortunately, the same or rather a similar topic that I’ve mentioned a few times before. Social media, the marketing industry, and the online world. It’s not only getting worse it’s getting insanely bad, and I’ve had enough!

Oh, I hate being a broken record.

So Mark Zuckerman and Facebook announced a few weeks ago that they were making a big change to the newsfeed and would be focusing on having posts from friends show first and foremost. This announcement, of course, sent the marketing industry into a frenzy as they all panicked at the thought of their business page’s posts fading into obscurity.

But that problem isn’t my primary concern or the topic here. What concerns me is that the pages I follow post better, more factual, interesting, and NOT FAKE BS like many/most of my “friends” do! What! Yes, you heard me right.

I follow credible, mainstream FB pages that publish informative posts. But the vast majority of my FB “friends'” post skewed, far out, opinionated, fake, and or plain BS stuff on FB. And I bet most of your friends do this too, especially if they use their accounts for business as mine do.

They’re either posting cr*p from some far out site that twists nonsense news stories or BS about their business successes, accomplishments, and life.

I’m so sick of it. Is anyone buying this stuff? Don’t people realize that no one believes any of it and that at best they’re being humoured, perhaps out of sympathy?

But here’s the real kicker. Facebook is supposedly wholly committed to banishing all fake news, yet I saw in the trending column recently another BS article from one of the most radical websites in existence! So much for that plan, Facebook. They must be buying into their own BS.

So, sadly it seems that I’ll be using my plan B social media more, it’s much less frustrating.

Here are a few additional notes and article excerpts that are related to this topic. I hope you find them interesting too.

People Don’t Trust Marketers (Or Anyone Online Anymore!):

People don’t trust the marketing industry and marketers. Some sites and some marketers themselves have addressed this topic in different articles. I agree, but it’s no wonder why this situation is occurring.

“What do a car salesman and your ex-have in common? Chances are, they’re probably not your go-to list of people to trust.

And do you know what other group of people don’t fill us with trust? Marketers.

For years, marketers have created highly-crafted campaigns that have one aim: to sell. As consumers, we know that this is their main aim, which is why we tend to be skeptical of everything they say

Of course, they’re going to say their product is the best in the market.

This lack of trust has been built up over the years, ever since advertisers and marketing departments began dutifully coming up with fictional stories about their products and creating characters to give their products the edge.

But now? Now consumers are wising up to that.”  read more…

~Social Media 2 Day. Attention Marketers: People Don’t Trust You

Everyone, Especially Marketers have become Too Spammy:

Marketers, campaigns, and strategies are using spammy techniques left, right, and centre, and it’s getting worse.

This attitude is demonstrated to a degree in the way marketers have stopped connecting, engaging, and sharing on social media. For example, on Twitter, these days many marketer’s timelines only feature posts about their activities, and they’re tweeting as if they are talking “at” their followers instead of interacting with them.

I have also noticed in a few disturbing cases on blogs where bloggers are now turning their posts into sales promotions instead of informative blog posts. Not nice. This practice won’t encourage reader trust.

“Today, marketing is best known for doing the stuff that people hate.”  read more…

~ Mark Schaefer, LinkedIn. Why Marketing Is Lost

Biased, Opinionated, And Fake News Has Become Viral:

I don’t trust much from the marketing industry anymore either, whether it be professionally related or general stuff. I’ve reached the point where I check all articles, double check resources, and triple check all links that are shared these days. It’s ridiculous, frustrating, and tiring. I don’t want to be fed slanted or false information, and I certainly don’t want to “like” or share misleading things to my audience, followers, and readers.

Funnily enough, those that are busy talking about integrity, transparency, and honesty, seem to be in many cases the same people who are also talking about and spreading questionable and conspiracy theory type of media. The old saying, Thou doth protest too much, does seem to be true.

Everyone Online Has A Responsibility:

Everyone who works online in any capacity has an obligation and responsibility to be thoroughly professional and conduct themselves above board at all times, no excuses. This trust has no room for personal opinions on politics, religion, or other sensitive topics.

Additionally, this obligation means not sharing material or media from places or sites which promote biased or one-sided articles. Even if you privately support the material, keep it private!

And your friends on places like Facebook is NOT a private place notably if your friends include people that you know only via the web.

Nowhere online is private!

Why?

We Live In A Worldwide, Digital World, That Needs To Be Open, Honest And Tolerant Of Everyone: (All The Time!)

Because this is the digital age. We live online, and everything about us is available to anyone and everyone. Plus, if you work online in any capacity YOU ARE A PUBLIC PERSON and or a PUBLIC PROFESSIONAL with a (potentially) worldwide audience. And worldwide audiences don’t and won’t understand or have the same slant or opinion as you. Nor should they be expected to.

So, please, let’s everyone open our eyes a bit more, stop living in little boxes, welcome and be welcoming to the entire digital world, worldwide, and keep private opinions and stuff, private. Yes? Yes.

Thanks, on behalf of everyone.