User4562381 says you’re doing great!
There’s been a lot of talk about social media bots and what that is doing to information marketers collect surrounding social media. Do bots throw off data? The short answer: yes.
I think we are all familiar with what bots are but for those who are unfamiliar, bots are algorithms acting in social media networks. So essentially they are fake social media accounts that tend to comment on posts and like them throwing off numbers and not depicting the true success of a post. Many of us come into contact with bots every day and they vary in sophistication. Some bots are easy to spot but others act just like you and me and can confuse people. In fact, a study showed that 30% of users can be deceived by a bot.
But what does all this mean for marketers? Well, it means we will have to work harder when collecting our data. Bots can throw off the analytics for a post or a campaign that we are launching. Bots can also sway public opinion. It does not cost or take much effort to create a bot army. That army can make post trend or push their importance down by making other things trend. This is an issue that we as marketers must take into consideration.
This influence could impact how the public sees our product. For instance, if someone is unsatisfied with our product and was passionate enough, they could leave unflattering reviews on our page driving our engagement and brand image down with potential consumers. This issue can also have an impact on deals with influencers. Someone could have an Instagram following of 1.1 million but 1 million of those followers could be bots making them not have as much of an influence as we truly thought.
So what can we do to combat these bots? Unfortunately, at the moment there isn’t much we can do. If you get rid of all the bots your numbers will plummet and it will give you just as false data as it did with the bots there. The best thing you can do is to slowly weed them out. Once you notice a consistent user commenting or liking post at odd hours, you can learn how to adjust your numbers for them. Even at a larger scale, you can assume that anywhere from 5%–20% of the users are bots. Once you adjust for that, you’ll have a better understanding of how well your campaign is doing.
Until we find a fail-safe way to combat bots, don’t be afraid of them. Not all bots are bad. We just need to be cautious in our ever-connected world and in the meantime enjoy all the memes that come with it.
