Are you sure your friend on Facebook is real?

  

Fake Facebook accounts: a never-ending battle against bots

Facebook's crackdown on "inauthentic" activity has resulted in the blocking the staggering figure of more than three billion fake accounts over a 6 months period. According to Facebook, in the last 3 months of 2018, they disable 1.2 billion fake accounts, and 2.9 billion in the first 3 months of 2019. The amount of automated and bots account on social networking sites and social medias are increasing.

Creating Facebook 'bots' is a violation of its terms of service. Thus Facebook said its artificial intelligence detects most of these efforts and disables the accounts as soon as possible, preventing them from posting anything on their platform. However, as managing 'bots' and fake accounts are extremely tedious, Facebook acknowledges that around 5% of the more than two billion active Facebook accounts are probably fake.

Most fake social media accounts are 'bots' created by automated programs to post certain kinds of information as an effort to manipulate and influence social conversations and thoughts. Fake accounts may be used to amplify the popularity or dislike of a person or movement, thus distorting users' views of true public sentiment. 'Bots' have played a disproportionate role in spreading misinformation on social media ahead of the 2016 US election, according to researchers. Distrust and social division in many parts of the world, and in some cases even violence has occured due to misinformation. 

Although Facebook has been taking serious measures and efforts in combating fake accounts, new bots are becoming more and more sophisticated and are tougher to detect. It is definitely a never-ending battle in detecting and removing these harmful and misleading bots and fake accounts. 

As Facebook and other social networking sites are doing their best in removing such bots and fake accounts, as human, I feel that we should also do our part in being more cautious and wary of the information and sources on the internet, and not just blindly read and trust them even when the account seems legitimate with many other followers or groups. Also, we should take more responsibility in the things we share and repost on our social media accounts, to prevent more spread of misleading information.

sources:

(2019, May 24). Fake Facebook accounts: a never-ending battle against bots. Retrieved from https://www.france24.com/en/20190524-fake-facebook-accounts-never-ending-battle-against-bots

NIKE 'BREAKING2'

As we all know, new media is taking over traditional media nowadays. New media are the means of mass communication using digital technologies such as internet. People of all ages are using social media such as Facebook and Instagram, mobile apps such as Faves, to find out about brands and their good deals, and easily start spending their money.  Besides, new media is easily accessible anywhere and anytime with great flexibility! I'm definitely guilty of spending too much time on them, such as Instagram and Facebook😥

An integrated marketing campaign (IMC) combines multiple channels such as content, email, display advertising and social media in order to promote a consistent message to a specific audience. By using several channels to convey the campaign messages, it increases the effectiveness of activities that are used to convert strangers into prospects and prospects into customers.With the advent of the era of digital, IMC has become increasingly important for organization. It exists in a variety of forms: normal advertising, sales promotion, direct response and public relations. In order to achieve the organization’s plans and goals, it should use the different media to achieve and identify the effectiveness of the promotional mix.These are the 7 steps of the IMC plan. 

An IMC approach provides benefits at every level of the organization including:

Operational level – reduces transaction costs, interdepartmental conflict, and duplication of effort
Campaign level – creates synergy with the communications mix and provides a higher return on campaign investment vs. the competition
Brand level – provides clarity and consistency to brand messages to create brand loyal customers
Customer level – positively impacts consumer awareness, customer attitudes, and customer experiences at every touch point
Market level – decreases the rate of defection, increases market position, sales, and sales growth
Financial level – increases the ability to achieve higher sales, sales growth, profitability, return on investment (ROI), and return on brand investment (ROBI) vs. the competition

LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT ONE OF THE MANY SUCCESSFUL IMC PLAN

NIKE 'BREAKING2'

As part of the strategy for their new Zoom Vaporfly Elite shoes in 2017, NIKE live streamed an attempt where they enlisted 3 runners Eliud Kipchoge, Zersenay Tadese, and Lelisa Desisa, in an attempt to complete a marathon below 2 hours. NIKE live streamed their marathon on Facebook and Twitter, and behind-the-scenes photos were posted on their instagram throughout. NIKE made it extremely easy for their audiences , where they created a hashtag #Breaking2 and even a custom Vaporfly Elite shoe emoji!! NIKE had a clear understanding on who their target was and picked the necessary channels suitable for their audiences in the most effective and efficient way. Furthermore, they ensured consistency in their look  NIKE has also created clear and consistent content that can easily be adapted and suit different social medias. Currently, there are 38,175 #Breaking2 hashtags on instagram!! 

While running is undoubtedly NIKE's core athletic audience, the campaign’s message around unlocking human potential tapped into a much broader audience. This campaign has pushed human ability to its limit and gave anyone who had internet access a front row seat to the race by live streaming has greatly inspired thousands.

NIKE has also ensured that their team is constantly tracking their campaign. A week after the attempt, NIKE garnered 584,000 mentions on social media and their hashtag was greatly used! of which, 87% of their comments were positive and a remarkable 2 million impressions!😱The shoe did well, too, achieving 5.2 more digital content engagement in the days following the attempt.

All in all, IMC is vital for a company or brand and It helps to create competitive advantage, boost profits and sales, help customers, while strengthening relationships and simultaneously saving time, money and stress. IMC helps to move customers through the various stages of their buying process - before, during and after. i will definitely ensure that i have a great IMC plan if i have a company!

Sources:

(2019, March 30). Why Use an Integrated Marketing Communications Approach? Retrieved from https://www.stephenzoeller.com/integrated-marketing-communications/

B2B, C. (2018, November 23). Integrated Marketing: 7 Successful Campaigns Through the Decades. Retrieved from https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/27-03-18-integrated-marketing-7-successful-campaigns-through-the-decades