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The impact of fake news on content marketing

John Murray

Many people now use Facebook as their prime source of news. It transpires that sometimes Facebook, perhaps unknowingly, circulates false news and as a result has come under much scrutiny. Content marketers need to learn from this situation.

During the United States election, pro-Trump news reports were published, and some of the content was not factual. This led many Trump supporters on Facebook to accept the reports as genuine. Some of these reports may have been the result of writers not fact checking their articles, but there is a suspicion that many news items were deliberate propaganda.

Some have named this the “post truth” era where an opinion is more important than the truth. Facebook and Google have stated that they will endeavour to combat the issue by ensuring that they do not republish fake news.

The lesson for content marketers is to make sure that content is always based on facts, particularly when it comes to publishing news. There are several ways to make sure an article is accurate:

If an article contains technical information, then you can check to see if it is correct by asking an expert, who will either verify the facts or help you to distinguish fact from fiction.

If there is something about the subject that you are unfamiliar with, acknowledge this and don’t be tempted to make stuff up.

If quoting online sources or research, include links to your sources. Make sure that any referenced sources are trusted websites whose writers have credibility.

Content marketing is much more than providing information, it is a way of developing trust between a business and its clients. Trust is reinforced if readers feel that the content they are reading is accurate and truthful. Pressroom writers make sure that any content they produce is not fake news.

John is every inch the wordsmith and loves a game of Scrabble above all else. With experience writing for newspapers, John’s time at university was spent studying Creative Writing – something which comes across in his love of the pun.

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