Half of USA Today Accounts on Facebook Are Fake

That stunning statistic comes straight from USA Today, which is owned by Gannett Co., the nation’s largest single newspaper publisher.  Gannett has asked the FBI to investigate who’s creating the fake accounts.

The disclosures come as Facebook is purging fake account.  Last month, as it deleted 200 million fake accounts from USA Today and other publishers, Facebook wiped out one-third of USA Today’s accounts.

The same thing is occurring in Europe:  Facebook said it deleted thousands of fake UK accounts and launched a media campaign to educate the public about fake news.

This report has two implications, it seems to us.  One affects all marketers, including beer, wine and spirits producers:  How can you know how many of your Facebook “fans” are really fans?  That leads to the question of whether you are dumping money into social media that should be in other venues.

The other is peculiar to the media business.  Sixty years ago newsboys (there were few if any female newspaper carriers) would knock on people’s doors and ask them to subscribe to the paper.  Then publishers switched to adult carriers who would toss your paper onto your lawn as they drove by.  Those adult carriers never asked a nonsubscriber to subscribe.  That was, theoretically, done by phone banks.

As the internet became big business, publishers thought they could save money by using Facebook to serve as the modern-day equivalent of the old newspaper box.  You would see a story on Facebook – perhaps touted there by a reader, not by you – and that would lead people to visit your website to read the story and, ideally, subscribe.  It turns out it’s all a scam.

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