Where do we go from here? Social media, marketing, disinformation—and you.

This essay originally appeared in my newsletter and I republished it here for everyone to read. If you would like more writing like this, subscribe to my newsletter!

It's got to be said, the internet is a messy place.

And thanks to Meta's (parent of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp) announcement that they're turning their properties into unmoderated free for alls of disinformation and hate speech, anyone doing marketing or running a business using the internet (so, all of us, I guess), has got to be wondering what the future holds and if the internet is going to get even messier than ever.

Like it or hate it, Meta's properties are everywhere—in the US, something like 60-70 percent of adults use one or more of their platforms and 75 percent of adults in the US are on Facebook regularly.

I'm fortunate that I grew my business off of Meta, but now I do use three of their properties as, albeit small, pieces of my marketing ecosystem. I know others who've built entire businesses solely on Facebook or Instagram.

When we couple these Meta developments with the rapid rise of fake but almost real-looking AI generated photos and videos, this is a whole lot to wrap your head around in how the internet has so rapidly changed and become incredibly sloppy.

The scary thing for anyone doing business online is that they may quickly find their true, meaningful, and distinctive content marketing commingling with fake imagery, dishonesty, and slurs.

Savvy consumers will likely begin (and I believe many are already at this point, if my personal circles are any indicator) to distrust not just what they see on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, but what they see online in general.

Those of us who haven't relied on social media cannot sit back and smugly think, "Oh, well I haven't put all my eggs in the Facebook basket, so I'm fine."

What happens on any major platform on the internet has a ripple effect on the entire internet as a whole.

If consumers are faced with a swamp of dishonesty and worse when they login to their favorite social media app, they also may not trust results in Google or that so-called expert on a podcast.

So what's an honest, ethical business owner to do when online marketing seems impossible to navigate?

First of all, don't panic. Chaotic thinking only makes things worse.

I know that's easier said than done, but it's the one thing I can say is always true. Ignore folks trying to agitate you and push you into impulsive decisions—that won't serve you now or ever.

I recommend doing some work to evaluate how clear you are to the public about who you are and what you are all about. I typically tell folks to start with the about page on their websites, as that's a natural "home base" for your identity online. (Download my guide to this here, no opt-in needed.) This means that people interested in you or your business can easily find you, and get to know you.

Also, this is a good time to take a hard look at your marketing ecosystem (check out a visual of that here) and evaluate your various components with an eye to what you have control over.

Obviously, none of us have complete control over anything (though I sure would love that), but some elements are more controllable than others. I love my email newsletter for that reason. Sure, I can't control my open rate than much, but I can control who's on my list, what I write about, and get good information from it. Same with search-based discovery components such as blogging and YouTube—we can't control the algorithm, but we can control what we publish and using publicly available information, we can game the system for relatively evergreen visibility.

I also think this is an interesting time for adventurous folks to get creative with their marketing and business strategies.

Maybe you try a niche social media platform like Mastodon, or you try wearing a T-shirt around that says "I'm a Web Designer" on it (only do this if you're actually a web designer, unless you want to have really weird conversations). There are opportunities everywhere and we don't need to do everything the same way we always have.

The worst thing any of these adventurous ideas can do is give you data. That's literally the worst case scenario—and that's not too bad, right?

Get Serious About Social Proof & Documentable Results

Additionally, social proof is always critical—I believe that people are getting more and more skeptical of various claims of success, whether we're talking income or client results. This is why I work with a professional creative writer on my client stories series.

I realize this specific technique isn't doable for everyone, especially if you deal with confidential issues, but perhaps you can leverage your Google Business Profile for reviews or start documenting clear, verifiably client results.

Finally, now more than ever, we need to listen to our people.

What are they telling us? What are their worries? How can we help them?

Demonstrating empathy and understanding can go a long way in a world that feels chaotic and overwhelming. I like to say that this is actually a marketing superpower. Exercise that mental muscle a bit more and you may see magical things happen. (Pro tip: Remember my first note here about improving your online home base of your about page? This is a place to let that empathy and understanding shine through.)

Listen, I don't have all the answers here, but I believe it would be irresponsible to not address what a lot of people are in my DMs chatting about. People are worried and I don't want that to become a spiral. Spirals create inaction and inaction causes long-term problems. I don't want that for me, and I certainly don't want it for you.