What's Real?

I read an article recently about a guy who ran 65,000 fake social media accounts.

One guy.

Sixty-five thousand accounts!
One.
Guy.

Apparently he posted tens of thousands of videos every day across multiple platforms, all designed to look like ordinary people sharing ordinary opinions.

Yes, he was being paid by companies to create fake grassroots campaigns.
And it was not that challenging.

Seems reasonable to imagine there are fifteen more people doing the same thing.

In a world of eight billion people, this seems like a conservative estimate.

Sixteen people doing this would be more than one million fake accounts.

But, maybe it's 160 people doing this...

Now we're talking about ten million accounts... and millions of fake clips.

Who knows?

Meta knows.

And I'm sure they care deeply.
Ya.

The point is that much of, most of, close to all of, what we see online is not what it appears to be.

A lot of what looks like public opinion is actually the opinion of one person.

Or one company.

Magnified 65,000X.

And here we are talking about 10X... weak!

Step one, build a megaphone.

Step two?

Shout something simple through it.

Because marketing doesn't need to be accurate.

It doesn't even need to make sense.

It just needs to stick.

An excellent example:

"Take Back Control."

In 2016, the Brexit referendum was won with those three words.

Take Back Control.

A marketing masterpiece.

Simple.

Emotional.

Flexible enough that millions of people could attach their own hopes, frustrations, fears, and dreams to it.

Immigration?

Take back control.

Affordable housing?

Take back control.

Jobs?

Take back control.

Rule of law?

Take back control.

Sovereignty?

Take back control.

Whether those expectations were ultimately met remains debatable... to some.
To many it's pretty obvious that for the UK the EU will always be 'the one that got away'.

And we're seeing versions of this unfold in our own country today.

Or are we?

We are.

A lot of what looks like popularity is manufactured.

A lot of what looks like authority is purchased.

And a lot of what looks like consensus is carefully engineered.

As Brokers, I think this matters.

Because every day I hear people say:

"Everybody is saying..."

"I keep seeing..."

"Everyone knows..."

Do they?

Or did an algorithm feed them fifty similar versions of the same inaccurate message?

There's a difference.

The internet has become a giant feedback loop where we increasingly mistake repetition for truth.

Or, said another way:

Repeat a lie often enough and eventually people mistake it for the truth.

The same idea gets shared.

Reposted.

Repurposed.

Rewritten.

Recycled.

Eventually it feels true simply because we've seen it so many times.

Meanwhile, actual expertise gets drowned out because expertise is usually boring.

Real knowledge comes with caveats.

Real professionals say things like:

"It depends."

"Maybe."

"Let's look at the numbers."

TikTok hates those answers.

Social media rewards certainty.

Confidence.

Outrage.

Extreme opinions.

At 11pm, doom-scrolling in bed, we want simple solutions to complicated problems.

Which brings me to brokering... that's still what this blog is.

The opportunity for Brokers has never been greater.

Because trust is becoming scarce.

If consumers increasingly believe social media is fake, reviews are manipulated, influencers are paid, and followers are bought, where do they turn?

They turn to people.

Actual people.

People they were referred to by other actual people.

People they can meet, or at least who really answer the phone.

People who show up consistently.

People who tell them the truth, even when the truth isn't what they wanted to hear.

The future may belong less to content creators and more to trust creators.

Less to influencers and more to advisors.

Less to whoever has the biggest audience and more to whoever has the strongest reputation in the real world.

Word of mouth may be about to have a major comeback.

The value of that small office on Main Street may be coming back too.

I've talked about repetition for a long time.

Putting in the reps.

Repetition builds skill.

Repetition builds confidence.

Repetition builds reputation.

And in a world where more and more things appear fake, reputation becomes even more valuable.

I've taken some very expensive steps in life to protect mine.

Or maybe the better way to say it, if that I've made some very large investments in my reputation.

Time will tell what the ROI actually is.

So maybe the lesson is this:

Focus less on becoming internet famous.

Focus more on becoming trusted.

Because eventually nobody will know what's real online.

But they'll still know who they trust.

Be that person.
Go make your calls!

DW