This is Part 2 of The Comms Pro’s Guide to Fake News. See Part 1 here.

While pundits, pols, and activists fill up Facebook and Twitter with rants about the policies of the new White House, professional communicators are doing a lot of hand-wringing on their own. At issue, of course, is how we respond to a world in which “alternative facts” become the new reality.

Consider these developments :

• Fake news, created by individuals—some employed by the Kremlin—played a significant role in the recent US election. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this revelation is that it wasn’t a crack investigative team that discovered the source, it was TBS comedian Samantha Bee that tracked down the trolls.
• White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer disputes photographic evidence. The media point out that he is essentially lying.
• Kelly Anne Conway introduces the concept of “alternative facts” in a discussion on inauguration crowd size with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press.
• The New York Times calls the President’s statements a lie, unleashing a new round of teeth-gnashing among the media with NPR arguing that it’s not a lie unless there was intent.
• One pair of enterprising educators created a course in BS and it instantly went viral.
• The Guardian argues that statistics themselves have lost credibility.
• The latest Edelman Trust Barometer reveals an unprecedented decline in credibility of CEOs, media, governments, and just about everything other than the family dog.

That word “unprecedented” may be the most overused adjective these days, but there is no doubt that it will also apply to those of us in the communications industry. In the words of Mark Weiner, U.S. CEO of Prime Research, “To me, America’s distrust of the media represents a serious threat to public relations—not to mention the whole democracy!” He’s not exaggerating. If we have no trust in any news, or we only trust the news we want to believe, we have undermined the bedrock of an informed electorate that is crucial to a functioning democracy.

But the coming changes won’t end with a rethinking of the role of media. When reality, truth, and trust are so hard to find, communications must rethink how it does business. (You might want to read my post on why everyone is so anxious to get placements in a media which most people don’t trust.) With that said, we offer some advice:

3 Tips to Survive and Thrive in This Fake News World

1. Focus, focus, focus on what moves the business

In response to my post, on media distrust, Mark Stouse, founder of Proof (which we’ve reviewed here), made a very good point about the influence of media: “The one point I’d make here is that the trust in mass media data changes quite a bit when you look at subject matter. Trust in media coverage of government, politics, and large business is indeed at an all-time low. But when you start looking at the influence that media coverage has on more discrete items, things improve a lot. In fact, the greater the perceived decision risk is around a purchase, the more impactful and trusted the relevant media becomes, particularly vs. Paid and Owned.” And he has the data to prove it.

I concede his point, but for all those decisions that are low-risk and emotionally based, should we just assume that media is no longer  influential? Not necessarily. We just need to rethink what’s important about that media.

For years consumer brands, have understood that “people like me” and people in my social circle have more weight than the media. Which is why PR people and other professional communicators need to shift their effort and energy away from mass media and focus instead on those people and outlets and activities that can be shown to influence behavior.

For those lucky enough to have it—and sufficient data—Proof will show you exactly what efforts and activities have the greatest influence on your business. For those working in organizations without marketing mix models or Proof, you’ll need to work closely with sales and marketing (and set up good proxy metrics in Google Analytics) to determine what really is influential.

In the health care market, for instance, a few dozen members of disease support groups are more influential on a decision as to what hospitals or doctors or treatments a person chooses than anything one might see on Dr. Oz, no matter what his ratings. Which means you need to devote more time to building relationships with patients and caregivers than you do to pitching Fox producers.

Here’s an example from the consumer packaged good side: When we were creating a dashboard for a leading organic yogurt company and trying to figure out who were the “key media,” it quickly became apparent from their marketing data that certain organic food bloggers should be high up on the influential list. It was then that I realized that splitting their media results between “traditional” and “social” made no sense if one food writer for The New York Times was influencing potential buyers as much with her Twitter and Facebook accounts as she was in the food section of one of the worlds’ most respected traditional media outlets. As the client so aptly summed it up, “There are influential authors, and then there’s everyone else.” So we used human analysts to scrutinize the writings of the “influential” for both the client and the competition, and used a computer to report on share of voice for the rest.

2. Filter, filter, filter

When the impact of the fake news problem hit the airwaves, many people assumed that all the fakery was done by “the opposition.” Certainly, the opposition has had its hands in fake news—whether it is Putin directing folks in Moscow, or teenagers in Moldova. But in truth, fake news is created first and foremost to create revenue that comes from clicking links. Read this NPR piece for details.

There’s a lesson there for all of us. If all it takes is a little money and a few hungry social media folks to influence a U.S. presidential election, just think what your competition could do to your brand with a few well-placed fake news stories.

Fortunately, Google and Facebook and other platforms are helping suppress fake news, but it doesn’t take long for those with malicious intent to get around those filters. The key for brands is to listen for the bad and the false, but to also carefully check their news feeds for suspicious sites and tell your monitoring vendors to block them. If monitoring companies are picking them up and people are clicking on these sites, money is flowing into the pockets of the people that create them.

We always recommend starting with a small group of important media outlets and adding to it, rather than bringing in the world and then trying to filter out the bad stuff.

3. Don’t just talk “good,” be good

Today’s companies are expected to be good corporate citizens, and many are taking strong stands, particularly on the most recent immigrant order put out by the Trump administration:

• Starbucks is promising to hire refugees,
• Lyft is donating money to the ACLU,
• Airbnb announced free housing for immigrants and families impacted by the rule, and
• Southern New Hampshire University stepped in and offered free legal services to its students who need them.

These organizations took actions designed to communicate volumes to their employees, regardless of whether their customers agreed or disagreed. The point is that they didn’t just issue a press release, they acted. Increasingly, organizations will be expected to demonstrate their values in stronger and more visible ways. Words, like the media, are no longer trusted. Photographic evidence of action may be one of the few ways you can persuade your stakeholders that you are doing the right thing.

As we go to press, we are less than a month into the Trump presidency. We are already becoming inured to tweets that cause stocks to plummet and White House announcements that cause havoc. I’m sure this won’t be our only post on how to cope. We welcome your ideas and will be updating this post as new ideas come in. ∞

This is Part 2 of The Comms Pro’s Guide to Fake News. See Part 1 here.