Looking back on last year, fake content has reached new highs, challenging marketers to stand out with authentic, engaging campaigns that resonate with increasingly skeptical audiences.
Overly polished or shallow content – such as slick paid media attempts, spammy posts, or poorly executed AI-generated content – is increasing, creating challenges for marketers to stand out with original material.
Fake content can also impact ad performance and SEO rankings thanks to Google prioritizing helpful, authentic content.
Note that the FTC has released a final rule and banned fake reviews and testimonials in August 2024, which includes AI-generated fake reviews, and encouraged brands to reevaluate their contracts with influencers and ensure compliance.
In this article, I will outline five things that marketers need to know to avoid the pitfalls of inauthentic content.
1. The Growing Demand For Authenticity In A Social Media-Saturated World
According to a 2023 survey, over 70% are concerned about deepfakes that circulate on social media.
My educated guess is that audiences are turned off by misleading content and that they are looking for new platforms, like Threads, to stay connected in a positive way by sharing bite-sized anecdotes with real people instead of bots and sales-focused influencers.
Brands sharing real advice like workplace challenges and authentic storytelling can resonate with audiences in specific industries, be it lifestyle brands or B2B SaaS platforms.
Across TikTok and Instagram, and even Threads, sharing pro advice and motivational tips has always been a trend. Examples include Grammarly’s writing productivity tips on Threads and Nike’s #1000Victories 19-part documentary campaign featuring women in sport community.
Check out this guide on how you can create interactive posts to engage communities on social.
For online shops, here’s an example of a content creator promoting other small businesses for free to potential customers. The desire to reciprocate is a result of the very emphatic conversations and experiences many have shared, prompting each other to become motivated and best practices for industry and protect their livelihood.
By simply listening to people talk about it, truly caring, and engaging in the comments section with the original posters, these interactions create a sense of community in a way that AI or paid sponsorships can’t replicate.
2. The Fall Of Inauthentic Content
Three in four consumers are worried about fake reviews and 63% think brands should be solving this. These insights highlight evolving expectations for brands to put up a fight and to maintain their trust.
49% of U.S. consumers are confident they have seen fake reviews on Amazon for 2024.
But how easy are they to spot?
Learning How To Spot AI Content
It’s not easy to spot at all.
While it can be hard to tell the difference with text (AI art is easier to spot), there are ways to detect it.
Researchers from the University of Michigan used a dataset of 10,000 real and fake hotel reviews in 10 languages to find differences:
“Despite the difficulty humans have in distinguishing between real hotel reviews and those generated by LLMs, we discovered that these posts have noticeable differences in style, structure, and semantics.” (read: MAiDE-up: Multilingual Deception Detection of GPT-generated Hotel Reviews).
A research group at the University of Pennsylvania proves that people can be trained to tell the difference.
They also partnered with CNN to demonstrate how to discern between AI and human-written text and how fact-checking and logic can spell the difference.
If more and more people are trained to fact-check and present their findings in the comments section, it becomes more difficult to pass off AI-generated content as human.
Around 31% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about AI. Digital marketers need to be aware of how AI-generated content can backfire, especially for highly regulated fields like Law, Medicine, and Media, Finance.
Fraud And Undisclosed Influencer Ads
Deceptive affiliates on YouTube exaggerate “must-haves” and promote products by exclaiming, “Run, don’t walk to the store.”
There are sponsored product reviews by influencers who have never even tried the retail products yet recommend them, and audiences become skeptical and unfollow or unsubscribe.
Because de-influencing content has become very popular over the past year, it could lead to less revenue and a negative reputation for your brand. Among the business categories: Technology, Fashion/Beauty/Wellness, Food/Beverage, and Travel/Hospitality – the fashion/beauty/wellness category has been hit the hardest.
Meanwhile, Instagram influencer fraud was found at 49% in 2023 (buying followers, likes, stories, views, etc.). And according to The Hyper Auditor’s internal research, only 55% of Instagram followers are real people. But these platforms are trying to push back.
Major Platforms Are Pushing Back Vs. Fake Reviews
Yelp had started removing fake reviews and cracked down on fraudulent groups in 2022. Meta has started requiring an AI label on generated posts, too.
Amazon and Google have filed against a fake reviews broker website in October 2024. The latter is also part of The Coalition of Trusted Reviews with other highly popular booking and review sites.
As more and more platforms and consumers fight against fake content, your brand must verify content authenticity and discourage misleading sponsored ads in other to maintain trust in your platform or product on the platform.
3. Threads And The Surge Of Genuine Storytelling Via Microblogging
Instagram seems to have become a highlight reel of everyone’s picture-perfect moments: Weddings, travel, shiny purchases, and branded outfits. However, not everyone can relate to high-end living, so take note, marketers of aspirational brands.
Threads, the microblogging app built by the Instagram people, allows brands to foster real conversations and share relatable messaging. People from all walks of life, regardless of education, language, and nationality, share perspectives through their life stories or give free professional advice.
This is an example of a service business that personalized his handyman content on Threads and found success in the community aside from his recent achievement of 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Learn how short-form storytelling works on Threads and try it out.
This kind of user-generated content without the ad-heavy feed drives community as more and more users can relate to and reply to these posts.
User-generated content posts that look and feel like everyday life will resonate better with communities on Threads. With this type of content, brands can humanize their storytelling and build trust over time.
4. The Balance Between AI And Authenticity: A New Kind Of Content Creation
There are practical roles for AI in content creation, but there are limits when it comes to creating art with emotional impact.
- What AI can do: Help collect and manage customer data, boost customer experience with personalized content, support content writers, and correct human errors to name a few.
- What AI can’t do: According to the AI Coke ads they can’t elicit positive emotional responses.
While the AI Coke ads may not have performed as expected, their holiday campaign, Create Real Magic invited fans to create images with ChatGPT-4 and DALL-E using their own archive of assets, successfully appealing to their target Gen Z and Millennial audiences.
For B2B SaaS, AI can be a product offering that ties in seamlessly with your platform. An example is Canva launched More Canva Magic! AI Music Generators which empowers creators to create custom soundtracks for presentations, videos, and social media legally using royalty-free music.
For retailers, it’s nice to know that customers see AI-generated summaries of product reviews as a top feature, and is great to read alongside actual human reviews. Nike’s “By You” uses AI to help customers design their own shoes. Context and execution matter when it comes to AI-produced content using new technology, and campaigns that require active participation seem to be more successful.
5. How To Adapt To Maintain Transparency
Ensure Authenticity
42% of marketers use generative AI to make social media copy. Make sure content is fact-checked by copywriters and editors, integrating a workflow that can catch inaccuracies.
This year, now more than ever, it’s important to build and maintain meaningful customer relationships to stay relevant in 2025. Consumers (64%) wish for brands to connect with them, underlining the growing demand for genuine engagement.
In order to meet this expectation, brands need to align their values, humanize their content, and be consistent in their messaging to foster audiences’ trust.
Disclose Partnerships And Monitor Content
Back in 2022, the SEC fined Kim Kardashian $1.26 million after she was caught promoting cryptocurrency, EthereumMax, without disclosure of her paid partnership.
For influencers, disclosing paid ads partnered with a brand is essential instead of passing it off as organic. The European Commission found 97% of published content with commercial intent, but only 20% disclosed it. Brands need to ensure that the influencers hired follow FTC guidelines.
Additionally, if you use AI when creating content, disclose or add labels for the AI technologies you use.
If you follow FTC guidelines, brands and influencers who are honest can thrive with meaningful connections and steer clear of the backlash surrounding fake content.
Conclusion: Embrace Authenticity As The Future Of Social Media
I personally believe that authenticity is the foundation for social media success. As social media evolves and AI becomes more sophisticated, authenticity is no longer optional – it’s vital.
By prioritizing genuine connections and transparent content, marketers can build trust, drive engagement, and secure their place in the digital future.
More tools are cropping up to filter out the noise and more mods on every platform serve as a village watch group to protect misinformation.
Brands, creators, and platforms could hypothetically run 100% fake content with fake bots spamming the comments to seem engaging. But, real people will exit, and it’ll reflect poorly on the brand and actual product sales.
As online consumers, we are growing in social awareness and learning to discern every post, so it’s time for marketers to ensure their social media strategy addresses that.
If you want to thrive as a business, you need to strive to commit to genuine connections and spark conversations naturally. If you want attention, then what you offer needs to be worthy of it.
Run authenticity audits of your content, listen to customer pain points, and create campaigns that truly resonate with them.
More Resources:
- Building Brand Authenticity Through Community
- How To Identify Fake News From Real News Online
- SEO In The Age Of AI
Featured Image: PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock
