Should Business Owners Check the Source of Their Content

Several months ago I was watching a Tiktok video about overcrowded beaches in Sydney during lockdown. I was stuck, feeling trapped, in lockdown in Auckland and the rule breaking in Aussie made me feel incensed.

I shared it to my personal Facebook profile, and quickly discovered (from people who were currently on that beach at that instant)  it was old footage that had been cut to look like it was new. It was a reminder to me that it’s so easy to miss a step and share something inaccurate, and how easy it is to spread misinformation.

I generally spend a lot of time checking the source of my content, whether I’m sharing it with friends, or my business page. If I see a shared post I’ll click on it, check out the profile and the other posts, and often see if I can find the original clip before I share. 

Dave Letele, owner of Butterbean Motivation, a boot camp and fitness business based in Auckland has seen first hand the impact of misinformation in his community. Many of Dave’s community are in the hardest hit parts of Auckland in terms of Covid19. He’s put his bootcamp business to the side to serve his people with a Food Share (aka a food bank), support and care for those who can not work during lockdowns or are isolating at home.   

Dave ran a vaccination drive at his Food Share, and was both celebrated and abused for it. He’s lost several of his team who have chosen not to vaccinate, many of whom share misinformation on their social media pages. 

Today on the MAP IT Marketing podcast we talk to Dave about why it’s important for creators and business owners to carefully check sources before spreading, what the impact misinformation has had for him and his business, and why checking sources before posting is so important.  

Dave is part of a campaign run by Meta (formally known as Facebook), and First Draft, an organisation dedicated to help creators and business owners to check sources, and become educated on the veracity of any information being shared. 

While we naturally move to think of this within the space of Covid19, vaccines, lockdowns and more, checking sources is a good practice to have at all times. Misinformation seeps into many areas of our lives, and social media makes it super simple for us to share and pass on stories, posts and images that are not based on research, or have been doctored. 

While it’s a given that influencers have, well, influence, business owners also often have a powerful platform and a following. We all have a choice what we post both in our feeds, and in our stories. With the rise of personal brand for small business, the business owner is often closely tied to the business they run. 

Knowing what to share, and being prepared to stand by what you’ve shared is important. If you want to share information, or a post, here’s a short checklist of actions to do first, as supplied by First Draft:

Try to find the original
Find the author or creator
Confirm the date
Seek the location
Undercover the motivation
Look for visual cues

**I’m also asking you to consider donating to the BBM Food Share. The link is in the show notes

Check out my book: Be a Spider, Build a Web: Sticky Content Marketing for Small Businesses.
http://beaspiderbuildaweb.com