After reading an article on social media influence, it was no surprise to learn that a quarter of women lie on Facebook; but it was interesting to learn about the impact these little white lies can have.

I’m sure we’ve all told a fib or two as we all want to appear at our best, especially to our peers, which is why we tend to embellish on our social media sites; but have we ever considered the impact it has on companies and brands using social media? When we tweet or update our status, we rarely give a thought to the impact it will have on anything except making us look good to the people that read it. Why bother otherwise?

Many adverts that appear on your social media are placed there due to pages you’ve liked, or words you’ve used. Most companies will search key words, or look at people who have liked pages that can link to their brand and promote their services that way. For example if you change your relationship status on Facebook, the adverts will then reflect that. If you say you’re in a relationship, you will notice engagement adverts start to pop up, and if you say you’re single you may notice an increase in dating websites.

Tweeting about how much you love the gym could gain you an abundance of fitness followers; but when you’re just saying that to make you feel better about the fact you’re lying in bed with a pack of biscuits it’s not doing anyone any favours.

In order to gain the most from social media it’s important that we stop fabricating what we get up to, and tell the truth. You never know what you might find when you do.

Oh! what a tangled web we weave. When first we practise to deceive.  – Sir Walter Scott