The Scoop: Bots may have been used to sway anti-DE&I public opinion at John Deere, others

An analysis by a public relations and marketing firm suggests that much of the social engagement surrounding the anti-DE&I policy campaign by conservative activist Robby Starbuck may have been led by bots.

Starbuck led a series of social media attacks earlier this year to challenge the diversity, equity and inclusion policies at companies such as Tractor Supply, John Deere and Harley-Davidson. Each of those companies decided to cancel or scale down DE&I efforts after social media backlash and a general rise in media attention.

However, the firm Jackson Spalding  that “much of the volume has been generated by social media bots,” according to Axios.

That’s not to say that all – or even most – of those likes, comments and shares came from bots. But instead, their use likely helped fuel the spread of the information.

The major driver of bot activity is re-posts or likes rather than original posts, according to Justin Williams, a leader of digital and analytics practice at Jackson Spalding.

“If your first assumption is that tens of thousands of people know about this issue and have paid attention to it, then you would expect that when news comes out (about the policy change), it would actually cool things off — but the reverse occurred,” he told Axios.

Starbuck’s protests have also gained traction over time, with recent campaigns against Tractor Supply Company, John Deere and Harley Davidson seeing a 77% increase in media mentions and 40% more social media interactions than previous pushes.

Why it matters: Bots and spammers are a reality, and unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’re going anywhere. In fact, the Department of Justice reported earlier this week that it had seized 32 internet domains linked to Russian government-led influence campaigns. These properties aimed to spread propaganda and diminish support for Ukraine, promote pro-Russian policies and sway voters in the upcoming U.S. election, per the DOJ.

Axios reported that the rising popularity and access to generative AI will likely lead to an increase in bot activity, and tracking and understanding the social data is becoming more difficult.

For those reasons, it’s important that social media teams really drill into the analytics and measurement tools that matter most to them so they can best understand the effectiveness of messaging on their desired audience.

Vanity metrics like impressions, shares and likes/favorites are nice and easy to quantify. But it’s important to ask what those numbers actually mean to the brand or company. Are these numbers correlating to sales or meaningful engagements? If not, they likely don’t matter all that much.

Remember: The whole point of collecting and analyzing data is to make the communications team more effective.

No business wants to endure a Starbuck-style attack. But if you can understand the data – and more importantly, your customer – it’ll make it easier to weather those social media storms.

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Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.