Social media has changed our world in many ways, and one of those seems to be our attention on the negative. I recently read about a study that tested the inclusion of negative terms in social media headlines. The researchers concluded more negative terms in headlines resulted in more clicks. Positive terms actually decreased engagement. Sadly, I think the study affirmed what most social media content managers, and the rest of us, already knew.

It’s easy to see this playing out in our society and definitely in our media. News corporations battle for eyeballs, and negative, sensationalized stories are their weapon. No doubt this phenomenon is affecting our beef industry. Stories demonizing beef production and claiming dangers of eating beef are prevalent.

While every reader of this column will know the fallacy of these articles and be surrounded by the countless positive stories of our industry every day, we also know those stories have a hard road to get airtime.

Sensible sharing

So, what can we do? I think one important step is to be careful what we share on social media channels.

In the last few weeks, I have seen countless shared posts about the bacon sold at Aldi grocery stores. The claim was that Aldi was selling lab-grown bacon. Aldi sells bacon under the brand name of Appleton Farms. Appleton Meats is a Canadian company involved in lab-grown meat, and I’m not sure they are even in business anymore. The two companies and brands have no affiliation. My point here is not to defend Aldi, convince you to buy bacon or start a conversation about lab-grown meat. My point is a completely false allegation got repeated and shared thousands of times in just a few days.

One example that hits a little closer to home is the number of posts I have seen over the years involving ground beef. The pictures show hamburger of different colors and suggesting the “grocery store hamburger” is full of preservatives or chemicals to alter color. As beef producers, we know ground beef of different fat content will be different in color, and product not exposed to oxygen will be a much deeper, darker purple color.

Yet I have seen cattle producers share these posts and insinuate that buying direct from the farmer is the only way to ensure their beef is safe and wholesome. That falls in the category of “fake news” and stands to damage the bigger beef industry, at least with that producer’s friend group.

I think there are many other examples surrounding the cattle market or even the Angus breed where a false story caught fire in our business and created inaccurate conclusions and unnecessary drama. In our world of fast-moving information, it is easy to get excited or angered by a rumor, speculation or supposed “fact” we see or hear. It has happened to me many times.

My hope is that we can all make sure we are doing our research before sharing or repeating. Please reach out to us at the American Angus Association if you ever have a question or hear some information that you would like assistance researching. We would love to help.