The quickest way to waste your time and money is to spend it on the wrong people. This is how Philippa Dods, marketing manager at Meltwater Africa, boldly started her recent webinar, which explored fake influencers and dodgy social media practices.
A fake influencer can be defined as a social media user who artificially increases their following and engagements to mimic influence. This is done through bought followers or bots. Thus when brands decide to do business with this person, they think they are going to get great returns on investment, but are tricked into spending money for very low/no returns.
The reason fake influencers are so hard to spot, according to Dods is because “they look like genuine influencers, with perfectly edited photos and the follower count to match, but the followers have been bought and the bots sure as hell don’t care which brands the influencer is promoting”.
The fake Instagram account, Wandering Girl last year perfectly highlighted the problem of fake influencers, deliberately being created to underscore the issue. Despite moves by social media companies to curb the issue, including changes to algorithms, the tricksters are clever, having evolved their approach and tactics, and are still around.
“When you look at a fake influencer’s profile, it may very well be flooded with long comments, but the fact is that there’s no real connection to the audience. So if you’ve hired this influencer or have sent them products or merch, they’re actually not influencing anyone to go out and buy that product,” Dods cautions.
Here are six things that Dods points to, to help a brand spot fake influencers versus real ones:
Use influencers with verified social media accounts (look for the blue tick)
Track the growth of the influencer’s account. If there is an overnight spike in followers (or in a short period of time) chances are they have bought those followers or bots are at play
Check the account’s engagement rate (the proportion of activity such as likes, comments and shares compared to the number of followers). Inactivity is a bad sign
Analyse the quality of the comments that posts on the account receive. If they are generic and non-conversational, it could be a sign of inauthentic connections
Look at true reach of the influencer. Bots and inactive followers will lead to very low reach on an influencer’s posts.
Use a social media tool to help you determine this Examine audience and network insights. The demographics of followers are very important to determine the best fit influencer for the product you are selling.
During the webinar, Dods also highlighted the biggest social media trends that brands need to keep an eye on. Here is the full webinar for more information.
