Fake Influencers Illegally Buy Instagram's Coveted Blue Check Marks: (how to Spot and Avoid the Frauds)
Influencer marketing may be a new and exciting opportunity for businesses. Just make certain shady influencers aren't taking advantage of you within the process.
I'll begin with a disclaimer: the bulk of influencers do great, honest work. That being said, a few bad eggs who continually 'play the system' can ruin it for the remainder of the bunch, so this issue must be addressed while influencer marketing remains on a meteoric rise.
What makes influencer marketing so effective is additionally what enables it to be easily abused. It's new. It's novel within the eyes of the buyer , which makes it immensely under priced and under-regulated.
The good news is that with each passing day, influencer marketing grows each day older, allowing more lessons to be learned and every one the wrinkles to be ironed out.
Shady Influencers: Lifting the Veil
Here are a couple of how influencers are 'playing the system'.
1. Buying Instagram verification.
Recently, Kerry Flynn of Mashable reported, through sources who wanted to stay anonymous, that some Instagram employees were allegedly selling verification badges (blue check marks) to suitors for as high as $15,000.
From the knowledge in Kerry's in-depth piece, this underground market is allegedly alive and well, giving any brand or influencer with the proper amount of money a chance to tend 'public figure privileges' on Instagram.
Sure, this might appear as if nothing quite a harmless way for people to urge more Likes on their beach selfies. However, the underlying principle here is this: even at a number of the world's most well-known companies like Instagram, sketchy things are happening behind closed doors.
The main takeaway? do not believe every blue check you see.
2. Using influencer Facebook Groups to exchange clicks.
In these groups, influencers will explicitly ask other influencers for clicks and shares, removing from the authenticity and organic value that creates influencer marketing so effective and unique.
Important Note: confine mind that not all of those groups should be deemed unethical. Many are legitimate support networks, and will be treated intrinsically if discovered.
3. Paying for social media ads.
Whether it's with Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Google Ads or ads on StumbleUpon, some influencers are buying advertisements to drive traffic to their sponsored content in attempts to garner more engagement and clicks.
4. Using click farms.
Click farms are businesses (typically located in developing countries) where low paid workers are hired to drive traffic to a customer's piece of content. In some cases, influencers will use such click farms on their sponsored posts to offer the illusion it's performing better than it actually is.
5. Buying followers.
Some influencers also will use third party services to shop for followers. In most cases, these followers are nothing quite bots.
Here's what you'll do about it:
Alright, now that we've that out of the way, what exactly are you able to do as a business owner to avoid wasting money on shady influencers?
Here's where to start out.
1. Pay influencers what they're worth.
Let me be real here. Money may be a great truth drug . If an influencer is receiving pennies for his or her diligence , by nature, they go to be more likely to chop corners.
Influencers who are one hundred pc ethical will perform by spending a smaller amount of your time creating content for that specific campaign. Influencers who aren't one hundred pc ethical might hunt down other ways to chop corners, like those mentioned above.
2. Inspect the diary of an influencer before working with them.
If you've got the time to try to to so, scan through a prospective influencer's social channels. Have they been a neighborhood of influencer programs before? Did they create great content on those programs?
History is that the best predictor of the longer term , which principle doesn't stop at influencer marketing.
3. Use Social Blade to ascertain if an influencer's followers are real or fake.
If an influencer has 20,000 Instagram followers and averages 30 Likes on their posts, that's an enormous red flag worth taking a deeper dive into. Free tools like Social Blade allow you to ascertain what percentage followers were added to a selected social account day by day. Thus, if an influencer who typically gains 200 followers per day randomly gains 15,000 new followers at some point , there is a high chance those new followers are bots.
4. Keep an eye fixed out for discrepancies.
If the second you start working with an influencer, a disproportionately high amount of your website's traffic begins to return from Southeast Asia or India (places notorious for being click farm hubs), that would be a symbol the influencer is employing a click farm.
You don't need to monitor every single thing an influencer does, but keep a watchful eye on the upper level metrics to form sure everything is legit.
5. make certain they're following FTC guidelines with their sponsored content.
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is cracking down on influencer marketing. If an influencer who's conscious of FTC guidelines is blatantly not abiding by them, then what's to prevent them from breaking rules elsewhere?
6. most significantly , build relationships with the influencers you recognize and trust.
By building trustful bonds with influencers you recognize and love over time, you'll better position yourself to never get duped. Treat your 'go-to' influencers such as you would a contractor, consultant, or somebody else who's affiliated together with your team.
When used appropriately and strategically, influencers can provide your company (no matter the size) with amazing business results. Don't let the shady ones scare you off. Do your homework, bookmark this text , and you will be just fine.
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