
Are Fake Instagram Influencers Deceiving Brands? - pmcpinto
http://mediakix.com/2017/08/fake-instagram-influencers-followers-bots-study/#gs.Myd1QrU
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Animats
Paying "influencers" to plug a brand without a disclosure of payment violates
the FTC's endorsement rule.[1] It's considered false advertising. So "brands"
are the deceivers here.

This has been enforced on TV for decades. You see fine print in commercials
when someone endorses something. New medium, same rules.

[1] [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2017/04/ftc-s...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2017/04/ftc-staff-reminds-influencers-brands-clearly-disclose)

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stingraycharles
But there are many movies, series and other kinds of shows that endorse a
brand (e.g. by using a certain kind of tablet) that do not have a fine print.
How does it work there ?

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sjtgraham
Movies, etc are works of fiction, people are not.

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PeanutCurry
This right here. It's a fine line. I feel like the parent comment is implying
like it's an easily exploited line but that's my personal intuition so I'll
defend it in isolation. Put simply, if Michael Jordan, Shaq, or any other
signature memeber of the NBA told me how to dunk better, I'd probably listen
because their real world reputation has already informed me that they're
skilled at the thing they're advertising about. I trust them, not because I
admire them but because they are proven craftsmen of the thing they are
discussing. They might be discussing it for profit in this instance, but in
the real world they have shown themselves to be above average men of skill and
for that reason I am interested in their knowledge.

If Thor and the Avengers discover how to beat Thanos because they used a
search engine on iOS instead of android I might get pretty hyped because I
really like that franchise, but I know at a fundamental level that they're
fake people achieving fake success against a fake villain. The same cannot be
said about professional athletes, chefs, academics, or others who compete in a
competitive BUT ALSO REAL environment.

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camillomiller
Then the two fake accounts from the article would be exempted, if the owners
would acknowledge that the girls are just fictional characters?

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TrickyRick
> if the owners would acknowledge that the girls are just fictional characters

Then they wouldn't get the brand deals to begin with so I don't see the
problem here ;-)

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Sophistifunk
Sweet. If it's OK to pay "influencers" to pretend they like some widget you're
trying to sell, it's OK to pay sockpuppets to pretend you have influence.

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bloaf
It'd be cool if I could make a small botnet that would influence companies to
make the kind of stuff I actually wanted to buy.

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fapjacks
Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a nice new ICO.

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sogen
I smell success!

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diegoperini
Anyone has a cool landing page template bootstrap one?

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TrickyRick
Don't forget to implement the botnet on the blockchain!

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sogen
Heading for second seed round!

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franze
friend of mine - which had huge success with influencer marketing on instagram
in the german speaking market / organic cosmetics niche - tiptoed into the
italian market.

from what we could see the account looked legit. the pics were good, lots of
comments, good interaction from other accounts with lots of followers, some
other brands also - seemingly - using the account to promote products.

invested a few hundred euros, great response on the postings, zero impact on
sales and onlineshop traffic (which was not the same behaviour we saw in the
german market).

we investigate further. the responses on every post were always pretty
similar, coming out of a pool of about 200 different responses, sometimes with
emoji variations. even bad posts, very shitty pics with clear commercial
intent, got the "awesome" and "#heart #heart"treatment. after three degrees of
separation (the accounts which liked the accounts which liked the accounts)
the accounts became slightly spammy.

all in all, very sophisticated work.

we changed the approach, we completely ignore accounts which contact us. if we
identify an account with a 10k+ followers, a long post history and some
meaningful interaction (even snark in the comments), we contact them.

but yeah, identifying - really really well made - fakes on instragram
(especially non english/german accounts because of the language barrier) would
be a SAAS we were willing to use.

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PMan74
This is why I don't especially worry about fake influences, bogus ad clicks,
etc. Any advertiser worth their salt should be able to see the results (or
lack of results) very quickly. Sure there'll be dumb brands throwing money
away on fake clicks/likes/re-tweets/etc and not measuring results. And while
that is regrettable & wouldn't happen in an ideal world it's their money to
waste foolishly.

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shalmanese
Attribution is tricky at the best of times and worse when you're dealing with
many, small campaigns rather than a few discrete large campaigns.

Let's say you make surfboards that are primarily bought offline at surf shops.
You run a campaign with 100 instagram influencers in the San Diego area and
you see a 15% greater uplift in sales compared to nationwide. Which
influencers contributed meaningfully and which ones were fake accounts where
you wasted your money? How much of that 15% uplift is because of the
influencer campaign vs a longer summer in San Diego this year vs some totally
organic consumer spreading it via WOM?

Even if you want to design an experiment, summer's already over and you'll
need to wait until next summer to test out your hypothesis. It's not hard to
see how a scammer could cobble together a dozen or so of these different
advertisers and make a substantial sum out of fraud consistently without ever
getting caught.

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lunchladydoris
If, like me, you wondered how Mediakix came up with the size of the influencer
market size, there is an outline of their methodology in a previous post [1].

Essentially they looked at how many posts were tagged with one of a group of
hashtags, used a $10 CPM, and extrapolated from there.

[1]: [http://mediakix.com/2017/03/instagram-influencer-
marketing-i...](http://mediakix.com/2017/03/instagram-influencer-marketing-
industry-size-how-big/)

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Fede_V
It's a scam, but honestly, brands trying to advertise their products without
seeming like they are advertising are just as dishonest.

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flashman
Seems like it shouldn't be too hard to build a service that lets influencer
networks screen out fakes. Usually there are clear markers, like a large
number of followers having some other random account in common. Unfortunately,
from experience I know that:

a) the networks don't care because the risk and reputation cost of selling
fake inventory is minimal, and

b) brands don't care because it's considered a cost of doing business.

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dawnerd
They'll just raise the minimum requirements until it becomes a lot harder to
spam your way there. Also s lot of blame needs to be shifted on the various
platforms for even allowing spam accounts to be created so easily. It should
be a huge red flag for any account to instant get likes or follows.

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BadassFractal
Not that this is different from perhaps any other platform, but it's
exceptionally difficult to grow a following as an artist on Instagram. It was
probably never meant for it, but instead more targeted towards influencers.
Visual artists with hundreds of thousands of followers who didn't buy them or
didn't inherit them from fame outside of IG are practically unheard of.

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parka
It is possible. You just have to post consistently and use the right tags. I'm
not famous and I can get 10K followers just by posting one every few weeks,
sometimes I post more regularly. More followers are gained when I post more
often. In short, work.

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overcast
Baloney. You can get 10K followers at that rate, in maybe five years. Once
every few weeks is basically a dead account. Even posting daily, you still
have to use all of the tricks. There is just so many people doing the same
thing on there, that you have to be VERY niche, and put up quality content.
Food photos, in poor lighting, from your phone, are not going to do it
anymore.

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quest88
So what's the answer here? Followers, likes, and comments were bought. Did the
experiment end up making more money than they spent? Is it a problem if not?

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redavni
The answer is yes...like the article says. Also like the article says in a
huge bold font, "Fake Instagram Influencers Are A Problem For The Industry".

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TrickyRick
The article claims so in the headline and then proceeds to show that it's
relatively easy to set up a fake account and get some brand deals but then
provides no numbers or insight into why this is actually a widespread problem.
The fact that it's doable doesn't mean it's a problem, if they made less money
than they put in then it's not a problem because no one in their right mind
would actually do it. Putting something in a headline doesn't make it true.

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Frogskope
I've always believed they deceived consumers but I makes sense when you see a
lot of large brands becoming more disconnected with real society.

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technotony
I've been burned by this a couple of times. Posted something with an
influencer and got over 1,000 instagram likes both times, but basically zero
traffic and zero sales. I only spent about $50 total so should have expected
bad results from that much price/promise but this is a real thing... facebook
should tackle by blocking these accounts or at least creating a market for
doing this legitimately (in which case they get a slice of course)

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josteink
> I've been burned by this a couple of times. Posted something with an
> influencer and got over 1,000 instagram likes both times, but basically zero
> traffic and zero sales. I only spent about $50 total so should have expected
> bad results from that much price/promise but this is a real thing...
> facebook should tackle by blocking these accounts

Those paying off other accounts to create covert marketing, or those doing the
covert marketing?

I find it hard to tell which are worst.

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chewbacha
It's been said before
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CK62I-4cuSY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CK62I-4cuSY)

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pryelluw
It is an issue for brands that treat it as old media. What brands need to
understand is that you have to do your research before hiring am influencer. I
dont hire anyone unless they provide enough convincing data. Its also
important to know that most scams are aimed at the lifestyle/fashion
industries. If you are a plumber you wont need to worry too much about it.You
cam find worthy influencers to help you promote your services.

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jackgolding
Do you hire influencers (interesting considering you seem like a dev from your
profile)? I think for the layman marketer there isn't really enough
information on what the standard performance KPIs should be (even with
"traditional media".) It's my view that the majority of companies aren't doing
enough to record marketing performance to build their own expectations out of
campaigns.

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pryelluw
Yes, I do. You are right, most companies are not equipped to handle new media.
That's where I help them get results. :)

PS. My profile is tailored to HN. People hate marketers here.

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minademian
The logical conclusion of the intersection of capitalism and social media...

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nfriedly
> _the "influencers" were offered monetary compensation, free product, or
> both._

Was it enough to be a positive ROI? I would assume yes, but it doesn't
actually say that anywhere.

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grecy
How much were the "financial deals" he struck?

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Pandavonium
In the comments the author says they were offered a total of $130 for the
model account and $400 for the photographer account.

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fapjacks
Other way around, I believe. The model account fetched $400.

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jlebrech
and to fulfill the deal you need to keep in touch with the models you used for
them to take a photo with the product?

