What are the dangers of influencer marketing that come with having fake followers?
As brands pour more and more money into influencer marketing, it’s becoming increasingly vital to understand the fake followers phenomenon and what it means for the brands footing the bills. And that could spell trouble for any number of us overinflating our worth with fake follower counts.
Fraudulent followers do not represent actual users. They include bots, inactive accounts, and those that are bought. HypeAuditor estimates that about 24% of Instagram accounts are not real. Yet even this might exaggerate the situation, as “accounts” can exist on any number of platforms, and not all platforms have the same value. Fakes might be less of a problem on some sites than others, but they are a serious difficulty in influencer marketing for a number of reasons. Primarily, fake followers make it impossible to tell whether the influencer is actually influencing.
When brands partner with influencers who have phony followers, they encounter several dangers.
The potential pitfalls of influencer marketing are numerous, and they stem basically from the assumption that we’re using influencers to reach real people. If the people we’re trying to reach through influencer marketing aren’t really there, then we’re throwing good money after bad. And not only might we be throwing away our marketing budget, but we’re also giving our brand a black eye for associating with people who are dishonest. Add in the potential legal ramifications, and throwing influencer marketing into the mix starts looking a lot less favorable.
Should brands overlook the hazards associated with fake followers, they might face a series of repercussions.
- Weak Engagement: Despite having many followers, campaigns may achieve next to no engagement.
- Poor Influencer Choices: Time and money could be wasted when invested in the influencers who are poor choices for a given campaign.
- Analytics Issues: When an issue arises with these “real-time” metrics, it makes these estimates seem rather dubious. And, as with any industry, more could be said for influencer marketing when its profit-generating potential is clearer.
To counteract the dangers that come from fake followers, brands can take a number of steps—some involve basic social media hygiene, while others are more sophisticated and require employing analytical tools.
- Employ Analytical Instruments: HypeAuditor and Socialbakers serve as example tools to help filter faux followers and decode an influencer’s audience authenticity. These agencies can offer much-needed clarity on audience composition and thus should be considered when picking an influencer.
- Don’t Overspeculate; Just Assess: An engagement rate is a highly simple metric that essentially indicates how much an audience interacts with an influencer’s content. Brands should not overthink this particular metric when assessing influencer partnerships.
- Perform Regular Audits: Auditing an influencer’s profile ensures that they haven’t purchased followers and checks for consistency with audience engagement. Establishing authentic relationships with influencers who have smaller yet more engaged audiences can potentially lead to a higher ROI on influencer marketing.
To sum up, knowing the dangers posed by fake followers in influencer marketing is crucial for brands that are trying to run effective campaigns. If you’re going to invest in this medium, put your money on influencers who are for real. They’ll give you a much better shot at genuine engagement, and hence a reasonable expectation of a solid return on your investment, since there are no guarantees in this space.
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