![]() His scan of Druckman's account showed almost 100,000 real and engaged followers at a time when he knew all but 1,200 were bought and paid for. "I don't think it's as big of a problem as it was a few years ago, because there are tools out there that allow brands to dig deeper and see the influencer's pattern of growth, authenticity of comments and that kind of thing," adds Dalene Heck, CEO of travel-focused influencer agency HMI in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.īilton's film shows one such tool that isn't identified (but, based on my familiarity with such tools, appears to be HypeAuditor). While Fake Famous showed that approach can work in the short-term, most brands have been looking past the gameable metrics for a while now. ![]() "They want to become influencers and believe that in order to do so all they need is a lot of followers and a high engagement rate." "I think it's especially rampant with newer influencers," says Nycole Hampton, head of the influencer practice at MWWPR, who is based in Los Angeles. In reality, none of them are going to be moved to try the product the influencer endorses or post about it themselves. This is where 20-30 (or more) influencers collude and comment on each other's posts for the sole purpose of making engagements look real and full of other influencers. The third level of Dante's Inferno of unethical behavior from influencers is the comment pod. So someone with 100,000 followers and a 2.5% engagement rate reportedly activates 2,500 people at a time. The higher that number, the more of their alleged followers are taking real action when they post. Having bot accounts load a post with likes and comments affects an influencer's engagement rate. Perhaps more insidious an offense is faked engagement. It falls just shy of indicating they are the underbelly of society. When brands start sending her free products and inviting her on influencer junkets, the film concludes that influencers are all fame-obsessed, unemployed wannabes. Wiley ( feels guilty when his friends question his bot followers and bails as well.īut Dominique Druckman ( goes all-in, jumping from just over 1,100 Instagram followers to more than 250,000, thanks to Bilton's credit card and a lot of help creating modestly decent content for her feed. Chris ( on Instagram) deletes Bilton's bot followers and comments, opting to build his influence the organic way. He casts his experiment in Los Angeles and initially finds three victims for his ruse. ![]() He sets out to prove the job title is a hollow pit of lies perpetrated by shallow people with marginal talent but caviar dreams. The gist of the movie is Bilton - who recently appeared on my influence-marketing podcast - doesn't like that kids today want to grow up to be online influencers. Fake Famous certainly exposes fraud and deception, but more so in Bilton's technique than his subject's resulting web-celebrity status. Nick Bilton's HBO documentary Fake Famous paints quite the definitive indictment of anyone calling themselves an "influencer." For the film, Bilton and his team took a random person and bought her fake followers, likes and comments to see if brands would think she's influential. Pre-order your copy now via Amazon | Barnes & Noble| IndieBound| Bookshop. Jason Falls' Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand is out Feb.
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