In recent years, influencer marketing has become an increasingly popular marketing strategy for businesses on social media platforms like Instagram. With the growing number of influencers on Instagram, it's becoming more challenging to identify and avoid fraudulent influencers. Unfortunately, some influencers use fake followers, likes, and engagement to appear more popular than they are, deceiving brands and businesses into thinking they have a genuine audience. This fraudulent activity is called influencer fraud, and it's a growing problem in the industry. The amount of money advertisers can lose due to fraudulent influencers varies depending on the scope and scale of their marketing campaigns. According to some studies, businesses lost around $1.3 billion globally due to influencer fraud in 2021.
Million ways to fraud
Fraudulent influencers can deceive advertisers into thinking that they have a genuine and engaged audience, leading to ineffective marketing campaigns and wasted investment. Advertisers may spend thousands or even millions of dollars on influencer marketing campaigns that do not provide any real value or return on investment. Moreover, fraudulent influencers may also damage an advertiser's reputation by associating their brand with fake followers, likes, and engagement. This can lead to a loss of trust and credibility with their target audience and harm the long-term success of their brand.
Some influencers may purchase fake followers from third-party providers, who create fake accounts and bots to boost an influencer's follower count. These fake followers do not engage with the influencer's content and are only meant to make the influencer appear more popular than they are. Another way is engagement pods. These are the groups of Instagram users who agree to like and comment on each other's posts to increase engagement. Some influencers may join engagement pods to boost their engagement rate artificially and become more appealing to advertisers.
What to do?
The rise of influencer fraud can be attributed to the increasing pressure on influencers to appear popular, successful, and reputable. The fraudulent activity is not only unethical but also harmful to businesses that invest in influencer marketing campaigns. So, how can businesses identify and avoid fraudulent influencers on Instagram?
1. Look for Engagement Rate. One of the most reliable ways to identify a fraudulent influencer is to look at their engagement rate. A high number of followers is not always an indication of genuine popularity. Therefore, it's essential to check the influencer's engagement rate, which is the percentage of their followers who interact with their content. If an influencer has a large following but a low engagement rate, it's likely that they have purchased fake followers. You can also check comments. Fake comments are often generic and not related to the content of the post. They may contain generic phrases like "Great post!" or "Nice picture!" without any specific feedback or engagement with the post's content. Genuine comments, on the other hand, will be more specific and related to the content of the post. Moreover, fake comments may have a pattern, such as using the same set of emojis or phrases in each comment. Real comments will have more variation and diversity in the language used.
2. Analyze Followers. Analyzing an influencer's followers can also help identify fraudulent activity. Businesses can use third-party tools to analyze followers and identify fake accounts. If an influencer has a high percentage of fake followers, it's a red flag that they have engaged in fraudulent activity. Accounts with a large number of followers from a single country or region should also make you doubt their trustworthiness. These accounts may have purchased followers from a specific region to make their account appear more popular within that region. However, the engagement rate will be low, and the followers will not be genuine. In addition, fake followers are often bots or inactive accounts with no profile picture, no posts, and no followers. Genuine followers will have complete profiles, a profile picture, and posts on their profile.
3. Check for Consistency. Trustworthy influencers typically have a consistent theme and style in their posts. If an influencer's posts vary significantly in quality, style, and content, it's a red flag that they may not be genuine.
4. Look for Brand Partnerships. Genuine influencers often partner with reputable brands. If an influencer has worked with well-known brands in the past, it's an indication that they are legitimate. Businesses can also reach out to these brands to verify the influencer's credibility.
5. Check for Authenticity. Businesses should also conduct a background check on influencers to verify their authenticity. This can be done by looking at their website, social media profiles, and other online platforms to ensure consistency in their branding and messaging.
Instajet.io Rescue
Platforms like Instjet.io can help businesses identify influencer fraud by providing valuable insights into an influencer's audience and engagement. Managers of the platform manually analyze influencer's followers, engagement, and content to determine the legitimacy of their following. Instajet.io can identify fraudulent influencers by analyzing their engagement rate, which is the percentage of their followers who interact with their content. If an influencer has a large following but a low engagement rate, it's likely that they have purchased fake followers. Instajet.io also checks an influencer's followers to determine the percentage of fake accounts and bots, which can help businesses avoid working with fraudulent influencers. In addition to identifying fraud, Instajet.io can also provide insights into an influencer's audience demographics and interests. This information can help businesses determine whether an influencer's audience aligns with their target audience and whether they are likely to be effective in reaching their marketing goals.
With this platform you can be sure to work only with trustworthy influencers. Moreover, the catalog of the platform allows advertisers to filter influencers by numerous factors, such as location, gender, niche, price, engagement rate, followers, target audience and many more. Therefore, it is not only protecting you from frauds, but also accelerates your marketing campaign preparation. This end-to-end platform also provides advertisers with customized reports after each campaign. The functionality of the platform allows users to get a transparent report of total clicks and views. In addition, for extended analytics, it is possible to calculate your click-through rate and after download all the results. The user-friendly interface makes reporting building smooth and effortless. It is important to mention that all these processes occur within the platform, which greatly simplifies the process for both sides of the collaboration
Overall, Instajet.io can be a valuable tool for businesses looking to identify and avoid influencer fraud on Instagram. By providing valuable insights into an influencer's audience and engagement, these platforms can help businesses make informed decisions about which influencers to work with and protect their investment in influencer marketing.
Summing up
Influencer marketing has become a popular strategy for businesses on social media platforms like Instagram. However, with the growing number of influencers on Instagram, it's becoming more challenging to identify and avoid fraudulent influencers. Influencer fraud, which involves the use of fake followers, likes and engagement is a growing problem in the industry. To avoid fraudulent influencers, businesses can look for engagement rates, analyze followers, check for consistency, look for brand partnerships, and check for authenticity. Third-party platforms like Instajet.io can also help businesses identify influencer fraud by providing valuable insights into an influencer's audience and engagement. Instajet.io can help businesses make informed decisions about which influencers to work with and protect their investment in influencer marketing. To conclude, identifying and avoiding fraudulent influencers is essential for businesses to ensure that they are working with genuine influencers who can deliver real value and help them reach a wider audience on Instagram.
Any questions left?
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