That they are aptly called "influencers" is no coincidence. The mostly young men and women are supposed to get their viewers and followers to buy certain products or services. The downside: Many influencers are purposefully manipulated to trick customers.
Direct advertising again popular as never before
Thanks to the explosion of the Internet, direct advertising has been revived. The main actors, however, are no longer booked actors or well-known personalities from sports, film and television, as is the case in classical television advertising or magazines. Instead, ordinary Internet users, who have achieved fame within their networks, are supposed to sell the products. These so-called influencers were gradually discovered by very large companies and can no longer save themselves from advertising requests with a correspondingly large number of followers. Some of them - the influencers of the first hour - have now brought it by their high profile to the multiple millionaire.
Newcomers want to follow suit
Due to the large, publicly propagated success of the influencers, there are many imitators. There, where a lot of money can be gotten, people with small accounts also want to earn as much as possible. However, so many budding media stars are all right. Even with some unfair methods, companies are paying for the money. Not infrequently, attempts are made to trick people everywhere, at the cost of honesty and, above all, at the expense of consumers or fans.
Number of followers as a measure of success
If companies want to advertise with influencers, their reach is especially important to them. The more followers an account has, the more it is worth the paying customers. Often, however, the number of followers is not real. New fans can already buy with little money and pretend a high range only. But it is not so important to many companies, whether the number of followers is really or artificially pushed. Their main aim is to reach the right target group via the shortest possible route. The fact that they can use the credibility that the influencers enjoy with their fans is quite sufficient.
Other unfair methods besides follower purchase
Not only the artificial enlargement of the own account by the purchase of followers is a well-known unfair method in this business. The use of algorithms for the necessary likes or the artificial generation of mass consequences or delays are also included. However, these meshes differ only slightly from the practices of traditional online advertising. Media houses and marketers must also deal with the topics of click fraud and so-called bot traffic in other areas. To make sure that a company does not betray the fraud of the allegedly large Influencers, it must watch this closely.
How companies check the profiles
For large companies, it's all about checking the engagement rate. This is the ratio of likes and comments relative to followers. In addition, the people responsible scrutinize the quality of the content to make sure that Likes are not just simulated. Even after being admitted to a network, the company monitors all public activities on the account of the influencer. Many extra designed technologies even compare hourly the number of current followers to the rate of engagement. This will immediately detect an unusual increase or decrease in subscriptions or clicks or likes. Suspiciously appearing profiles are then manually checked by a responsible person. If the assumption of targeted fraud is confirmed, the influencer usually flies out of the network. IT no longer flows money between influencer and company.
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