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Why It’s Important to Know Your Campaign Influencers Have Real Followers

fake followers

Imagine that your brand has partnered with seemingly popular influencers to promote the launch of a new product. Your team is in a hurry, excited about working with influencers. But nobody realizes the importance of vetting the influencers and their followers first.

You’ve sunk a lot of money and time into these influencer marketing campaigns, and maybe initially, there’s a buzz around them. But as the days pass, you find you’re not getting the engagement, leads, traffic or conversions you expected. So exactly what happened?

It’s simple. Fake followers might have delivered a sucker punch to your campaign. Fake followers are a problem for brands because they falsely inflate influencers’ numbers. It’s a problem you might encounter working with anyone from micro-influencers to top celebrity influencers. And they often do it to an outrageous degree.

More than 60 percent of marketers and brands reported having dealt with influencer fraud in previous campaigns, according to an Influencer Marketing Hub study. It’s a problem that’s gotten so bad that it’s spurred the growth of companies dedicated to detecting influencer-follower fraud.

Unscrupulous influencers buy fraudulent followers from shady vendors who do a booming global business. But because these followers aren’t real people, their likes, comments and follows aren’t real either. Instead of live human followers, what you’ve blown your budget on are actually bots programmed to mimic the actions of real followers.

Or, say the influencer has paid human followers. They’re probably not members of the market you want to target, and their engagement isn’t genuine. Which means they’re probably not interested in what you’re selling, and your campaign isn’t going to reach its goals.

Why Are Fake Followers a Problem for Brands?

Fake followers are a problem for brands for a host of reasons. For starters, they’re costly and don’t deliver the ROI you need. They can also affect your brand’s image and credibility with consumers when they realize your followers aren’t authentic. Fake followers result in ineffective social media marketing campaigns with far-reaching effects. So if it seems like your social media campaign is running in place and not getting anywhere, fake followers are potential culprits.

Consumers can often sense when an influencer’s followers aren’t real and will be turned off by the empty hype. Surrounded by fake followers on social media, real followers may find the influencer increasingly inauthentic. They might then start dropping off in droves. As the influencer loses followers, your brand’s social media reach shrinks, too.

What’s the Benefit of Working with Influencers Who Have Real Followers?

Working with influencers who have real followers is beneficial to brands because these influencers deliver results. Their enthusiasm for your product and follow-through is real. And real followers share posts with other people who also become real followers, customers and advocates of your brand.

Influencers that work to get real, organic growth with their followers are more likely to be in it for the long term. They’re not looking to make a quick buck by buying thousands of followers to mislead brands into short-term partnerships. If influencers are trustworthy when it comes to their followers, that honesty likely carries over into their dealings with brands in general.

Real followers can also give genuine feedback about your product that you can use to tweak it or to address any customer service issues. Fake followers that only post generic positive statements about your brand can make it difficult to see problems you need to fix. They create a false sense of success that can cause big problems with production and budgeting for the future.

Why Brands Should Run a “Fake Followers Check” on Influencers

There are many reasons why it’s important for brands to run a fake followers check on influencers.

Remember, just as you spend time and money researching your target market, it’s important to thoroughly research the influencers you’re considering partnering with. Running a fake follower check can help you find influencers that truly reach the audience you want. It’s a simple action that can protect your brand on a number of fronts and produce long-term benefits.

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