Can you spot a fake social media influencer?

Have you considered promoting your businesses products or services with a social media influencer? Social media influencers are a great way to get your product noticed online. Influencers not only have the ability to get a brand noticed by a large audience, but the ability to prompt their followers to buy something!

Genuine social media influencers build a relationship with those who follow them so that they trust their opinions. Sponsoring someone with a large following on social media to post about your brand or product can dramatically increase sales. Sounds great, right? Well there’s a lot to consider when choosing a social media influencer to promote your products – and if you get it wrong it can end up costing your business money rather than make money.

Organic vs fake social media influencers

What you need to be mindful of when choosing an influencer is that not all social media stars are legitimate. There are two types of people with large followings on the Internet – organic/real influencers, and fake influencers.

Influencers with an organic following are people who have not paid for any followers or promotion to gain their influencer status. They have gained their following over time because of the content they post (or because they are a traditional celebrity). Fake social media influencers have bought their followers, and often trick brands into paying them money to promote a product.

How to spot a fake influencer

There’s a few quick ways to check if someone on social media has a real following:

1. Check their followers. Fake influencers pay for services that create fake accounts to follow their account. Take a quick look at their followers and see if they have multiple follows in a row with the same username structure, or if the accounts that follow them don’t look like real people.
2. Look at their post likes & comments. Take scroll through their posts and take note of the amount of likes and comments they have on each post. A fake influencer is likely to have a similar amount of likes and comments on each post. An organic influencer will have variation – not each post should perform the same.
3. Check their following history. There are tools online that allow you to view an influencer’s follower history. An organic influencer should show a slow, steady growth that has occurred over at least a year. A fake influencer will be easy to spot as their following occurs suddenly in a short amount of time.

Interested in using social media influencers?

Want to promote your products and services through a social media influencer but don’t have the time to find a real influencer who’s the right fit for your business?

Contact Redsteps! Our digital marketing team can find an influencer who is right for you.