What is Social Media Influencer Marketing Fraud?

Heard the Hype about using Influencers to Promote Your Brand?

Hiring an influencer to promote your product or brand is all the rage in today's social driven world. Users no longer care about what brands are bellowing at them, and would much prefer to have a sense of connection and realness from whom they choose to interact with on social media. Brands can utilize this to their advantage by searching for and sponsoring the people that are highly influential on the actions of others - i.e. an influencer. The birth of any great tool or concept nearly always leads to the birth of the uglier, fraudulent side of things - and influencer marketing is no exception.

Here's how to spot influencer fraud a mile away, so that you can focus only on the ones that will elevate your brand.

Note: A small part of my input was included in Marketers Beware: Influencer Marketing is Real. Check it out to gain insight from other marketers on the same subject. I'm going to continue talking about myself here, though.

How did influencer marketing fraud come about? 

Influencer marketing fraud is similar to any other type of online fraud - someone pretends to be a different person than they say they are, or they are dishonest in the metrics their influencership provides. In the digital age, fraud is more common and easier than ever, especially considering many influencer marketing campaigns are impression and branding focused, which means they are more difficult to track than direct sales. 

What are the common themes of influencer marketing fraud?

Common themes of influencer fraud include: 

1. Purchasing an existing IG account with a large number of followers. These followers likely do not have an emotional connection to the new owner. The user might have 20K followers, but return from a campaign with that user will likely be very low. 
2. Acceptance of money or merchandise after agreeing to take an action (like agreeing to post a photo wearing a clothing item), but never actually taking the agreed upon action. 
3. Tarnishing a brand's reputation or poorly representing a brand.
4. Intentionally inflating or inaccurately reporting rankings and traffic.

How can you tell the difference between real engagement and fake

engagement?

Marketers can distinguish between real engagement and fake engagement by looking more closely at deeper performance indicators rather than basic, surface-level ones. The number of visitors doesn't tell us a lot about the quality of traffic coming to a brand or website, but metrics like number of new users, bounce rate, pages per visit, and obviously conversion rate can paint a clearer picture of the quality of engagement.  Some signs to watch for include:

• Purchased Followers
• Lots of Followers from Distant Places
• No previous visible collaboration
• False location posting
• Unverified (relevant if you're looking for Top Tier influencers only. This may not be relevant to micro-influencers.)

How can the industry stamp out influencer marketing fraud?

Much like other popular platforms such as AirBnB or even Medium, additional social verification can help brands avoid fraudulent influencers. If you've found an influencer on Instagram for example, look for their Facebook, twitter, etc. Look for influencers that have the same or similar usernames across multiple accounts, and make sure to look at the profile pictures of these accounts to ensure they are the same person. Many influencers have their own blogs, and this can be another indication that an influencer is legitimate. It can be helpful to search the influencer's name on Google to search for any red flags.

Lastly, look for influencers that have participated in influencer marketing of some sort in the past - you may be able to reach out to those brands and inquire about the quality of the influencer. 

While many influencer marketing campaigns aim on speed and the quantity of influencers, a bit more manual effort and a focus on the quality of influencers can prevent fraud in the long run. VisualFizz recommends starting with what is called a "Micro Influencer" - an influencer that focuses on small local markets, niche topics, or only works with grassroots brands. While a local micro-influencer in your hometown will likely not get the same engagement as a collab with Gigi Hadid would, they can help you to make deeper, emotional connections with your audience.