Experiment Reveals How Surprisingly Easy It Is To Become A Fake Instagram Star And Get Brands To Pay You
Instagram influencer marketing is now a $1 billion dollar industry, and you don’t need a cute dog or a book-worthy lifestyle to get into the game. According to an investigation by marketing agency Mediakix, anyone can fake their way into signing profitable contracts with brands.
The agency created two fictitious Instagram accounts: 1) ‘a lifestyle and fashion-centric Instagram model’ and 2) ‘a travel and adventure photographer.’ For the first account, Mediakix hired a model and generated the entire channel content through a one-day photo shoot. Introducing Alexa Rae (calibeachgirl310). The second account was dedicated to Amanda Smith (wanderingggirl), and this time Mediakix went even further. The entire feed was composed of free stock photos of random places across the world and blonde girls, always posing facing away from the camera.
After setting up fake personalities and generating their content, the agency started purchasing followers. “We started with buying 1,000 followers per day because we were concerned that purchasing too many followers at the onset would result in Instagram flagging the account,” Mediakix stated. “However, we quickly found that we were able to buy up to 15,000 followers at a time without encountering any issues.” And how much does this army cost? Between $3-$8 per 1,000.
Essentially, if the followers don’t like or comment on posts, they’re kind of worthless. So the next step was to purchase fake engagement. “Once we had accumulated a few thousand followers for each account, we started buying likes and comments.” Mediakix paid about 12 cents per comment, and between $4-9 per 1,000 likes. For each photo, they purchased 500 to 2,500 likes and 10 to 50 comments. The entire experiment ended up costing Mediakix about $1,000 (around $700 for setting up calibeachgirl310 and around $300 for wanderingggirl). After calibeachgirl310 and wanderingggirl reached 10,000 followers (the threshold amount for signing up on most influencer marketing platforms), Mediakix started applying them for sponsorship deals. “We secured four paid brand deals total, two for each account. The fashion account secured one deal with a swimsuit company and one with a national food and beverage company.” “The travel account secured brand deals with an alcohol brand and the same national food and beverage company. For each campaign, the “influencers” were offered monetary compensation, free product, or both.”
The results are worrying for everyone spending money on influencer marketing campaigns. Instagrammers with a fake following and/or engagement could be defrauding brands from millions of dollars.
More info: mediakix.com (h/t: highsnobiety)
Instagram influencer marketing is now a $1 billion dollar industry, but it’s not that hard to become a part of it
To show how easy it is, marketing agency Mediakix decided to conduct an experiment
They set up two fake accounts and generated the entire channel content using free stock photos and organizing a one-day photo shoot
Then all they needed to do was to purchase some followers
“We started with buying 1,000 followers per day because we were concerned that purchasing too many followers at the onset would result in Instagram flagging the account”
“However, we quickly found that we were able to buy up to 15,000 followers at a time without any issues”
And how much does this army cost? Between $3-$8 per 1,000
“Once we had accumulated a few thousand followers for each account, we started buying likes and comments”
Mediakix paid about 12 cents per comment, and between $4-9 per 1,000 likes
Soon, the fake accounts reached 10,000 followers and then they were able to apply them for sponsorship deals
In the end, the two accounts have secured four paid brand deals total, two for each account. Setting up both accounts cost Mediakix around $1,000. Too easy, right?
Woomio.com - can check every instagram account you want to work with. Check this video out. https://vimeo.com/224204330 We analyse the profile data on the content on each profile to tell you, if there has been a real growth curve on followers, content and the engagement levels that has a unreal curve plus we analyse where the audience is from. We can do this on all profiles :) Signup and you will never have this problem again.
Awesome, Zeth! Will try it out at once! Is it free to try out?
Load More Replies...I believe it. There are so many account with 50K followers, they follow 100 themselves, and they've posted 50 photos. Don't even get me started on the bots that leave random comments on photos (though I did have a good laugh when someone posted "this is so cool" on a photo of my grandparents' memorial service). Thanks Bot!
Sincere condolences, Wanderlustladies. Terrible about the bot, but you handled it with humor and grace.
Load More Replies...Paid for commenting?? Blasphemy!! I reserve the right to judge people on the internet without getting paid for it..
although it would be nice to be actually paid for spreading the judgement :P
Load More Replies...So.. how much did they make net of expenses? that's the whole point they are trying to prove right?
I presume you know that the Clinton campaign spent far more money than the Trump campaign... Your oversight was no doubt entirely accidental.
Load More Replies...Reflects badly on the brands who are performing no due diligence on the accounts they are signing up with.
They should use Woomio.com - then they can check every instagram account they want to work with. Check this video out. https://vimeo.com/224204330. Woomio analyse the profile data on the content on each profile to tell you, if there has been a real growth curve on followers, content and the engagement levels that has a unreal curve plus we analyse where the audience is from. We can do this on all profiles :) Signup and you will never have this problem again.
Load More Replies...Raah if anyone wanna try this out lol, smgains.com is the best website to get your prices down! selling cheap likes & followers and even automatic likes for your accounts!
apparently a friend of mine (a student) who has 11K+ follower on instagram (she's cute btw) generate about $45 a week just from her account, mostly some brands/shop pay her to promote their products and give her the products that used to be sponsored for free. $45 dollar in my country is a lot and enough to support yourself for about 2 weeks, and i'm sitting here with 600 followers
Thank goodness I am only really active on youtube where this doesn't happen! ... /oblivious mode off and back to reality hahaha.
how much were those 4 brand deals worth? seeing that it's possible to get sponsorship on fake accounts is one thing, but is it profitable. the investment was around 1000$, does that include the time sink of scouring the web for those travel photos, and all the writing?
Sure it's easy for anyone to get to this point on Instagram, but it's actually pretty easy to figure out who's fake and who's legit with the right tools! In case anyone here runs a business, we just wrote a blog post that shows a bunch of easy ways to spot them! http://www.elitejetsetter.com/spotting-fake-influencers/
Seriously, how much money did u receive from Mediakix for writing this article? Its a marketing campaign from Mediakix, nothing more
That behavior has “drugged” the market, sweeping aside the traditional mechanism of appreciation or rejection (or indifference too )
"defrauding brands"? The only ones who do commit fraud are these brands that pay influencers to promote their s**t products which no one would otherwise buy.
Thanks for the interesting article. now people are very chasing popularity in the instagram and even use all sorts of tools like bigbangram.com. in my opinion it is much better to be an original and a real person. it's much more interesting
It is really interesting article, thank you ! now people are very chasing popularity in the instagram and even use all sorts of tools like bigbangram.com. in my opinion it is much better to be an original and a real person. it's much more interesting
How is this fraud? They are just buying advertising support because of perceived value. Unless it's illegal to buy likes and fans (and frankly, i wish it were, just like buying reviews), i don't think this classifies as "fraud". It's just speculation, like the whole effing stock market (no actual value).
google "crime of false pretenses" or "larceny by trick" - once learning of the deception the deceived party can sue or even press criminal charges against the deceiver
google "crime of false pretenses" or "larceny by trick" - once learning of the deception the deceived party can sue or even press criminal charges against the deceiver in some instances
One more important nugget to point out - both accounts appear to be imitating pretty white girls. Although thematically different, and part of the point being you can buy support, if you are already a pretty white girl... just start an account and throw selfies on it sometimes.
Bad thing I did an article for a magazine on one artist and as a social media manager... I discovered he was buying likes and followers for all his sites. Sad as an a creative... I feel it is better to get guinie likes on social media so that you evolve and grow. Buying likes means you have no way to know how well people like your work. Needless to say this artist lost credibility with me and when asked to write about this artist I say No and tell them why. See I am a journalist, artist and social media manager thus I can figure out when other artists pull this stunt. Bad thing is major companies fall for it.
I can tell you a free way to become an instagram star ...with some time
It's very simple to verify the quality of followers of any influencer with tools like InfluencerDB. Here is a link to one of the profiles: https://www.influencerdb.net/insights/712d1a77-402c-4d83-b53b-6e82f55e70a7/
Much better on Woomio.com plus starting price is €7 - can check every instagram account you want to work with. Check this video out. https://vimeo.com/224204330 We analyse the profile data on the content on each profile to tell you, if there has been a real growth curve on followers, content and the engagement levels that has a unreal curve plus we analyse where the audience is from. We can do this on all profiles :) Signup and you will never have this problem again.
Load More Replies...Seriously, how much money did u receive from Mediakix for writing this article? Its a marketing campaign from Mediakix!
So... you pay at least 300/700 dollars to get what, free beer??? nah, thanx
No to make profit - "For each campaign, the “influencers” were offered monetary compensation, free product, or both.”
Load More Replies...I can make ur accounts really quick and a bit cheaper than the prices are here :) Including likes, comments, follower :) m.me/szymon.cirocki
Woomio.com - can check every instagram account you want to work with. Check this video out. https://vimeo.com/224204330 We analyse the profile data on the content on each profile to tell you, if there has been a real growth curve on followers, content and the engagement levels that has a unreal curve plus we analyse where the audience is from. We can do this on all profiles :) Signup and you will never have this problem again.
Awesome, Zeth! Will try it out at once! Is it free to try out?
Load More Replies...I believe it. There are so many account with 50K followers, they follow 100 themselves, and they've posted 50 photos. Don't even get me started on the bots that leave random comments on photos (though I did have a good laugh when someone posted "this is so cool" on a photo of my grandparents' memorial service). Thanks Bot!
Sincere condolences, Wanderlustladies. Terrible about the bot, but you handled it with humor and grace.
Load More Replies...Paid for commenting?? Blasphemy!! I reserve the right to judge people on the internet without getting paid for it..
although it would be nice to be actually paid for spreading the judgement :P
Load More Replies...So.. how much did they make net of expenses? that's the whole point they are trying to prove right?
I presume you know that the Clinton campaign spent far more money than the Trump campaign... Your oversight was no doubt entirely accidental.
Load More Replies...Reflects badly on the brands who are performing no due diligence on the accounts they are signing up with.
They should use Woomio.com - then they can check every instagram account they want to work with. Check this video out. https://vimeo.com/224204330. Woomio analyse the profile data on the content on each profile to tell you, if there has been a real growth curve on followers, content and the engagement levels that has a unreal curve plus we analyse where the audience is from. We can do this on all profiles :) Signup and you will never have this problem again.
Load More Replies...Raah if anyone wanna try this out lol, smgains.com is the best website to get your prices down! selling cheap likes & followers and even automatic likes for your accounts!
apparently a friend of mine (a student) who has 11K+ follower on instagram (she's cute btw) generate about $45 a week just from her account, mostly some brands/shop pay her to promote their products and give her the products that used to be sponsored for free. $45 dollar in my country is a lot and enough to support yourself for about 2 weeks, and i'm sitting here with 600 followers
Thank goodness I am only really active on youtube where this doesn't happen! ... /oblivious mode off and back to reality hahaha.
how much were those 4 brand deals worth? seeing that it's possible to get sponsorship on fake accounts is one thing, but is it profitable. the investment was around 1000$, does that include the time sink of scouring the web for those travel photos, and all the writing?
Sure it's easy for anyone to get to this point on Instagram, but it's actually pretty easy to figure out who's fake and who's legit with the right tools! In case anyone here runs a business, we just wrote a blog post that shows a bunch of easy ways to spot them! http://www.elitejetsetter.com/spotting-fake-influencers/
Seriously, how much money did u receive from Mediakix for writing this article? Its a marketing campaign from Mediakix, nothing more
That behavior has “drugged” the market, sweeping aside the traditional mechanism of appreciation or rejection (or indifference too )
"defrauding brands"? The only ones who do commit fraud are these brands that pay influencers to promote their s**t products which no one would otherwise buy.
Thanks for the interesting article. now people are very chasing popularity in the instagram and even use all sorts of tools like bigbangram.com. in my opinion it is much better to be an original and a real person. it's much more interesting
It is really interesting article, thank you ! now people are very chasing popularity in the instagram and even use all sorts of tools like bigbangram.com. in my opinion it is much better to be an original and a real person. it's much more interesting
How is this fraud? They are just buying advertising support because of perceived value. Unless it's illegal to buy likes and fans (and frankly, i wish it were, just like buying reviews), i don't think this classifies as "fraud". It's just speculation, like the whole effing stock market (no actual value).
google "crime of false pretenses" or "larceny by trick" - once learning of the deception the deceived party can sue or even press criminal charges against the deceiver
google "crime of false pretenses" or "larceny by trick" - once learning of the deception the deceived party can sue or even press criminal charges against the deceiver in some instances
One more important nugget to point out - both accounts appear to be imitating pretty white girls. Although thematically different, and part of the point being you can buy support, if you are already a pretty white girl... just start an account and throw selfies on it sometimes.
Bad thing I did an article for a magazine on one artist and as a social media manager... I discovered he was buying likes and followers for all his sites. Sad as an a creative... I feel it is better to get guinie likes on social media so that you evolve and grow. Buying likes means you have no way to know how well people like your work. Needless to say this artist lost credibility with me and when asked to write about this artist I say No and tell them why. See I am a journalist, artist and social media manager thus I can figure out when other artists pull this stunt. Bad thing is major companies fall for it.
I can tell you a free way to become an instagram star ...with some time
It's very simple to verify the quality of followers of any influencer with tools like InfluencerDB. Here is a link to one of the profiles: https://www.influencerdb.net/insights/712d1a77-402c-4d83-b53b-6e82f55e70a7/
Much better on Woomio.com plus starting price is €7 - can check every instagram account you want to work with. Check this video out. https://vimeo.com/224204330 We analyse the profile data on the content on each profile to tell you, if there has been a real growth curve on followers, content and the engagement levels that has a unreal curve plus we analyse where the audience is from. We can do this on all profiles :) Signup and you will never have this problem again.
Load More Replies...Seriously, how much money did u receive from Mediakix for writing this article? Its a marketing campaign from Mediakix!
So... you pay at least 300/700 dollars to get what, free beer??? nah, thanx
No to make profit - "For each campaign, the “influencers” were offered monetary compensation, free product, or both.”
Load More Replies...I can make ur accounts really quick and a bit cheaper than the prices are here :) Including likes, comments, follower :) m.me/szymon.cirocki
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