INFLUENCER FRAUD Weeding out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional
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INFLUENCER FRAUD Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional PRESENTED BY WWW.LILIANRAJI.COM www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 1 TABLE OF CONTENT 3 Introduction 6 First of All, Why Bother? 10 The Rise of Influencer Fraud 12 Choose Your Resources Carefully 13 Identifying the Red Flags 1. Is Your Candidate Really Influencing Anyone? 2. Is Your Candidate a Ghost Whisperer? 3. Has Your Candidate Suddenly Become Really, Really Popular? 4. Is Your Candidate a Free Spirit? 19 Going Deeper 5. Are Your Candidates’ Followers People of Few Words? 6. Does Your Candidate Appear to Be a Rockstar to Many, Many Brands? 7. Is Your Candidate an International Influencer of Mystery? 8. Does Your Candidate Deal with Questionable People? 9. Is Your Candidate an Introvert? 26 Taking Down the Most Sophisticated Fraudsters 10. Is Your Candidate a Tease? 11. Is Your Candidate a Pod Person? 12. Does Your Candidate Suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder? 13. Does Your Candidate Think KPI Stands for “Keep Paying Influencer?” 35 A Different Kind of Influencer Fraud 37 About The Lilian Raji Agency 38 Appendix: The Influencer Marketing Toolkit 1. Before You Start... 2. The Creative Brief Part I 3. The Creative Brief Part II 4. The Basics: What You’re Looking for at First Glance 5. Time to Connect - Template I 6. Time to Connect - Template II 7. Influencer Profile 8. Sample Influencer Contract www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 2 INTRODUCTION In March 2018, Points North Group released the study, “Brands Whose Instagram Sponsored Posts Had Highest Fake Follower % (>$10k Spend).” Ad Age subsequently published Study Of Influencer Spenders Finds Big Names, Lots Of Fake Followers, where the author noted, “Pampers and Olay ranked No. 4 and 10, respectively, on the list of brands with the most fake followers among their paid influencers last month; Pampers with 32 percent and Olay with 19 percent. Topping the study’s list: Ritz-Carlton, with a whopping 78 percent of fake followers for its influencers.” This was shocking to read, given the global scale and resources of these companies. Points North Group also analyzed accounts of influencers chosen by a major cosmetic brand for their influencer marketing campaign. The results revealed the brand had wasted $600,000 on influencers whose accounts were composed primarily of fake followers -- bots without bodies or credit cards to act on the influencers’ endorsement of the brand. The cosmetic brand was a victim of influencer fraud. www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 3 The base formula for compensating influencers is roughly $100 per 1,000 followers. The greater the follower count, the more an influencer can charge. This gives incentive for fraudsters to inflate their follower counts, using deceptive and hard to recognize practices going beyond just buying fake followers. Since the Ad Age article was first published, brands are now becoming wiser to the financial loss influencer fraud creates. Yet many still struggle with combatting this problem, especially when the most obvious measure of spotting fake followers – engagement ratio to follower count – gives way to much more sophisticated and complex methods, such as influencer pods and “botting.” Over the next few pages, you’ll discover the many techniques influencer fraudsters use to swindle you out of your marketing dollars. You’ll also learn the process we use at The Lilian Raji Agency to vet influencers for our client projects, ensuring their marketing dollars aren’t scammed by the fakers, liars and the delusional. While automation and apps are the way of the future, detecting influencer fraud still requires a human touch to get the most accurate results. We manually screen each influencer we recommend across a checklist of criteria designed to identify manipulative tactics. This e-book will teach you our process. Despite assurances from expensive influencer marketing companies to provide pre- vetted influencer recommendations, we haven’t found one whose screening process is as comprehensive as ours. In all fairness to these companies, we’re typically vetting an initial candidate list of about 250 potential influencers to narrow down to a final handful for a campaign. Influencer marketing companies, however, represent thousands of influencers and are limited by the sheer size of their inventory to perform the comprehensive deep dive you’re about to learn. We still advocate using some influencer marketing agencies to create your initial list, as they’re beneficial in highlighting potentially good candidates you may otherwise never know. Thereafter, however, it’s up to you to ensure final candidates can legitimately deliver your ROI. www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 4 In the appendix, I’ve included templates we use for our influencer marketing process, to go along with the 13-point checklist covered in this e-book for vetting influencers. I hope you find these templates as useful to you as they’ve been to our team. Should you need an outside perspective on your influencer marketing strategy, or any other communications strategy, don’t hesitate to contact us. The Lilian Raji Agency is structured to serve clients in one of two capacities: In one capacity, you get our complete agency services, where, after deeply getting to know your business, we design and execute strategic marketing and public relations efforts to achieve your priorities. We do all the work; you get all the credit. This can be under an ongoing retainer or as a specific project, such as a product launch or an influencer marketing campaign. In another capacity, we provide two decades of experience helping companies expand their U.S. presence in an advisory role. We spend multiple days in your headquarters, learning everything about your business under a strict NDA. With this comprehensive knowledge, we then work with you to design a strategic marketing and public relations plan tailored exclusively for you. We can stop there, or you can bring us back to teach your team everything they need to know to execute the plan on their own, with us always on standby to answer questions, oversee implementation and provide resources and personal contacts. However The Lilian Raji Agency may be able to help you, don’t hesitate to contact me directly at [email protected] or (646) 789-4427 ext 701. www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 5 FIRST OF ALL, WHY BOTHER? The world is changing, and with it, how we reach our target customers. Where I once advocated communication strategies revolving mostly around media outreach, special events and maintaining an active Facebook presence, I now embrace the PESO model as the way forward. PESO is an acronym coined by the illustrious Gini Dietrich, which stands for Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned. Influencer marketing incorporates all of this, where • You’ll sometimes pay an influencer to promote your brand. • In the course of promoting you, the influencer may use assets you own. • When an influencer discovers you by herself, she may share that discovery, along with your assets, with her followers. • And clearly, something you did earned that sharing. The ROI on influencer marketing is estimated at 11 times the value received from traditional advertising. 11 TapInfluence study with Nielsen Catalina Solutions, 2016 www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 6 According to a Tomoson poll of marketing professionals, every dollar spent on influencer marketing yields a return of $6.50 in value. 71% of consumers use social media to help guide their purchasing decision. ---Hubspot And for every CMO who lays awake at night, trying to figure out how to reach those pesky millennials, influencer marketing has become the golden ticket. 61% of young people aged 18 to 34 admit a social media influencer has affected their consumer decisions. Have social media influencers in some way ever influenced your consimer buying decision? Influencer Marketing 2020 Report by Influencer Intelligence www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 7 The Influencer Marketing industry across all social media platforms is currently valued at around $2 billion. That number will jump to $10 billion by 2020. SocialMediaToday.com Of this $10 billion, $2.3 billion will be spent on Instagram influencers. For this reason, Instagram will be our exclusive focus in this book. Statista www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 8 By the end of 2019, there’ll be an estimated 4.95 million Instagram sponsored posts. In 2016, there was only 1.26 million. Statista And as of June 2018, monthly Instagram users have exceeded 1 billion worldwide. The highest concentration -- just over 10 percent of that value at 111 million users -- live in the United States. Brazil comes in second at 66 million, India third at 64 million and Indonesia fourth at 56 million. Keep note of this as these latter three countries play a significant role in Influencer Fraud. Statista www.lilianraji.com | Influencer Fraud: Weeding Out the Fakers, Liars and the Delusional | 9 THE RISE OF INFLUENCER FRAUD While no one is certain how many self-described influencers exist on Instagram, the astronomical income potential brings wannabe influencers to the platform daily. Lured by established non-celebrity influencers such as Camila Coelho, who charges $10,750 per post for brands to have access to her 8 million followers, and Chiara Ferragni, who leads the category pack at a whopping $19,500 per post to her 17 million followers, an instant career as an influencer is now more desirable than becoming a doctor.