They huff and puff, put on a big display to impress you with their social media numbers… followers, engagement, even brand deals.

But when you peek behind the curtain, you’re faced with the nasty truth:  Some are nothing more than an illusion – all smoke and mirrors.

This is because they built their influence using tricks and short cuts to attract followers without putting in the time and effort needed to attract a genuinely engaged audience. 

Instead, their emphasis is on acquiring followers quickly, so they can impress brands into sponsoring content with them.

So how do you get a peek behind the curtain?

Fortunately, there is a tool that can help you do this.  However, let’s first take a look at the strategies many Instagrammers use to grow their accounts quickly, with minimal effort and that jeopardize the very influence they are trying to build.

Let’s dive in…

#1: Buying fake followers

We’ve talked about this problem before but unfortunately it still persists.

This is obvious but buying fake followers is a poor strategy because they are not real people.  Instead, they are bots, idle or stolen accounts that don’t engage with your content. 

It’s by no means limited to beauty influencers!

It’s a common problem found in many business niches including fashion, travel and food to name just a few.  No matter the niche, however, the trouble is some people are still trying to short cut their way to becoming an influencer, achieving status that they haven’t earned and don’t deserve.

Fortunately, brands are getting wise to this and influencer platforms and tools are getting better at spotting the strategy as you’ll see.

#2: The follow/unfollow strategy

This a common strategy used by Instagrammers and it’s simple: they follow accounts who might be interested in their content, wait a few days, and then unfollow them hoping they don’t notice.

If they don’t notice, they’ve kept them as followers while keeping their own follower count low. 

The reason is simple:

Keeping the number of people you follow low in relation to the number of people who follow you tells the Instagram algorithm that you are influential and your account is a good one.  It’s why you’ll often see huge accounts with millions of followers follow very few (if any) in return.

Okay, so what’s so bad about the follow/unfollow strategy?

First, automatically following and unfollowing is a direct violation of Instagram’s terms and conditions – so it’s not a good idea.

Also, it’s acting like a spammer, and Instagrammers who use this trick are manipulating (rather than persuading) users’ attention.

While this method can grow an Instagram follower count, they’re not growing the audience they really want to influence.

Therefore, even if they manage to grow their account to tens of thousands of followers but have little to no engagement, it isn’t worth it.

And know this, the followers who don’t engage are known as ghost followers.  Attract too many of them and they’ll drag down an account so it gets less organic reach.

This is because Instagram tends to show users posts that are liked and commented on more than others.

While analyzing hundreds of Instagram accounts the folks at HypeAuditor have noticed that users who practice follow/unfollow have a bigger percentage of ghost followers than those who don’t.

That’s something a good influencer doesn’t want.

Here’s a quick peek at what their tool can reveal:

HypeAuditor gives brands and marketers a significant peek behind the curtain so no one can play Wizard of Oz and fool you. 

From the example above, we can see what percentage of the followers are real people, how many of them are other influencers (not a bad thing mind you), mass followers and suspicious accounts (likely bots).

So, in the case of this influencer, we know that her “reachability” to her followers can be improved and that the authenticity percentage can be improved too – the 48.8% number above indicates room for improvement as the average for accounts her size (50k) is about 61%.

HypeAuditor also points out that this influencer is using Instagram engagement pods (more on this later). 

I checked with the influencer and she confirmed she’s using them for engagement and she was shocked that a tool could pick up on that.

#3: Loop Giveaways

A loop giveaway on Instagram consists of a dozen or more accounts teaming up to buy a prize, and then creating a “loop” of steps that users are required follow in order to enter to win the giveaway.

The entrants are required to follow every account in the loop in order to enter to win, thus an influencer could theoretically come away with hundreds or even thousands of new followers.

But all the new followers acquired from a loop giveaway likely followed to enter the contest and not because they’re interested in the content. 

Many of the new followers will unfollow shortly after the content is complete or turn into ghost followers.

#4: Engagement pods

Commonly known as Instagram pods or boost groups, these are private groups of twenty or more Instagrammers who team up to grow their Instagram engagement with the aim of getting more followers.

Pod members communicate with each other via messenger, usually Telegram, to keep the conversation off the Instagram and Facebook platforms so they don’t get detected. The trick works because every time someone in the pod publishes a new Instagram post, they share it in the group message thread. Pod members will then click on the post, like it, and leave a comment.

This method will increase engagement, but only while the Instagrammer remains in the pod. Once they leave the group engagement will drop.  Also, many engagement pods are made up of accounts that aren’t in the same niche, so the audience they’re collecting is disparate and not focused on the core audience they want to reach.

Another problem is that engagement pods usually don’t stick around for long as the members usually aren’t concentrated on helping each other over an extended period of time. 

That’s because they get distracted and stop being active.

Like the other tricks above, this one doesn’t help collect focused, quality followers.  It helps to collect followers for the sake of followers and nothing else.

#5: Paid Shout-outs

An Instagram shout-out is a post in other content creator’s account, presenting it to their followers and suggesting that they follow the account.

Generally, a shout-out is a good practice, but many creators use it incorrectly. The mistake they make is to collaborate with special shout-out pages or non-relevant creators.

But it gets worse:

Some unscrupulous shout out accounts buy bots for their “advertisers” in order to justify the cost of a shout-out.

They lose because even though they get a bunch of new followers many of these new followers are inactive and bots.

So how does an Instagrammer legitimately build influence?

Okay, now that you know the pitfalls, let’s spend some time talking about what Instagrammers can do to legitimately build a following, credibility and influence.

Tip #1: Publish Good Quality Content – Consistently

High quality photos are important, but the truth is there’s need to spend money on an expensive camera.  A mobile phone camera is just fine.

But don’t just focus on good photos. Captions are also important because they are the key to having a bigger and better reach.

Good captions are the best way to inspire followers to comment on posts.

So be sure to post genuine opinions, thoughts and observations.  This is a big component to showing individuality and personality.

Good captions can also motivate others to take an action.

Tip #2: Show up and engage with followers

People like to know they are valued for their thoughts and opinions, so show up and be present and respond.

Engaging with followers is a good way to get them talking.

The easiest way is to ask questions, as it encourages people to stop and comment instead of just scrolling past. Also, people love to give their opinions, so Instagrammers should use this to their advantage.

Additionally, engage with other creators in the niche.

Regularly comment on their posts and don’t forget to also respond to the comments received. This shows people that they are valued.

Tip #3: Do shout-outs with relevant content creators

As I said earlier, shout-outs are one of the tools that can help to grow an audience, but they have to be done correctly.

First, be sure to collaborate with relevant influencers within the same niche.

Secondly, Instagrammer should check the influencers for authenticity using HypeAuditor. Don’t be fooled by fancy pictures and a big follower count.  Be sure to check their engagement rate at the very least. Like a brand, Instagrammers should check other Instagrammers for veracity.

HypeAuditor will generate a report that will shows the quality of the audience of any Instagrammer including where their likes and comments come from.

Tip #4: Leverage official Instagram ads

Think about spending some money on Instagram ads. It’s is a good way to grow a following, but the result depends on creativity and targeting.

Study your audience carefully and pay attention to who engages the most. Then target the ad to a similar audience.

For example:

If the core audience likes content about beauty and fragrance and they are between 25 and 35 years old, then target these people with ads.

Also, if you plan to boost a post, make sure it speaks to the audience. If the account is mostly about make-up, share some tips and secrets. Together with a fantastic photo this will produce a better result.

Tip #5: Use narrow, well defined hashtags

People don’t search for interesting accounts under broad hashtags like #beauty, #love, #instagram and so on. They are too broad, and the selection is endless. 

Instagrammers who use hashtags like these will get lost in the giant sea of Instagram and no one will find them.

Instead use more specific and relevant tags like #beautyqueens, #browtinting, #makeuplesson and others that are used less often and more descriptive.

Another reason to use more limited hashtags is to protect the account from users who practice the follow/unfollow method. Also it attracts followers who actually like the content who are relevant to the niche and content.

Wrapping Up

Identifying quality influencers takes time. The good news is that tools are now available to do so. Also, building influence on Instagram takes a lot of time and effort.

It’s human nature to want to find shortcuts to get there faster -by brands and influencers alike. This should be resisted by both.   

Brands should be careful about who they are working with and Instagrammers shouldn’t shortchange themselves by following questionable methods to grow their accounts.

Instead, brands should focus on relevant, quality influencers who have genuine influence with their followers.  Influencers should focus on organic growth, mindful content creation, and consistent analytics.

Both sides should use tools like HypeAuditor to peek behind the curtain, so they don’t get fooled by those pretending to be the Wizard of Oz.

The post How Brands and Instagrammers Can Spot Fake Influencers appeared first on The Beauty Influencers.

It might also provide some needed case studies about how not to do things.  We’ll have to see how this all shakes out…

The latest flap to roil an already turbulent influencer industry came from an unlikely source.  It was sparked by Marlena Stell @MarlenaStell –a beauty influencer who has been building her own influence and credibility for the past ten years in addition to recently starting her own beauty brand.

Stell published a YouTube video in which she bemoans the current state of influencer marketing and how it’s devolved into a prickly environment where many are focused on nothing but greed and fame over makeup and relationships.

Her video is instructive because she straddles both sides of the coin – being a well-established beauty influencer as well as a business woman representing her own start-up brand. 

As she explains in her video, she seems genuinely conflicted about the industry and what it’s devolving into.

Honestly, her observations aren’t unusual for a rapidly growing industry where the guard rails for professional behavior and rules of engagement are few.

Brands clamor to leverage influencers and often reward larger audience sizes over authenticity, relationships, and a genuine desire to connect and help their audiences.  Instead, she says, it’s all about sales.

This last part is where Stell seems the most disappointed. 

As she tells it, the focus of many beauty influencers has shifted away from the makeup and connecting with followers to forge deeper relationships with brands.

Instead, she claims, the focus for many influencers seems to have has shifted to social climbing, becoming famous and padding their wallets.

As I’ve written about before, the beauty industry is paving new ground where influencer marketing is concerned while showing its ugly side in the process.

But let’s recall why influencers became important at all.

Influencer marketing gained traction because consumers started to trust the “regular” people they were seeing on Instagram and YouTube, instead of the professionally made up models shown in magazines and on television.

The authenticity and relatability they brought was refreshing and something magazines and TV couldn’t compete with.  Soon it became evident that these regular people could influence followers to buy stuff.

Once that came about, it gave rise to personalities like Marlena Stell, who ended up with a huge following and makeup brand of her own.

And she’s not alone because there are plenty of others who followed in her footsteps and made the jump from influencer to beauty brand start-up.

It’s one thing to encounter the customary greed and back stabbing behavior found in high growth situations where opportunity is ripe, but it’s another to claim some influencers are threatening to tell their followers not to buy your products if you don’t pay them enough. 

Even worse, some brands evidently are willing to pay influencers to trash competitors in their posts and videos. 

Stell wasn’t willing to name anyone, but she was very clear that she knew this behavior was happening.

Kevin James Bennett @kjbennettbeauty –an Emmy Award-winning Cosmetic Developer, Makeup Artist, Educator and Journalist, with a following of 40K of his own, claims he was actually offered the opportunity to pay for the “dedicated negative review of a competitor’s product” of a brand he consulted with by the management team of a top-level beauty influencer.

If true, and we have no reason to believe they are making this up, this is a new low and completely reprehensible.

As an influencer marketer, if I got wind of an influencer trashing brands in exchange for payment, they would never work with my brands or clients again.

Many influencers are not seasoned business people as many of we marketers know. 

For some, this may be their first experience in business. Many of them are young and haven’t had the benefit of working in a large corporation, but still, I don’t think that’s any excuse for this kind of behavior.

It’s the kind of thing that only leads to disappointment, broken trust and ruin. If someone is willing to do this for money, it doesn’t speak well of their character.

So, if you know of any influencer engaging in this kind of thing, tell them to stop now.

But Stell’s observations about beauty influencers didn’t end there.

She was adamant that some “billion-dollar brands” confided to her that they weren’t getting the ROI they wanted from the influencers they were working with, especially the ones with large followings.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise as many researchers have noted the correlation between massive audiences and lack of engagement.

This is why Stell encourages brands to work with smaller, micro influencers instead. 

Their followings are more engaged and their authenticity is intact.  Also, because they are less well known, they will jump at the chance to work closely with a big brand as I’ve noted before.

It also affords brands the opportunity to cultivate and forge relationships that can be fruitful in many ways and longer lasting.

One last thing, if the beauty industry doesn’t get a handle on this problem, the influencer community will be undermined and possibly irreparably harmed.

So something needs to be done.  Fortunately, the American Influencer Association is working on measures to help guide influencers and brands alike.

Not only is this an important thing for influencers and brands, but most importantly for the consumer, too!

The idea is to set down some guidelines so the beauty community can work within a framework that supports good business practices, fosters relationships between brands and influencers, and give consumers the best experience possible.

The post The Prickly Subject of PNR: Paid Negative Reviews appeared first on The Beauty Influencers.

It’s 2018, and many brands remain baffled about how to work with influencers. 

They struggle with which influencers to work with, tools to use and how to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Rather than establish their own goals and then work to understand which influencers can help them achieve those, many brands continue to choose influencers based on inaccurate measures like number of followers and audience sizes.  Shallow measures like these lead to poor selection and disappointment with the return on investment.

And then there’s the problem of fake followers 

How do brands tell if an influencer’s audience is even real? 

As The New York Times reported, the problem of fake followers is widespread and often pursued even by well know celebrities. Surprisingly, even with the available tools, brands remain blind to this and find out only when it’s too late and the desired results disappoint.

Thankfully, many third-party tools exist for marketers to discover the viability of influencers’ followers, but knowing which ones are effective -and the sheer plethora of them, leaves one’s head spinning.

As I’ve written lately, choosing the right influencers for your brand doesn’t have to be difficult.  It simply requires using a proven method, some help from third party tools, along with that essential, human element of knowing what to look for.

And because the influencer industry is not as transparent as many of us would like, we still have to rely on our own skills as marketers to sift out the good influencers from the chaff.

Brands that don’t use proven methods are either ignorant, not working with seasoned professionals, or simply too lazy.  The result is that many continue to overpay influencers and work with ones who are incongruent.

Are Brands at a Disadvantage to Influencers?

According to some influence marketers, some fashion and beauty brands feel “out of control” when working with influencers and somehow believe the influencers are in charge. This mindset is baffling.

Since brands hold the money, and influencer marketing as a strategy wouldn’t exist without them, how can brands feel powerless when working with influencers? 

I can’t help but wonder where their PR and in-house marketing teams are? 

And don’t they work with competent agencies?

I wonder if the same brands feel “out of control” when conducting a traditional PR or advertising campaign? 

No, of course not.

So why is there a difference when working with influencers?

Brands setting up an influencer campaign need to pay attention to two simple things: relevance and engagement. 

These two basic metrics guide the philosophy and selection process necessary to working with the right influencers every time.

Third party tools and platforms can help you with this process, too, but you must know that none of them adequately vets the influencers or checks for fake followers.

You and your team have to do that on your own and this is where the human element is critical.

Thankfully, social platforms are slowly cleaning up their acts.

Just this week, it was reported that Twitter is cleaning house of fake accounts.

This is welcome news, but I expect fake followers to remain a problem.  Until influencers are held accountable for propping up their follower count by buying followers, they will likely continue.

Fortunately, the movement for influencer accountability is already underway -and being led by Unilever’s Keith Weed, as we’ve reported recently.

Additionally, some social platforms are easy to check for fake followers. 

For example, Twitter can be checked using the tool TwitterAudit, but other platforms like Facebook are more difficult and the human element is still required to spot fakes on most social media platforms.

So vetting influencers can be effectively done, it just takes some time and effort.

Brands that don’t vet influencers carefully can expect uneven or poor results.  Like any other marketing strategy, influencer marketing requires an upfront investment of time and money to be done right.

Any successful influencer strategy should be carefully mapped out and designed to achieve specific campaign goals.  These goals should be measured by specific KPIs used to measure success and to help re-adjust campaign strategy, if and when necessary.

Should brands focus on micro-influencers over “big name” influencers like the Kardashians?

Arguments exist on both sides of the micro vs mega-influencer strategy, but the governing principle should be what the brand wants to get out of working with influencers.

Is the purpose to drive brand awareness?  Or is it to generate leads and sales?

Once this is determined, the decision about what type of influencers to use can then be made.  If the goal is to boost awareness, then working with many influencers is necessary since frequency and repetition are needed. In this case, micro-influencers are the way to go.

An example of a beauty brand doing this well is L’Oreal which reportedly works with up to 20,000 influencers – most of them, micro-influencers. 

But they also work with select “big name” macro and mega-influencers, working hard to develop and maintain those relationships.

After all, don’t forget, many micro-influencers are influenced in their own right by the “big name” influencers they look up to!

Either way, brands are, indeed, in the driver’s seat.  And, the sooner they recognize this and begin to choose influencers based upon congruence while demanding accountability from them, the sooner they’ll start to feel how powerful this strategy really can be!

The post Are Brands Throwing Money Away on Influencer Marketing? appeared first on The Beauty Influencers.

On June 20^th, CEO, Kevin Systrom, announced its new IGTV App which allows for video uploads up to 60 minutes in length. Doing so enables Instagram to transform itself into a more integrated, and powerful, social media platform.

Clearly, it’s a shot across the bow to YouTube which reigns supreme as the choice social platform for long form video content. But is this a case of over-reaching?

Don’t discount Instagram.  When they were threatened by Snapchat, they quickly introduced Instagram stories triggering a mass migration of users solidifying their position as a preferred social media channel for content creators.

Is IGTV really as big as we think it is?  Let’s take a closer look.

IGTV is a new video app that enables expanded capability for content creators to communicate value to their followers. 

Allowing up to 60 minutes in length, Instagram creators no longer have to rely on YouTube for somewhere to post in-depth video content. Not only that but its vertical format is built for mobile, and it connects seamlessly to Instagram’s one billion users.

Also, let’s not forget social media platforms are notorious for wanting to keep their users’ attention and to prevent them from straying to other platforms. 

Facebook discourages users from posting non-native content by making it less visible to friends and followers. With IGTV, Instagram gives users a reason to stick around longer.

Prior to this, Instagrammers were limited to simple photo posts and Instagram stories.  Now they can post video content up to 60 minutes in length – which beauty influencers will love.

IGTV is a game changer.

Not that YouTube has anything to worry about in the short term.

It’s the second largest search engine next to Google and it boasts thousands of influencers who occupy nearly every business niche you can think of, including beauty. 

Many of those influencers have been with the platform for years and have grown along with it. There’s a certain familiarity and comfort associated with YouTube, how to use it, build an audience and to monetize it.

But there’s more. YouTube has built an impressive billion-dollar revenue generator out of many millions of video posts there. Not only that, but YouTube’s parent Google is also buying higher-end content these days for YouTube Premium (formerly known as YouTube Red).

YouTube’s masterminds realize they needs to offer other kinds of experiences to its creators and their followers.  Therefore, it shares its enormous ad revenues with its biggest and best creators. By contrast, IGTV has no such sharing arrangement – yet.

So when the entertainment industry and huge brands gave a collective yawn about the introduction of IGTV, that’s why.

Instagram said it plans to offer ways to monetize content by the end of the year, but that’s a little iffy.

In the meantime, expect to see a lot of boring content by brands as they scramble to market themselves and populate this new territory.

Compelling content on IGTV, however, will come from the influencers themselves, especially in the beauty, fashion and travel niches. They know what their followers want and are good at creating it.  With IGTV, they now have another tool to do so.

As to monetizing content, the influencers will take the lead on this, too.  Of all the social platforms, Instagram is where influencers have blossomed accelerating the growth of influencer marketing as a strategy.  Now that IGTV is here, expect the influencers and the brands they work with, to jump on it quickly.

When its all said and done, though, perhaps the biggest beneficiary of IGTV is Instagram itself. IGTV promises to transform Instagram into a more robust social platform where content can be consumed in multiple ways.

Beauty influencers, in particular, won’t have to migrate to a different platform like YouTube to create their video tutorials and can now keep it bundled together in one place.

Some influencers will undoubtably double down on Instagram and concentrate their content there.  Others will likely keep their options open until they see how it all shakes out.

Either way, beauty influencers and the influencer marketing industry win as they now have a powerful tool in IGTV.

The post IGTV: Instagram Gives Beauty Influencers a Reason to Stick Around appeared first on The Beauty Influencers.

And this light looms large as its from a heavy weight, global consumer brand.  Reportedly spending over $9 billion every year in marketing, Unilever has the chops – and the bucks – to affect change.

Weed was very clear.  He announced early Monday that Unilever will not work with influencers who buy followers.

Are you listening? Other brand leaders are and its welcome news to an industry that’s been struggling to tame the gold rush mentality that’s invaded its psyche.

Weed also made it clear that Unilever’s sub brands will actively look to eradicate from their marketing spend any influencers who buy fake followers, use bots to pump up their engagement, or any other dubious practices.

And, that Unilever would use its muscle (I mean clout) with vendor relationships where financial commitments were made to root out and eradicate such fraud.

(Can you hear Keanu Reeves say “Whooooaaa!”)

But it gets even better.

Weed also announced his intention to convene a summit of sorts with the World Federation of Advertisers, Instagram and Edelman chief executive Richard Edelman.  The aim is to hammer out a framework for bringing transparency to the influencer space.

The announcement, coming as it did during the festival, puts the spotlights right back on influencers.

That’s rich.  Really rich.  I mean, come on.

Why?

Because if it weren’t for huge firms like Unilever and Edelman – who’ve thrown money at influencers for years without demanding much transparency, the influencers wouldn’t be scrambling to pump up their follower counts and engagement ratios to get onto their radars.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, you see.

The public relations industry, in particular, treats influencer marketing as transactional because it’s how most PR people deal with journalists.  They pitch them when they need them, then move on.

But true influencer marketing is not about transactions.  It’s not just another form of advertising or media relations.  Done with care and effort, its about building real, lasting relationships with people who’ve built legitimate and engaged audiences of their own through their unique, genuine content.

Some industries approach influencers better than others and the technology industry is ahead of the pack.  By way of example, take a look at HPE. 

Since 2010, they have methodically built and maintained a sustainable influencer marketing program. (In full disclosure, I was instrumental in designing and driving this program.) The point is, they carefully identify and cultivate influencers who speak to their target consumers. Relationships are built by including them in their events and other marketing activities throughout the year.

And the beauty industry is catching up. Take a look at L’Oreal’s Beauty Squad.  The company is taking the long view by cultivating strategic relationships with influencers they deem to be instrumental in reaching their target consumers.

Now, does the influencer industry need accountability and more transparency?  Yes, it does – from brands and influencers alike.

(That’s what the American Influencer Association aims to do, but that’s for an upcoming post.)

But the cleanup, if you want to call it that, needs to come from the industry itself, not from some artificial summit organized by a PR firm and colossal brand. It needs to include the consultants, the agencies, practitioners and most of all the influencers.

As the beam from Unilever’s spotlight in Cannes scans over the influencer industry, we’ll see where this all takes us.

All said and done, it was one hell of a moment.

The post Unilever puts Spotlight on Fake Followers appeared first on The Beauty Influencers.