Are Fake Instagram Influencers Deceiving Brands? | Hacker News Reader

Are Fake Instagram Influencers Deceiving Brands?

mediakix.com

134 pointspmcpinto55 comments

Paying "influencers" to plug a brand without a disclosure of payment violates the FTC's endorsement rule.[1] It's considered false advertising. So "brands" are the deceivers here.

This has been enforced on TV for decades. You see fine print in commercials when someone endorses something. New medium, same rules.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/04/ftc-s...

But there are many movies, series and other kinds of shows that endorse a brand (e.g. by using a certain kind of tablet) that do not have a fine print. How does it work there ?

Possibly in the credits?

Movies, etc are works of fiction, people are not.

You could say that a lot of the social profiles involved (i.e. the influencers) are already "works of fiction". It's "The Truman Show" on a planetary level, only this time is all voluntary.

This right here. It's a fine line. I feel like the parent comment is implying like it's an easily exploited line but that's my personal intuition so I'll defend it in isolation. Put simply, if Michael Jordan, Shaq, or any other signature memeber of the NBA told me how to dunk better, I'd probably listen because their real world reputation has already informed me that they're skilled at the thing they're advertising about. I trust them, not because I admire them but because they are proven craftsmen of the thing they are discussing. They might be discussing it for profit in this instance, but in the real world they have shown themselves to be above average men of skill and for that reason I am interested in their knowledge.

If Thor and the Avengers discover how to beat Thanos because they used a search engine on iOS instead of android I might get pretty hyped because I really like that franchise, but I know at a fundamental level that they're fake people achieving fake success against a fake villain. The same cannot be said about professional athletes, chefs, academics, or others who compete in a competitive BUT ALSO REAL environment.

Then the two fake accounts from the article would be exempted, if the owners would acknowledge that the girls are just fictional characters?

> if the owners would acknowledge that the girls are just fictional characters

Then they wouldn't get the brand deals to begin with so I don't see the problem here ;-)

Things are getting a bit recursive now. This thread was discussing the ethics and legality of the phenomenon of paying influencers to plug products in the first place. The article is about exploiting that phenomenon.

That said, the accounts in the article are fake, yes, but they claim to be real. That's not fiction, it's fraud. If they had set up the accounts to clearly state that they are fictional characters, and still gotten paid to endorse products, then it's a lot more like product placement in movies.

(Hmm, I wonder if you could actually pull something like this off. Most major social media celebrities do appear to be fairly highly engineered personas, the leap to pure fiction doesn't seem to be that big)

If people don't understand that what they see on instagram is a work of fiction that isn't representative of the person they are gravely misleaded.

In a sense, we expect there to be actual products in movies. This sort of thing makes movies and shows more realistic. And sometimes they aren't getting paid for it.

But when they are, there are laws (sometimes bad ones): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement#United_State...

Honestly, I am personally less worried about this sort of advertising than I am with certain children's films, whose sole purpose seems to be selling children a new line of crap. It has happened since I was young, with "Care Bears". It seems the most recent example is probably "The Emoji Movie".

> In a sense, we expect there to be actual products in movies.

Unless it's a documentary, absolutely not. I "need" to know whether a character is drinking water or soda or coffee or wine, but not what brand. Make one up, it's more interesting. The realism should come from other things than brands of all things... if that even moves the needle, the movie is trash anyway.

And yes, a lot of trash is called movies, and a lot of shills-du-jour are called actors. So? Compared with craftsmen they are nothing and produce nothing. Rather than accepting that as normal, they overstayed my welcome. They're not part of my world, I don't feed them and I don't let their crap into my brain.

> Make one up, it's more interesting.

Or if you insist on using real products for the sake of realism, at least use them at a rate consistent with reality.

The number of Microsoft products and forced close-ups in "Get Out" was jarring.

The new Twin Peaks has been confusing me by prominently displaying several different computer/phone brands. I'm not sure whether they've somehow taken on multiple sponsors for the same kind of thing, which seems unusual, or Lynch is trying to make some sort of statement.

Partnerships with companies are normally specified/thanked in the film's end credits.

As I understand it, using the hashtag #ad or #sponsored is pretty widespread now for this reason.

That's unlikely to comply with FTC rules. The disclosure has to be clear and upfront. FTC talks about above the fold, for example.

It almost certainly doesn't comply with UK rules.

The FTC actually says explicitly that starting a Twitter post with #ad is OK [0]. They don't mention Instagram in that document. I imagine the legally can't be overly prescriptive due to first amendment issues.

FTC sent notices out to people using "creative" tags on Instagram like #sp or #partner. They did not send notices to people using #ad. I would take that as a sign that they think #ad is reasonable for now.

> What about a platform like Twitter? How can I make a disclosure when my message is limited to 140 characters?

"The FTC isn’t mandating the specific wording of disclosures. However, the same general principle – that people get the information they need to evaluate sponsored statements – applies across the board, regardless of the advertising medium. The words “Sponsored” and “Promotion” use only 9 characters. “Paid ad” only uses 7 characters. Starting a tweet with “Ad:” or “#ad” – which takes only 3 characters – would likely be effective."

[0] - https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc...

> This has been enforced on TV for decades. You see fine print in commercials when someone endorses something. New medium, same rules.

From 2018 on, the EU will enforce it on all online media, including YouTube and Instragam. This is going to be very interesting.

Sweet. If it's OK to pay "influencers" to pretend they like some widget you're trying to sell, it's OK to pay sockpuppets to pretend you have influence.

It'd be cool if I could make a small botnet that would influence companies to make the kind of stuff I actually wanted to buy.

Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a nice new ICO.

I smell success!

Anyone has a cool landing page template bootstrap one?

Don't forget to implement the botnet on the blockchain!

Heading for second seed round!

friend of mine - which had huge success with influencer marketing on instagram in the german speaking market / organic cosmetics niche - tiptoed into the italian market.

from what we could see the account looked legit. the pics were good, lots of comments, good interaction from other accounts with lots of followers, some other brands also - seemingly - using the account to promote products.

invested a few hundred euros, great response on the postings, zero impact on sales and onlineshop traffic (which was not the same behaviour we saw in the german market).

we investigate further. the responses on every post were always pretty similar, coming out of a pool of about 200 different responses, sometimes with emoji variations. even bad posts, very shitty pics with clear commercial intent, got the "awesome" and "#heart #heart"treatment. after three degrees of separation (the accounts which liked the accounts which liked the accounts) the accounts became slightly spammy.

all in all, very sophisticated work.

we changed the approach, we completely ignore accounts which contact us. if we identify an account with a 10k+ followers, a long post history and some meaningful interaction (even snark in the comments), we contact them.

but yeah, identifying - really really well made - fakes on instragram (especially non english/german accounts because of the language barrier) would be a SAAS we were willing to use.

This is why I don't especially worry about fake influences, bogus ad clicks, etc. Any advertiser worth their salt should be able to see the results (or lack of results) very quickly. Sure there'll be dumb brands throwing money away on fake clicks/likes/re-tweets/etc and not measuring results. And while that is regrettable & wouldn't happen in an ideal world it's their money to waste foolishly.

It's one thing when entering a new market. You expect your sales in Italy to go some zero to something, and if it doesn't you know your ads aren't working. It's harder to tell the difference if you already have large sales, unless you can connect an individual sale to the ad that drove it.

Attribution is tricky at the best of times and worse when you're dealing with many, small campaigns rather than a few discrete large campaigns.

Let's say you make surfboards that are primarily bought offline at surf shops. You run a campaign with 100 instagram influencers in the San Diego area and you see a 15% greater uplift in sales compared to nationwide. Which influencers contributed meaningfully and which ones were fake accounts where you wasted your money? How much of that 15% uplift is because of the influencer campaign vs a longer summer in San Diego this year vs some totally organic consumer spreading it via WOM?

Even if you want to design an experiment, summer's already over and you'll need to wait until next summer to test out your hypothesis. It's not hard to see how a scammer could cobble together a dozen or so of these different advertisers and make a substantial sum out of fraud consistently without ever getting caught.

If, like me, you wondered how Mediakix came up with the size of the influencer market size, there is an outline of their methodology in a previous post [1].

Essentially they looked at how many posts were tagged with one of a group of hashtags, used a $10 CPM, and extrapolated from there.

[1]: http://mediakix.com/2017/03/instagram-influencer-marketing-i...

It's a scam, but honestly, brands trying to advertise their products without seeming like they are advertising are just as dishonest.

Seems like it shouldn't be too hard to build a service that lets influencer networks screen out fakes. Usually there are clear markers, like a large number of followers having some other random account in common. Unfortunately, from experience I know that:

a) the networks don't care because the risk and reputation cost of selling fake inventory is minimal, and

b) brands don't care because it's considered a cost of doing business.

They'll just raise the minimum requirements until it becomes a lot harder to spam your way there. Also s lot of blame needs to be shifted on the various platforms for even allowing spam accounts to be created so easily. It should be a huge red flag for any account to instant get likes or follows.

But the software companies that build influencer marketing software do care because it's a differentiating factor when deciding what software to use.

Not that this is different from perhaps any other platform, but it's exceptionally difficult to grow a following as an artist on Instagram. It was probably never meant for it, but instead more targeted towards influencers. Visual artists with hundreds of thousands of followers who didn't buy them or didn't inherit them from fame outside of IG are practically unheard of.

It is possible. You just have to post consistently and use the right tags. I'm not famous and I can get 10K followers just by posting one every few weeks, sometimes I post more regularly. More followers are gained when I post more often. In short, work.

Baloney. You can get 10K followers at that rate, in maybe five years. Once every few weeks is basically a dead account. Even posting daily, you still have to use all of the tricks. There is just so many people doing the same thing on there, that you have to be VERY niche, and put up quality content. Food photos, in poor lighting, from your phone, are not going to do it anymore.

So what's the answer here? Followers, likes, and comments were bought. Did the experiment end up making more money than they spent? Is it a problem if not?

The answer is yes...like the article says. Also like the article says in a huge bold font, "Fake Instagram Influencers Are A Problem For The Industry".

The article claims so in the headline and then proceeds to show that it's relatively easy to set up a fake account and get some brand deals but then provides no numbers or insight into why this is actually a widespread problem. The fact that it's doable doesn't mean it's a problem, if they made less money than they put in then it's not a problem because no one in their right mind would actually do it. Putting something in a headline doesn't make it true.

I've always believed they deceived consumers but I makes sense when you see a lot of large brands becoming more disconnected with real society.

I've been burned by this a couple of times. Posted something with an influencer and got over 1,000 instagram likes both times, but basically zero traffic and zero sales. I only spent about $50 total so should have expected bad results from that much price/promise but this is a real thing... facebook should tackle by blocking these accounts or at least creating a market for doing this legitimately (in which case they get a slice of course)

1000 likes costs $5 in Gramblr, you can buy them yourself from within the app and will get the same effect. Before doing anything with an Instagram account, you need to do an in-depth analysis of the account, otherwise it makes no sense - you'll just get empty likes.

> I've been burned by this a couple of times. Posted something with an influencer and got over 1,000 instagram likes both times, but basically zero traffic and zero sales. I only spent about $50 total so should have expected bad results from that much price/promise but this is a real thing... facebook should tackle by blocking these accounts

Those paying off other accounts to create covert marketing, or those doing the covert marketing?

I find it hard to tell which are worst.

It's been said before https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CK62I-4cuSY

It is an issue for brands that treat it as old media. What brands need to understand is that you have to do your research before hiring am influencer. I dont hire anyone unless they provide enough convincing data. Its also important to know that most scams are aimed at the lifestyle/fashion industries. If you are a plumber you wont need to worry too much about it.You cam find worthy influencers to help you promote your services.

Do you hire influencers (interesting considering you seem like a dev from your profile)? I think for the layman marketer there isn't really enough information on what the standard performance KPIs should be (even with "traditional media".) It's my view that the majority of companies aren't doing enough to record marketing performance to build their own expectations out of campaigns.

Yes, I do. You are right, most companies are not equipped to handle new media. That's where I help them get results. :)

PS. My profile is tailored to HN. People hate marketers here.

The logical conclusion of the intersection of capitalism and social media...

> the "influencers" were offered monetary compensation, free product, or both.

Was it enough to be a positive ROI? I would assume yes, but it doesn't actually say that anywhere.

How much were the "financial deals" he struck?

In the comments the author says they were offered a total of $130 for the model account and $400 for the photographer account.

Other way around, I believe. The model account fetched $400.

and to fulfill the deal you need to keep in touch with the models you used for them to take a photo with the product?

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