Instagram is cracking down on fraudulent influencers.

It’s time brands did too.

Brands like Superdry, Nike and GAME are reacting to phony #sponsoredposts – why aren’t you?

21st July 2017

1.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Brands currently use influencer marketing because, quite simply, its proving to be the most trusted way to sell products. A study by Geometry Global, entitled ‘The Influence of Influencers’, found that consumers now trust influencers at a rate of two to one over friends and family and at a rate of seven to one over celebrities. In the marketplace, this means that influencers account for 33% of a buying audience’s trust, while celebrities, musicians and athletes are responsible for just 5% of that same audience’s trust2. However, the issue of fraudulent influencers and their supposed #sponsored content could negatively impact brands’ willingness to invest in influencers in the future.

Brands commit time, money and energy to employing methods of influencer marketing – even in the face of issues such as this one – because the industry is excited by the possible results it can achieve if done correctly. Here at Connects, a progressive influencer marketing agency, we (and our brand partners) are seeing on Instagram alone that every £1 spent on influencer marketing yields an average return of £7.33.

Instagram currently boasts over 700 million users, 400 million of whom are active every day; 60% of these users claim they have learnt about a product or service on the platform and posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than those without3. Instagram is the fastest growing social platform, holding infinite potential for marketers to connect brands with customers in a way that has never before been possible. This provides a very strong incentive for brands to take responsibility for understanding the potential impact of fraudulent influencers and to protect themselves against it.

So, on the back of this, we’ll now go on to explore why Instagram is tightening its guidelines and why brands should be following suit by watching out for a few influencer tricks of the trade.

1 Cara McGoogan | Celebrities warned about misleading Instagram ads | April 20172 Geometry Global | The Influence of Influencers | June 20173 Kit Smith | Brandwatch.com |37 Instagram Statistics for 2016 | May 2016

When arguably the most important social media platform of today, Instagram, is rolling out a

feature dedicated to paid partnerships, ensuring influencers are clearly indicating when content is paid for – it’s time the industry took note! With

this new feature already live in the US and in progress of launching in Europe in a rumoured six months, it seems relevant to talk about its stimulus; an issue which has slowly but surely,

taken over the combined worlds of influencer marketing and Instagram: fraudulent influencers.

To set the scene, in April 2017 alone, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued 90 US celebrities

with letters warning them about their misleading use of content, specifically for their lack of advertising when a post was #sponsored1.

Instagram’s subsequent response has set an example for how best to combat fraudulent

users on their platform, thus paving the way for brands to begin to take a similar approach.

Every £1 spent on influencer marketing yields an average

return of £7.33

2. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOWThere are currently four main hacks which we have identified as having a detrimental effect on Instagram marketing campaigns:

FAKE FOLLOWERS & ENGAGEMENT

To assume that a high follower count is the most important factor in ensuring a successful campaign is to set oneself up for failure. A brand that targets influencers based solely on the size of their following risks falling into the trap of assuming quantity = quality. Many influencers have put their blood, sweat and tears in to building a substantial audience, but conversely many have cut corners to achieve a large following in a non-organic manner. Follower-purchasing is a key aspect of undermining the effectiveness of influencer marketing campaigns. Whilst previously this could only be done through in-app purchases, new forms are now readily available.

In Russia, for instance, you can purchase followers and likes from vending machines for as little as 20p4 ; in the UK, you can increase your number of followers from 200 to 10k for as little as £3.00 and for £50 anyone can achieve a following of 100k. Such advances make it increasingly difficult for brands to identify quality influencer accounts which have the engagement rate to make them an effective marketing tool for a social media-led campaign.

An Instagram account boasting 10k followers should yield roughly a 4% engagement rate, with the value of a brand deal falling anywhere between £200 and £800. An account with 100k followers should expect to yield a 2.37% engagement rate, raising the value of a brand deal to be at least £20005. However, influencers have the ability to artificially create engagement through the purchasing of likes, views and comments, making it difficult to an untrained eye to identify accounts bursting with fraudulent activity.

In short, to confirm you’re recruiting genuine influencers to work for and represent your brand it’s best to start by verifying their following and engagement, ensuring they’re both genuine and not that of a ghost account.

INSTAGRAM PODSInstagram’s decision to rely on algorithms is a blessing for influencers: it’s not hard to join up with fellow users and ensure your content makes it into the ‘discovery’ feed. The success of a post depends on the level of organic engagement achieved in its first 15 minutes of being live. The best way to ensure a post is successful is to share high quality content, but Instagram’s new algorithmic structure means that syndicates of users can band together and engage with new posts to guarantee they get early exposure: say hello to Instagram Pods! A collective of roughly 15 users might join a private Instagram group and commit to clicking “like” and commenting a minimum of five words on every new post that members of the Pod upload. This effectively cheats the system, tricking Instagram into assuming this is high quality, genuinely sought-after content.

At Connects, we carried out an experiment to test the effectiveness of Pods, whereby an individual with 1,200 followers created a Pod with 10 influencers, all of whom had an average of 10k followers each. Within four weeks the user experienced an increase in the average amount of likes per post from 30 to 100, also experiencing an organic growth in following to 4.5k followers (a 275% increase). While this is positive for users who want their content to be recognised quickly, with minimal effort, it isn’t good news for brands. As leading brands begin to utilise influencer marketing more and more, it comes as no surprise that hesitation sometimes lie in the selection of influencers, or in the use of influencer marketing at all, as brands are constantly having to ensure that they’re identifying those who create genuinely popular content and not that originating from sham appreciation.

Pods are a very current issue for Instagram – rumours are rife that they are already being quietly shut down. This is one to watch for any avid social media fans out there: it’ll be interesting to see how Instagram’s product team start to clamp down on this type of behaviour.

‘Brands are constantly having to ensure that

they’re identifying those who create genuinely popular content and

not that originating from sham appreciation.’

4 Sasha Raspopina | DazedDigital.com | You can buy Instagram likes from vending machines | May 20165 Markerly.com | Instagram Marketing: Does Influencer Size Matter? |April 2016

‘A brand that targets influencers based solely on the size of their following risks falling into the trap of assumingthat quantity = quality.’

FAKE #AD The excitement around “influencer marketing” has prompted a review by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the guidelines surrounding this dynamic and complex industry. A survey from earlier this year showed that 77% of Instagram users didn’t know what the use of #spon meant, while 48% of users didn’t know what #ad meant on Instagram6. Emerging influencers understand that by adding “#ad” or “#spon” to their post, they can present themselves to brands as running up-and-coming accounts, when often they have paid for everything themselves and are not associated with the brand at all. By pretending brands such as Nike, ASOS and Starbucks are paying for promotion on their feeds, influencers can create a fraudulent portfolio and trick marketers into thinking they are a desirable partner. Instagram has begun to take considerable strides towards safeguarding itself, and brands, from this social media phenomenon. In June of this year, the launch of Instagram’s ‘Paid partnership’7 tool meant that Instagram and brands could begin identifying actual #ads and #spons as opposed to fabricated ones through clear labelling attached to Instagram rather than its users themselves.

REMOVING COMPETITION UNFAIRLY When it comes to fake followers, Instagram has started to tackle the problem in a significant way. Instagram now exercises “shadow banning”8 , meaning it automatically deletes inactive and visibly fraudulent accounts, but fraudulent users have found a way to turn this to their advantage. By automatically disqualifying users who appear to have a predominantly falsified following, Instagram has been side-tracked by its fraudulent users, as they have now unwillingly created an opportunity for fraudulent influencers to remove a competitor from the market unfairly. For £1,000 you can offload a wave of fake followers onto a competitor’s account, immediately flagging the competitor up on Instagram’s systems, which will then lead to their exclusion on grounds of fake usage of the platform.

As Instagram’s user base continues to expand, the number of businesses gravitating towards it, specifically for influencer marketing purposes, also grows. Those in the influencer industry are well informed about this and want to exploit it as much as possible. Whilst on the one hand this means the potential for linking brands with influencers has never been greater, it also means that Instagram is liable to becoming increasingly saturated with ineffective influencers and their fraudulent accounts. As the need to create genuinely desired content in order to gain a large following diminishes, so too does the business world’s trust in utilising Instagram for its success at being home to the majority of the world’s most successful (and lucrative) influencers. This makes it the responsibility of influencer marketing agencies to ensure safeguarding tools are put in place, which will ensure brands remain loyal users of and advocates for influencer marketing across all platforms, specifically Instagram.

With Instagram now actively quashing the means for influencers to promote content in a fraudulent manner, we feel its time that brands should be made aware of the types of behaviours we employ to safeguard ourselves and our clients from falsified advertising.

6 Callum McCahon | Campaign.com | Influencer marketing is a bubble, and it’s about to burst | March 20177 Instagram Business Team |Business.Instagram.com | Why Transparency Matters: Enhancing Creator and Business Partnerships | June 20178 Carrisa Lintao |TheNextWeb.com | Instagram is cracking down on fake influencers | July 2017

‘77% of Instagram users didn’t know what the use of #spon meant’

3. WHAT WE’RE DOINGIn June 2014, Instagram announced, via their online business platform, plans to fully support the notion that “transparency matters”9 through “enhancing creator and business partnerships.”10 This clearly meant the social media platform was signalling to the rest of the world their new feature which would allow influencers to signpost paid-for-content. As well as this announcement and immediate roll out in the US, influencers can now share campaign metrics directly with brands; this is in a move to “increase transparency across the board”11. This might appear in the form of a sponsorship tag, though the scope of this has not yet been confirmed. While Instagram is certainly taking a step in the right direction, the amount of time between an initial decision and quality control is too vast, easily allowing aspiring influencers the ability to successfully and artificially, boost their following. With this still being the case, further measures can and must be adopted to guarantee the successful, genuine use of influencers. After all, it’s one thing for Instagram to begin to tackle this issue – but what about brands?

At Connects, we’ve developed distinctive ways of ensuring our clients work with the most authentic influencers who will complement and represent their brand through personality, behaviour and, of course, content. We believe in collecting the most vital data and establishing the best relationships that we possibly can – however, no method is more original than our uniquely crafted Archetype system, which we use to ensure every influencer we house in our database and suggest to brands is genuine and is creating top of the range content.

RESEARCH AND DATAUnderstanding the behaviours of your audience and subsequently the reach and impact of your content, is more important than anything else. This starts with getting to grips with your data and understanding what the numbers mean. The problems can arise when brands are left to rely solely on an influencer sharing their audience statistics and engagement data post campaign. Connects believes in diligent research – starting with finding each influencer’s specific engagement rate and using targeted consumer research, industry trends and good old fashioned gut instinct to ascertain whether or not the quality of their audience matches up to the quantity. If time or resources are too scarce to conduct this research, then the likes of ‘Socialbakers’ and ‘Follower-check’ offer free tools that give anyone the ability to confirm whether a Twitter audience is all that it claims to be. Influencer Marketing Hub’s nifty Instagram tool also allows one to find out how much an audience is really worth.

When we first begin working with a brand, it’s this time that is most vital to ensuring that the influencers chosen are suitably matched and their subsequent content will drive the most effective ROI for that brand. An example of this is our current work with Superdry, which has seen us go on to collaboratively build a database packed full of relevant and on-brand influencers (all of whom have been through an initial screening process) which they can now use in upcoming campaigns. This means that going forward, Superdry is safeguarded against onboarding fraudulent influencers and can track unusual growths and patterns in any influencer’s Instagram profile. Time and time again, Connects has heard that when it comes to working with influencers, ‘numbers aren’t everything.’ Connects respectfully disagree: numbers are in fact incredibly important to delivering a successful campaign, just so long as you’re focusing on the right ones. For us – with a database of 42,700 influencers – this translates to us using a tool which tracks unusual growth and engagement rates, guaranteeing we only reach out to and work with authentic influencers.

‘When we first begin working with a brand, it’s this time that is most vital to ensuring that the influencers chosen are suitably matched and their subsequent content will drive the most effective ROI for that brand.’

‘It is essential to develop a relationship with

influencers that focuses on skillset rather than

reach’

42,700influencer

realtionships

RELATIONSHIPS A successful relationship between an agency and influencer should not be based on how much an agency pays, but how well it cares for and engages with its influencers. Connects believes firmly in constructing a close and personal relationship with influencers, viewing them as individuals rather than as names in a database.

It is essential to develop a relationship with influencers that focuses on skillset rather than reach, driving a strategic partnership to achieve the best results. This not only creates positive working relationships between Connects and its 42,700 influencers – it opens a door to the brands that we work with, who know that fraudulent influencers are an issue and can take advantage of our humanised database, packed full with authentic influencers from 84 different countries and verticals, or passions, stretching over 13 very diverse pillars including fashion, gaming, interior design and more.

This range and diversity means we take extra time to ensure that influencers choose to work with the right brands: ones they can genuinely create drive for and who will develop an influencer’s career in the right way.

Such care and precision means that our relationships become advisory: we can help influencers realise how best to be open and forthright about their content, who they’re working with and what it is they hope to achieve from their social media careers. At the core of any advice we give is loyalty, specifically brand loyalty; when we’re working with influencers to ensure their feeds are inspiring in terms of content, we ask that they remember that authenticity originates from them. This not only means brands can ensure they’re working with genuine influencers, it also means that an influencer generates and boosts their own trustworthy profile.

For instance, when influencers work with Nike – they’re Nike through and through. This is an example of brand and influencer partnership: loyalty comes from a mutual understanding that the best content comes from influencers who live, breathe and believe in the product, or brand, that they’re selling. This is why Connects has developed its own Archetype system to dig deeper and ensure at a psychological level, that we match the right influencers with the right brands.

9 & 10 Instagram Business Team |Business.Instagram.com | Why Transparency Matters: Enhancing Creator and Business Partnerships | June 201711 Rebecca Stewart | TheDrum.com | Instagram wants to ‘bring transparency’ to influencer and brand content deals with fresh set of tools | June 2017

IMAGE CREDIT: @GALLUCKSINSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS: 106KENGAGEMENT RATE: 4.3%

THE CREATORGAME

ARCHETYPESArchetypes are individual psyches. At Connects, before we match any influencer to a brand – we assign them an archetype to ensure that their personality, ability and ambition is matched to that of the brand we’re currently working with. If an influencer and the brand are well suited, an immediate and organic connection is created, thus driving return.

An example of this can be seen in Connects’ facilitation of the GAME and @gallucks collaboration in 2016. Gallucks (Joel) was categorised by Connects under the ‘Creator’ archetype, due to his ability to consistently create original, forward-thinking and distinctive content. GAME was keen to launch its new Nintendo products alongside an influencer and to us no one seemed a more obvious choice than Gallucks; known for his love of style and all things high fashion, but also an avid gamer. If anyone was going to create content that combined these two (supposedly polar opposite) extremely popular blogging spheres with complete ease, it was Gallucks. Archetypes are an example of strategically thought out influencer marketing: they ensure that a brand is only entering into an honest and authentic influencer partnership, thereby minimalizing the potential of working with fraudulent influencers on an ever-growing platform.

4. GROWTH OF FRAUDULENT INFLUENCERS FACILITATED BY GROWTH OF INSTAGRAMFraudulent Instagram users have become such a phenomenon due to them affecting a platform that continues at an immense and daily rate, to grow and develop. Instagram has moved from being a completely personal stage for social media and is now synonymous with brands for its influencer marketing and digital advertising possibilities. New features such as Instagram Stories and the Swipe Feature directly impact sales. Although still a long way off Facebook, Instagram is surpassing all other major competitors on a truly global scale, sitting comfortably in the top five most used apps list. Below are some visuals which emphasise the ever-growing popularity of Instagram and it’s paid-for content, which put its high demand into context:

Brand-sponsored influencer content growth 13:

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Instagram’s monthly user growth 12 :

Instagram influencer market growth (YOY) 14 :

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12, 13 & 14 MediaKix.com | Instagram Influencer Marketing is a $1 Billion Dollar Industry | May 2017

ROUND UP, ROUND UP

The opportunity for fraudulent influencers to operate on Instagram has become so rife due to the platform’s ongoing domination of all things social media. As

Instagram grows, so too does the ability for falsified users to disguise themselves as genuinely sought after collaborators.

At Connects we like to remind brands that the right kind of influencer is not merely a marketing or advertising tool. They are in fact a genuine, creative collaborator

who can ultimately promote a brand’s product but do so through carefully crafted content, which aims to enrich both the brand and the influencer themself. It’s time

to not only invest money in influencers. It’s time to invest time. There are many technical ways to ensure that your brand is working with a genuine and authentic

influencer, but the most effective tool of all is taking the time and initiative to ensure any influencer you partner with, is a true embodiment of what your brand hopes to say and sell to its customer. Instagram has now got the technical tool in place

to gradually ensure the end of fraudulent influencers; it’s time for brands to do the same through a process of careful and considerate influencer selection.

CONTACT CONNECTSWe’re here to help, so if you want an influencer strategy or you’re in the mood to run a campaign where you’ll be working with the right influencers, generating the results

to match, get in touch by emailing us at info@seenconnects.com or follow us on Instagram: @SEENConnects.

@SEENConnects020 7749 2632 @