Are you considering hiring an influencer to attract attention to your business? Have you heard influencer marketing is a hot audience outreach method and want to use it to grow your brand? Before you jump into the world of influencers, you need to understand not all influencers are what they claim to be. To make sure you don’t hire the wrong influencer, following are five signs of a fake influencer.
1) Some unscrupulous influencers buy their followers on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Check out engagement rates to see whether their audience is engaging with their content. You can also use a tool like TwitterAudit.com to discover details on their fake followers on Twitter.
2) Another troubling sign to look for when hiring an influencer is how they advise their followers of their paid posts. Some individuals will claim to be a brand ambassador or social media influencer, but you’ll never see them add terms like “ad” or “paid post” to the content they share on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. A top-level influencer understands they must declare all paid posts; fakers often don’t follow the rules.
3) The tone of their content changes on a frequent basis. Many influencers use the services of ghostwriters to craft their content. They will provide a writer with a general topic to write about, but the content they share is often crafted by others. If you want to discover whether an influencer is writing their own content or not, compare a number of their blog posts to find similar phrases and formats.
4) Fake influencers will often post content on multiple websites within the same day. If your influencer is posting fresh content on their own blog, plus sites like Entrepreneur.com, Business2Community.com, and SocialMediaExaminer.com all within a 24-hour period, there’s a good chance they aren’t posting content they wrote themselves.
5) Fake influencers won’t have believable testimonials on their website. If an influencer can’t show reviews of their services, be wary of engaging them to be an influencer for your brand.
If any of these troubling warning signs are present, you might be dealing with a fake influencer. Investigate their backgrounds and check the veracity of their claims before hiring them to represent your brand.
