An influencer marketing industry website took $300 and experimented to see how easy it would be to fake being a mega influencer.
In the end, Mediakix.com wound up with two paid campaigns to promote some brand products totaling $530, a net profit of $230 within just two months of building a fake profile and purchasing fake followers and engagement.
If the site wanted to keep up the rouge, it could start taking in the dough. It is true that larger companies could verify influence using a variety of available online tools for spotting fake followers and engagement, a lot of smaller PR and marketing companies don’t use them or bother.
While a lot of true influencers and bloggers who we’ve seen discussing this experiment are expressing amazement over how easy it is for folks to fake their influence — the same influence they take years, in some cases, to build– there is one glaring obvious lesson in all of this.
Being blonde and thin will get you places.
We noticed that both of the profiles featured white women with blonde hair and thin body aesthetic and features which is the ideal model of influence then, it seems.
There is a consensus among a lot of people who took notice of Mediakix’s experiment: re-do it with a fake profile of another demo group and see how easy the campaigns rack up without vetting of the authenticity of the influence and level of engagement.
Then, we’ll really be ready to talk! That would be an even more eye-opening experiment than ever!
