HOW TO SPOT FAKE SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS!

hey guys welcome back to my channel today's video is an unexpected continuation from my previous video I'm gonna recap the portion that pertains to this video but I'll leave the link to my previous video in the description box below for those interested this video is an interesting one to say the least when I set out to compile my previous video my intention was to talk about the exchange and handling of the PR situation that occurred on Twitter between Tati Westberg and Nour Vina of Anastasio Beverly Hills I had no idea that what I thought was a fairly small portion of that video would end up leading me to analyze an influencer social media accounts for the purposes of assessing whether their following is authentic or purchased the results were shocking of course before we get into the video let me just preface it by saying that the intent of this video is not to bully this individual I am simply using him as an example because I feel like if you're going to engage in fraudulent behavior on social media such as buying subscribers or followers and manipulating brands into sending you free products and you get caught in my opinion you deserve to be put on blast that said I obviously cannot guarantee the results of my findings to be a hundred percent accurate because I can't subpoena his bank records as proof of purchase but I can't provide receipts with supporting explanation as to why it's highly probable that his social media existence is nothing more than smoke and mirrors so let's get into it okay so a brief recap of my previous video you'll recall that I spoke about a makeup artist by the name of Kelly James MUA who inserted himself in the Twitter exchange between Tati and Nour Vina and ended up scoring a spot on the a bhpr list as seen in the following thread his first interaction was when you were applied to Nour vinas response to Tati saying oh my god what I've been trying to get you to notice me for two years on Instagram Nour Vina responded to Kelly saying I'm so bad okay I saw in love clearly Kelly James was seeking a little more than simply being noticed by novena because he responded back to her and said how do I get on your PR list or your attention well Kelly you already had her attention so what you're really looking for is access to PR let's be honest as if that wasn't cringy enough he took it a step further and threw a guilt trip at Noor Vina when he followed his PR inquiry up with I'm like the only one out of all my friends that's not on your list nor Vina responded to Kelly and said I'm adding you on in her place I will ask Natalia to add reason for removal as replaced by Kelly James MUA again to clarify novena was not adding him on in takis place she was adding him in place of someone who was caught selling a bhpr Kelly then replied inquiring about shipping and left off by telling or Vina how she had no idea how over the moon he was ok so that is it for the recap now shortly after my previous video went live I received a notification that Kelly had tweeted at me he has since gone on to delete our entire conversation along with several incriminating tweets from his time line now being that it didn't intend on making a follow-up video I didn't screenshot all his tweets but luckily a few of my followers came through for me and I was able to compile the timeline in its entirety so it starts off with him tweeting at me saying at here for the t2 for one I don't appreciate you mentioning me without asking in brackets reporting for defamation and two I was making a point that smaller people lie myself and I know he meant like but Freudian slip perhaps anyway he says I was making a point that smaller people like myself find it difficult to be noticed it wasn't fully asking to be on and then the tweet cuts off and since he's gone on to delete everything from his timeline I wasn't able to see the remainder of the tweet however it appears that he copied the same comment to my YouTube video so picking up where we left off on Twitter he says I wasn't fully asking to be on the be our list but making a point that I wasn't and how to be noticed by a brand like themselves never have I asked to be on someone's PR list so directly I support the brand and by almost all products regardless of the PR list so I thank you for [ __ ] on me as an artist that's looking for recognition ok so firstly this comment is borderline illegible and I actually have no idea what he was getting at and secondly I'm gonna be blunt he's a liar he has an extensive history of using manipulative tactics similar to those used on nerve ena to garner PR from at least three brands all of which I have receipts for moving back to Twitter for now I quote tweeted Kelly's tweet and said I don't need to ask you good luck with that reporting for defamation of your own words girl bye he responds back to me and says no reporting for defamation for you taking what I said and then talking [ __ ] about me on a public level to thousands of people to which I responded with I didn't talk [ __ ] it's my opinion of your tweets and I stand by it Kelly replies with yeah you did calling me tacky and whatever else I'm just trying to get recognition for the hard work that I put out there like many other artists and I'm trying to grow and you come along and knock me back to the bottom four views on YouTube I replied and said it is tacky in my opinion oMG I did not RSVP for your pity party I no pity is spelt wrong you can roast me in the comments if you want anyway he replies back to me and says I don't want a pity party from anyone I just want you to see what damage is done by people like you I've done nothing wrong and I'm getting tweets and messages of people being so horrible for nothing let's stop here for a second and discuss first I am NOT required to obtain permission from the individual in which I speak of in my videos nor do I ever do so as a courtesy the only time I reach out to an influencer prior to compiling a video is to obtain a statement which I did not feel was necessary in this case as the video was not about him now with respect to him advising that he was reporting me for defamation in order to do so the burden of proof would be on him the legal definition of defamation is as follows the art of communicating a false statements about a person that could enter the reputation of that person my exact statements I made with respect to Kelly in my previous video were number 1 at this point Kelly James takes it upon himself to hijack the thread number 2 Kelly goes on to press nor vena even further when he says how do I get on your PR list or your attention I'm like the only one out of all my friends that's not on your list number 3 I mean this is so pathetic in my opinion I get the importance of being noticed by brands but shamelessly asking the president of a prominent makeup brand beyond their PR list is just so tacky to me number 4 the entitlement of this individual indicating that he is the only one out of all his friends who isn't on the list as if Norina owes it to him to include him as well would be enough for me to blacklist him from PR altogether number 5 while Kelly James I guess it was your lucky day can't say that I personally respect the way you went about it but moving on these were the only references I made to Kelly in my previous video which you can verify yourself as it still remains live on my channel in opinion of his own tweets and/or actions is defamation in regards to him saying that I came along and knocked him back to the bottom for views on YouTube and that he wants me to see the damage that's done by people like me because he's done nothing wrong I'm about to show you the damage that's done on social media by people like him and how his actions are preventing deserving individuals from reaching their goals so here's where everything got real one of my followers happened to skim through his Twitter timeline and found this tweet from the exact same day being February 16th shortly after he was cleared for a bhpr the tweet reads so it's official I'm on everyone's PR list except at Jeffrey's tarce and he's my fave person ever being that Kelly had said in his comment to me that he's never directly asked for PR and I guess technically he isn't asking but he's certainly pulling from the same book of roundabout tactics he used on nor Venus so I attached a screenshot of the tweet in the thread and said sir please explain this deleted tweet Kelly responds to me and says I mean reposting someone's edited tweet is a bit ridiculous question mark question mark you've literally just tweeted me a photoshopped picture now the follower who sent this screenshot initially tweeted the link to me but by the time I saw the tweet and clicked on the link the tweet was unavailable so I figured it was deleted here's our Twitter exchange and as you can see I asked her what the tweet said and she replied by sharing a screenshot with me now he was likely only relying on the screenshot I posted in the thread and completely unaware of the exchange between myself and my follower wherein she linked this supposedly photoshopped tweet from his own account therefore it wouldn't have even been possible for it to be photoshopped as he claimed it to be but even if we only had the screenshot to rely on there simply wasn't enough time to photoshop the tweet nor would my follower give a [ __ ] to go to that extent so I responded to him and said oh my god you're a beggar and a liar and I suggested going on the Wayback Machine if he couldn't recall tweeting save Kelly replied to me saying that tweet is legit photoshopped like how the [ __ ] can someone like you not even see that now here's the gag as I was scrolling through his timeline guess what I found this supposedly photoshopped tweet he hadn't even deleted it from his timeline yet he claimed it was altered even going so far as to insult my intelligence with respect to same so I confronted him I tweeted at him linking the tweet from his own timeline and said sir not to be dramatic but quote-unquote Photoshop tweet is still on your feet dot-dot-dot awkward needless to say and never heard back from him but I continued to scroll through his feet and started noticing a pattern with respect to PR inquiries on his behalf On February 13 2018 which was three days prior to his interaction with noor veena he tweeted I think I'm the only beauty influencer on Instagram that isn't on at Jeffrey Starr's PR list I've literally bought most of his products though still prior to that On January 26 2018 he replied to one if Jeffrey star's tweets and said I am so [ __ ] ready for this new collection it's by far my fav ever I swear I'm the only beauty influencer not on your PR list so please i'ma buy every single thing in brackets as always going back to 2017 now On June 17 2017 he tweeted I think I'm the only beauty influencer on Instagram that didn't get at Jeffrey stars summer collection package oh well I'll still own them on November 28th 2017 he tweeted literally every brand follows me and sends me PR except actor cosmetics it's a tough life for sure another pattern I picked up one from his Twitter feed was this desperation to be noticed mainly by Jeffrey star and Mannie MUA and listen I get how it could be exciting to be acknowledged by your favorite influencer but again repeatedly tweeting at them using manipulative tactics to guilt them into noticing and/or following you says a lot about your character in my opinion on April 11th 2017 he tweeted at Mannie MUA always likes my tweets but not my Instagram posts on that same day being April 11th 2017 he also tweeted at many MUA been liking a lot of my tweets recently maybe he'll stock my Instagram then I can die happy on April 21st 2017 he tweeted at many MUA at Jeffrey star you always liking my stuff on here in Instagram how you're not gonna follow me PS see you saturday which was their meetup in London on the same day April 21st 2017 he tweeted what do I have to do to get at nikkietutorials to notice me on Instagram the next day on April 22nd 2017 he tweeted at many MUA literally likes and retweets everything I post how do I get him to follow me on Instagram I want to be his best friend on April 23rd 2017 he tweeted when will add Geoffrey star and or app Mannie MUA follow me that face we both like my [ __ ] all the time on insta in here a million crying face emojis on April 23rd 2017 he tweeted makes me sad how jeffree star cosmetics morphe Benefit Cosmetics follow me on instagram but add Geoffrey star in at many MUA don't on April 24th 2017 he tweeted this month at Geoffrey star and at Maine EMU a have tweeted me liked my Instagram posts and had pictures with me if they follow me I will die on April 25th 2017 after mani liked his Instagram post he posted a photo of the notification to Instagram stories and wrote I see you at mani MUA on April 11th 2017 he tweeted at mani MUA I see you liking my picture on June 16 2017 he tweeted at many MUA always liking my tweets but still don't follow me on your Instagram on September 5th 2017 he tweeted that mani MUA I think it's time for you to follow me considering you like and reply to every tweet I tweet at you that's about all I can take of that you guys there are plenty more examples but I think you can see that this isn't just someone looking for recognition of their hard work as he said in his tweet to me the irony of that tweet and I'll put it up again for your reference is that he likens himself to other artists looking to growing gain recognition but what he's actually doing is making a mockery of his peers and other artists by creating a false online presence in order to get ahead of that what he's doing makes up a significant portion of social media and it's become a huge issue for legitimate influencers artists and advertisers alight fake followers it's a lot more common than you think but how can you tell whether an influencers following is the real deal a lot of what you see on social media is a facade and I'm gonna use Kelly as an example to show you what to look out for in determining the legitimacy of an influencers following as I said in the beginning of this video this is not bullying when you participate in this type of behavior you run the risk of getting caught and when you get caught you can't turn around and play victim anyway let's get into his social media presence I'm mainly going to focus on his Instagram account as this is the platform he directed nor vina - we need told her that he'd been trying to get her to notice him for the past two years and this is also where he has the largest following currently sitting at seventy eight point three thousand followers as I was scrolling through his feet I became intrigued by the lack of engagement on his in relation to his follower count now I can tell you what I think but I'm not gonna sit here and accuse or speculate about something unless they have receipt so he enlisted someone with experience in assessing the validity of an influencer social media statistics for potential job opportunities to help me out you may say this is an all-time low of Pettyfer here for the tea but I say it's important to bring awareness to the deceptive site of social media so I asked this person's specific questions and she provided her opinion together with supporting evidence using Kelly's Instagram account as an example the first question was can you tell me what people should look for when trying to determine whether an influencers following is legitimate answer there are several ways to determine if an influencers followers on social media are legitimate the first thing you want to look at is the influencers followers with suspicious names for example here are a few screenshots of Kelly's followers now the companies who sell these quote-unquote services are really good at designing the quote unquote followers also known as box however many remain an obvious site with names such as free followers follow for follow gain followers etc influencers with larger followings usually have a lot of followers within the same area of interest of his or her post this occurs as a result of tagging their content company's products and interests displayed in their posts a computer engineer for example would have a lot of followers interested in that field and his or her followers would usually post similar content or follow others within this field the same goes for lifestyle influencers vloggers beauty influencers and any other category typically an influencer who has purchased followers will have so-called red flag accounts these accounts are usually private some containing more information than others some body counts will have profile pictures and some will be what's called an empty account no profile picture no posts nothing these are considered to be low-level bought accounts which make up a good portion of Kelly's followers as seen here typically faker purchased accounts follow thousands with in all types of interests yet have very few followers themselves in comparison which is a major red flag you can see in this example and by the way these are just a few pulled from his account but you can see the ratio is disproportionate which as I said is common for bought accounts now BOTS can also be seen on legitimate influencers accounts or even your friends accounts but that doesn't necessarily mean that their purchase some BOTS follow people based on keywords so don't go sifting through man emu A's followers to try and spot a bot and then accuse him of buying followers you will more than likely find body counts on legitimate accounts but if most of their following appears to be BOTS than yes they are likely purchasing them a much more accurate way of determining whether an influencer buys followers is to go buy the engagement on their posts if an influencer has thousands of followers it can be expected that their engagement rates are proportionate to their follower count typically the way you'd calculate an influencers average engagement rate on Instagram is by dividing the number of likes and comments by their follower count which would give you a percentage now if you were to throw Kelly's numbers into a calculation app those apps cannot differentiate between real likes and bot likes and since likes are super easy to buy in comments or not purchase likes would bring this average up so in cases where it's suspected that there are purchased likes it's far more accurate to calculate the engagement rate on likes and comments separately by posts here are eight of Kelly's posts for example the first being February 8 2018 he has two thousand four hundred and thirty eight likes and only 25 comments August 13 2017 he has two thousand two hundred and twenty three lakes and only 25 comments August 7th 2017 he has one thousand three hundred and sixteen likes and only seven comments and so on if you calculated his engagement percentage the old-fashioned way he'd quote unquote past because his likes are good but as I said this is likely due to purchasing the engagement on his comments is particularly low on every post which is another indication that his likes and followers are purchased basically the reason there are so few comments in relation to his follower count is because no one is home you know what I'm saying so starting off with the likes from the February 8th post he has two thousand four hundred and thirty six likes divided by seventy eight point three thousand followers at the time of calculation times 100 equals three point one zero nine engagement rate for likes on that specific posts for comments he has 32 comments divided by seventy eight point three thousand times 100 equals zero point zero for one percent Instagram is known for being the highest engaging social media platform and it is estimated that an influencer of his size should have 2.4% engagement rate now yes in this specific post he clears the bare minimum of 2.4% on likes but none of his posts come close in terms of comments why because it's super hard to buy comments in this case the engagement percentage of his comments is more indicative of his overall engagement rate which is way below the threshold for an account of his size another sign that an influencer is buying followers is when their daily increase or decrease of followers is inconsistent with their content for instance say an influencer gains 10,000 Instagram followers on February 1st yet they didn't post anything and if they did post something and the engagement rate on that post is minimal it doesn't make sense that they would gain 10,000 followers on that day how do you check this you can go on social bleed which is a statistics website that allows you to track stats and measure growth across multiple social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Twitter and twitch this is a screenshot of Kelly's social bleed for his Instagram account you'll obviously notice studies hemorrhaging subscribers daily which we'll touch on in a bit but what you'll also notice are these graphs categorized by total followers total following and total uploads when you hover over the graphs you can pick up statistics for a particular days which you can then cross-reference with the influencers Instagram post of the same date if there is one as I said earlier if there's no post on Instagram yet you see the influencer has gained 10,000 followers using the followers gained graph on social blade it's highly probable that they bought followers on that day even if there is a post it's important to consider the engagement on same end whether it warrants a 10k gain so as you can see these two graphs were pulled from Kelly's social blade account the top shows total followers gained in the bottom shows total uploads these two graphs should reasonably follow each other with no stagnation or spikes gaining over 40,000 followers with less than 200 posts it's highly unlikely the graph should look something like this showing gradual growth with no abnormal spikes now of course there can be a day where you gain a lot more followers than others but again there would usually be a post or a video or something to support that growth also keep in mind that this is in combination with the other red flags mentioned this is not just one spike in his graph that we're going on anyway my next question was where do you buy fake followers like or views etc answer there are many social marketing companies that offer these services known as Instagram automation in business QuickStart and boosts a quick search on Google for help with your digital marketing on social media or even a direct search for buying fake followers or likes on Google sends you to the most commonly used and best reviewed site at this time called by Zoid next question how do fake followers work does the company you buy from stagger them so they go quote-unquote unnoticed or are they dropped all at once resulting in the sudden spike on social blade answer this really depends on what the buyer is willing to pay it can be quite cheap with many services charging around one to ten US dollars for every 1000 followers but you get what you pay for in most cases these will be BOTS this service will usually give you upwards of a thousand followers within a couple of days to a week and pages like by Zoid also offer to drop them when the buyer posts to avoid suspicion from instagrams algorithms to catch them but for an extra fee of course these will have no interaction or engagement the influencer will then have to buy likes and views in addition to this if you really want to go into detail in finding out if an influencer has purchased followers it's a good idea to check if the accounts that follow them also like their posts if the followers are purchased are fake then they most likely never like the influencers posts if they buy from this kind of service next question does Instagram or any other social media platform have filters for fake followers answer at this point in time no the human filter is the only true way by analysis of an influencer social activity through social blade investigation and calculation there are services out there which claim they can do it for a fee but those typically do not work and they end up scamming people for money or false surveys to on law the best way to find out if an influencer has fake or purchased followers is to do the hard work yourself or hire a professional to do so next question why does Kelly's social blade account for Instagram show that he loses a lot of followers every day is that Instagram purging answer Instagram does mass sorting daily specifically inactive account sorting which means these bot accounts get deleted regularly due to inactivity causing a slow decrease in followers this is a typical sign of fake or purchased followers next question in your opinion do you believe Kelly's following to be or purchase if so why and by how much answer yes after further analyzing this account it seems that there is never anyone tagging this person in posts if you have a follower base of almost eighty thousand it seems unlikely that none of your followers would ever tag you or use your hashtag this person also isn't very engaging towards his followers he tags a lot of brands and prominent people in his industry which seems like attention-seeking instead of interacting showing interest and engaging with his followers looking into the statistics of the above-mentioned I can only look back so far and therefore can only estimate based on all information gathered that at the very least to last 40,000 of his followers are fake but personally I would only comfortably be able to confirm that commentators are as real followers making it potentially 5474 real followers in total not accounting that some make comments several times on different posts so it may be even less this is a very generous estimate if you look at this chart made up of all the tags he uses and the percentage of times he's used them on all 161 posts these tags are simply not enough to drive that number of followers to his page he doesn't use any community tags or geo tags which would be the tags to use if you're trying to drive traffic to your page and it's not like as followers are coming from another social media platform so where are the numbers coming from another thing I was told is that a new trend with people who buy Instagram followers is to do so while hosting a giveaway as it's less likely you'll get caught remember earlier I talked about the spikes on the social blade graph being consistent with an influencers Instagram engagement well if you host a giveaway on a certain day your engagement likes comments and followers are likely to spike on those days so if you buy followers on the same day as your giveaway the spike on the graph would likely look consistent with the giveaway and the bot followers are concealed or less noticeable by the way Kelly did not have any giveaways on his Instagram account also of interests a day following my interaction with Kelly I found this tweet on his timeline and after I asked the person to DM me Kelly blocked me the person did not DM me so I could have verified the information but the tweet said where's the hard work you've posted to your Instagram once this year you also don't post to your YouTube which is true by the way they followed that tweet by saying most of your followers and like sir fate dot dot you've been blacklisted from the PR company I work for again I can't confirm that but it certainly wouldn't surprise me anyway you guys that was a ton of information I hope it made sense and I hope you learned something the thing is people like this take opportunities from deserving artists or influencers and advertisers and or brands need to do better when it comes to vetting these accounts if they truly want to get the most bang for their buck in regards to the abh PR situation I know abh doesn't go by follower count and I respect that a hundred percent but I personally know a few makeup artists specifically on Instagram who work their asses off producing content trying to grow their platform while working a low-paying full-time job who would give their left nut to be on ebh SPR list that they would never ask they do makeup because they're passionate about it they love to create and inspire they work hard to accomplish their goals shouldn't those be the ones representing the abh name look if novena needs help scouting I can personally name 3m you ace off the top of my head who deserves some recognition anyway you guys look I think it's important for you to see that cheating your way to the top is never the answer there's nothing more satisfying than achieving your goals through hard work and dedication any social-media influencer will tell you that I'm gonna leave you with some advice from Kelly James and I suggest you take it thank you guys so much for watching let me know your thoughts below and don't forget to subscribe to my channel follow me on Twitter Instagram and busted-ass snapchat we have canceled varo by the way so it's unnecessary to follow me there but all my socials are here for the tea too thank you guys so much for watching and I'll talk to you again soon in my next video bye are you a good lawyer I don't lie I know everyone says that why don't I just don't see the point it's a waste this part of why even lie to someone when most of the time you're gonna get found out 99.9999 stand at the time you're gonna get quotes oh I don't like this Mike fear like being caught I really believe in karma and I feel like if I lie like anyone's gonna lie to me you

Channel: Here For The Tea

Views: 563,054

Keywords: tati westbrook, tati halo beauty, tati, check fake followers instagram, halo beauty review, anastasia beverly hills, norvina, fake followers, fake followers on instagram, instagram followers, how to tell if instagram followers are fake, social media marketing, social media influencers, marketing, marketing on instagram tips, jeffree star, jeffree star review, manny mua, nikkie tutorials, public relations, social media engagement, beauty, here for the tea

Id: 0OxZjZHgOW8

Length: 26min 49sec (1609 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 03 2018