Brands and advertising agencies are big on metrics. Page views, number of followers, number of clicks, etc. In the absence of other analytical tools, this has some value in analyzing the success of a campaign and for estimating how wide a reach it has achieved.
BUT (and this is a big BUT)…
Page views can be gamed. The number of clicks can be gamed. And followers can be bought. Pathetic, but it does happen. To be fair, there are also bots that automatically follow you if you are perceived to have some influence in cyberspace. I know that on Twitter, I wonder about eggheads (I refer to Twitter accounts with a default egg instead of a photo) that follow me and yet either don’t have tweets or tweet nonsensical stuff. Fortunately, I don’t have too many of those.
Why, you may ask, are these statistics gamed and why are followers bought? Well, there are those who would benefit from ramped-up page views and followers. Some celebrities and netizens who participate in brand campaigns use these stats to negotiate their price or to show they are that popular. Not all do this, mind you. I have many celebrity and netizen friends who would rather stay authentic rather than fake their popularity and influence. But there are those who would resort to this for some form of personal gain.
Continue reading “The Instagram clean-up and its impact on influencers”