Our society has become increasingly fake. Some young girls now have more fake bits than real bits and reality TV comes with a disclaimer announcing that some scenes have been created for 'entertainment purposes'. This doesn't stop them from being popular, plenty of people are happy to invest in a genuine fake - if they are aware of what is going on.
This week's Dispatches on Channel 4 showed how some people were faking followers on Twitter and Facebook. For a small payment, a man in Bangladesh can get his team of clickers to create an illusion of social media success for your online profiles. Some of the Essex and Chelsea girls have been taking advantage of this, they're artificially inflating their followings as well as their appendages. But so what? It's all part of their game and who are they really hurting? It's just an extension of playground popularity, a bit of self-promotion in the blurred world of fact and fiction.
Businesses are also adopting this approach and it has divided opinion. Is this a harmless bit of advertising or is it deliberately misleading?
We place an importance on big numbers, if you have 50,000 'likes' on your Facebook page, you appear established and trustworthy. Your brand has integrity. It says a huge amount of people have liked your product enough to seek you out and make contact. A brilliant endorsement. From a new customer point of view, if you were booking a holiday and saw that one travel agency had 100,000 likes and the other had 465, you'd be more inclined to go with the higher number as you are in a larger pool of satisfied holidaymakers.
So your fruitful page has grabbed the consumers' attention but upon further investigation, the page picked appears barren.
Fake followers do not engage with your page. They will never comment or share because they just don't care - let me remind you - they are not real people. It's very clear, if your Facebook page is all 'likes' and no interaction, that your popularity has been bought. If you have 500 fans and 20 of them comment a day, that's a healthy percentage of engagement. If you inflate your followers to 50,000 - you will still only have 20 commenting a day - that's a terrible response rate. It will also become clear to these 20 people that your brand provokes little involvement and they too will tail off.
Ultimately, the only people a brand is misleading is themselves. Social Media is not about numbers, it's about interaction. Brands have to work hard, they have to make their customers feel valued. It's much easier to do this if the people come to you. They have 'liked' your page because they like what you do. That's how it works, folks. If you want 'likes', be likeable - Simple.
There is also this misnomer that social media is immediate, that things have to happen quickly. Allow your social media relationships to develop slowly. Much better to build up a fanbase over time with genuine content and interaction. You need to take time to evaluate your postings, to see which ones work, which ones provoked a response, which blog entries gained the most audience. If you are buying a constant stream of fake followers, this is impossible to keep track of. You are losing valuable market research and you will never understand how to make your online presence work for you.
Social media is just an extension of real life. Those Twitter and Facebook accounts that you want to follow you are - let me remind you - actual real people and that's how they should be courted. See your business as a community, don't keep everything business-centric, people like personality. If the grumpy cat pics make you laugh - pass them on. Interact and you will get a response. We are all sociable creatures. If you talk to someone, they will talk back, apart from the stuck-up woman on the train this morning. I didn't realise that men weren't allowed to speak to women in public anymore. Chill out, lady, I'm a poofter not a pervert. Unless you read the bible, in which case I am both of those things.
Your profile is your shop window, if all you have is fake followers, none of them are going to come in and buy anything. Cheating gets you nowhere. A couple of high-profile athletes have learnt that lesson the hard way recently. All their hard work and respect disappeared because of a silly decision for a short-term fix . The same thing can happen in business, if people see that you have a fake following, you will lose credibility and they will lose faith in your brand.
Have confidence in your brand. Believe that it can grow online on its own. Sing its praises, be infectious and you might go viral. If you have a larger workforce, do things that engage them, post hashtag games, jokes and competitions, this way you already have a core of people to share your message. Make it fun using your own original content. It's the only surefire way to social media success. If you're paying a man in Bangladesh $5 to increase your social status, social media is probably not for you. There are no quick fixes. Social media is a reflection of your success, amazing results do not happen without hard work and original creativity. Concentrate on being brilliant, make your brand exceptional and the followers will follow.
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