Would You Hire This Instagram Influencer?

I first joined Instagram in December 2010 shortly after its launch. For once in my life, I was an early adopter. But back in those days, social networks were still a “neat idea” and we were still discovering ways in which to connect with other people. I was already feeling Twitter fatigue and I loved Instagram because it was all about pretty pictures.

In January of the following year, I hesitantly wrote about this new app that I was obsessed with.

“I almost didn’t want to write this post because I feel like Instagram is my own private hideaway. No words are needed. Just pictures that I think are cool. And I’m only following 43 people. It’s manageable. It’s not thousands of people with 140 characters scrolling past my eyeballs at a ridiculous rate. But I love the intimate personal feel of it and maybe you will too.”

~ AllThingsFadra.com, January 2011

But as with most social networks, things change. They grow or flop. They become acquired or go bankrupt. And then they become another platform in the tool chest of the social media influencer.

Admittedly, I work in the social media influencer space. I’m often sponsored to write blog posts or share messaging across my social networks in exchange for product, money, or both. To many, it sounds like a dream life and in some regards, it is. But you’re only as good as your numbers.

We’ve been told for years that we need to charge what we’re worth but we also need to define exactly why we’re worth what we’re worth. Usually, the justification comes from reach, which can be acquired in so many different ways (some more questionable than others).

This is what’s been happening and continues to happen with the Instagram influencer. While quality of photos and content matter, it’s still very much a numbers game and if you’re working with or plan to work with Instagram influencers, it’s important to know what you’re getting.

Dissecting the Instagram Influencer

Most Instagram influencers for hire will enable a business profile for their account. This simply means that it’s easier to directly contact that influencer from their profile and to view analytics for the account. Arguably the two most important numbers are Reach and Impressions. In Instagram’s own language:

Reach is the number of accounts you reach this week. Impressions are the number of times the media and promotions you created this week were seen.

It would make sense that the more followers you have, the more your posts get seen. Instagram, however, has followed the way of Facebook (its parent company) and offered up an algorithm designed to show any user the posts they are most likely to interact with. And which posts are those? That’s the million dollar question.

In influencer circles, you’ll often find strategy talk about using hashtags (but not too many), posting at specific times of the day (but not too often), securing comments in a timely manner, responding to others’ posts, and maintaining a consistent look and feel in your “top nine.” It’s a lot of work to simply try to get your work seen. It’s not enough to simply produce good content. You also have to play the marketing strategy game that doesn’t have a handbook.

Some influencers have opted for other techniques to gain more popularity and interaction on Instagram and this is where the waters start to get a little muddy for those looking for high quality influencers.

More and more, influencers are choosing to use some of these much maligned techniques to gain influence.

The Follow-Unfollow Game

A tell-tale sign of the follow-unfollow game on Instagram is an extremely high ratio of followers to following. One “New York Blogger” boasts the following on her profile:

A user like this will repeatedly follow other Instagram users and then unfollow them after a few days. Because Instagram has not had an accurate way of identifying if a user is following you, most users will “follow back” and never even realize that they’ve been unfollowed.

It’s not illegal or unethical. It’s just really, really annoying.

Loop Giveaways

Loop giveaways are one of the latest techniques to come under scrutiny and it’s one that seems to be widespread across influencers desperate to increase their following.

It starts with a company that works “under the covers” (i.e., no traceable company or email account) that reaches out to influencers with an email like the following:

It’s a giveaway and most brands might not see anything wrong with that. But these giveaways are usually for high dollar prizes that attract “sweepers” or those that create accounts simply for the sake of entering a contest. In order for someone to enter the giveaway, they have to complete a series of steps, including liking a photo, commenting on a photo, and following multiple Instagram accounts.

As for the Instagram influencer, it all comes at a cost. And this is one of the cheaper ones.

When an Instagram influencer joins one of these loop giveaways, it becomes immediately obvious in two ways: comments and followers.

Photos that might normally be nice enough photos and do well will suddenly gain thousands of likes and comments. Engagement is good, right? When a friend participating in a loop giveaway recently posted a picture about her workplace, she received the following types of comments.

You’ll see that it’s primarily an international audience and you’ll typically see comments about an iPhone (the prize in question).

But it works. And the influencer gains tens of thousands of followers in a very short period of time as seen for another influencer that’s recently started doing multiple loop giveaways.

The questions you should ask as a brand that might hire this influencer are:

• Are these organic followers?
• Are they genuinely interested in what the influencer is posting?
• Will you get a return on investment simply because this influencer has the numbers?
• Will you see the type of engagement you’re looking for?

But engagement is something that can be managed as well using Comment Pods.

Comment Pods

Once you get your multitude of followers, you still need engagement to show your value as an influencer. This is where Comment Pods come in. This is usually a group of like-minded Instagram Influencers that form a private thread — either directly on Instagram or another platform like Facebook.

When someone in the group posts a photo requiring more engagement, they leave a link for the group. From here, all participants are usually required to like the photo and leave a meaningful comment so that it’s not a feed full of messages like, “Nice pic.”

The idea is not only to boost likes but to do it quickly to try and “trick” the algorithm into thinking it’s a genuinely engaging post and therefore show it to other followers.

Even outside of Loop Giveaways and Comment Pods, influencers can still fall back on purchasing both followers and comments. It can and is still done with a fair amount of frequency.

Why They Do It and What You Should Do

At last count, there were 800 million registered Instagram users. That’s makes it awfully tough to stand out on a saturated platform. Getting paid for sponsored Instagram photos is a very lucrative field, though. While some influencers will post for $100, others will charge thousands, depending on the number of their followers.

The benchmark used to be 10,000 followers on Instagram to be considered of value to brands but the number keeps rising to 25k, 50k, and now over 100k. While some still believe in growing their following organically, it becomes harder and harder to compete for paid work and influencers are taking shortcuts to inflate their numbers wherever they can.

If you’re looking for brand exposure on Instagram, consider what your goals are before you seek out the most populated accounts with the highest price tag. Often, a smaller, more authentic, more engaged influencer can bring more value to your brand than an elevated number of impressions. And you also want to make sure that the influencer reflects the values of your brand.

Fadra Nally started her blog, All Things Fadra, in 2009 as a way to showcase her writing and land a “real job.” She soon discovered that life behind a keyboard beats a corner window office any day of the week. Since that time, she’s built partner relationships with brands like Nintendo, National Geographic, Toyota, Disney, Fandango, and Netflix. Her work has been featured on The Stir, Working Mother, J&J Parents, and even inspired Chapter 10 of the well-known marketing book, Groundswell.

In addition to her lifestyle blog, Fadra is also a Founding Contributor at ShesOnTheGo.com, a women’s travel website, and co-hosts a light-hearted entertainment podcast, Stinger, which focuses on tv and movies.

You can find her organic Instagram following at instagram.com/allthingsfadra