Fyre Festival: What Influencers Can Learn from the Disaster

Published in

Octoly Magazine

4 min readJan 30, 2019

If you’re anything like us you’ve been watching the Hulu or Netflix (or both) documentaries about Fyre Festival and shaking your head wondering how something that promised to be so right could quickly go so wrong.

Poor planning, deceit, and fraud aside, these documentaries were a treasure trove of ominous warnings for influencers. It was kind of like watching the absolute worst possible case scenario for paid influencer work unfold before your eyes. Learn from the mistakes of these influencers so another Fyre disaster never happens again.

ALWAYS DISCLOSE

Sorry, but this must be in all caps because it is the biggest and most frustrating mistake the Fyre Festival influencers made. Unfortunately, this mistake cost many of them hefty FTC fines, too. None of the influencers involved in the Fyre Festival disclosed that they were being paid to promote the project. Sadly, this contributed to the first layer of a long line of deceits committed by the entire Fyre enterprise. However, this was an easily avoidable error — every influencer knows that if you’re getting paid, you must disclose.

Do your research

As an influencer, it is your responsibility to have a full understanding of what you are promoting and what the end product will be. Take the time to speak with your brand partners to understand the project you are promoting from start to finish. Don’t blindly agree to project you aren’t 100% sure of because it could lead to confusion or even backlash later.

If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it

It was hard not to cringe at the model’s uncomfortable side eyes when they were being asked to run into the water in the dead of night during the Netflix documentary. Without them saying a word you could tell these influencers felt uncomfortable with the asks they were being given and the direction of the project. When it comes to any type of work where you are putting your personal brand on the line, trust your instincts. Chances are if you feel weird about it you are completely right. If a project feels icky, strange, or uncomfortable to you, don’t worry about walking away from it. Protect your brand at any cost.

Influencers have power — use it wisely

As we saw in both Fyre documentaries, influencers have insane amounts of power, which is why it is important to always understand what you are promoting to ensure you don’t mislead your loyal followers by mistake. Paid partnerships are an amazing opportunity, but don’t let the allure of a partnership trick you into making a decision that will hurt your business in the long run.

In the end, we don’t think any of the influencers involved in the Fyre festival promotion could have predicted such a terrible outcome to this project. This is a case of bad luck for them as well. However, there were a few red flags that were ignored that could have stopped a lot of (expensive) heartache in the future.

What did you think of the Fyre documentaries? What did you learn from them as an influencer? Let us know what your thoughts below.

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