Companies in a fix as social media influencers 'fake' it

Companies across sectors such as packaged foods, health, electronics, automobiles, and beauty and lifestyle products seeking a greater social media presence are trying to fight the plague of influencers with fake follower numbers. There's been a steep surge of influencers on platforms such as Instagram as well as those who blog and stream videos in India. Brands need them but with the number of Indian social influencers pegged at 80 million, it's hard to figure out who's genuine.

"It has become a huge concern, since we decide payments to the influencers based on the number of followers they have," said Mayank Shah, senior category head at biscuits and confectionery products maker Parle Products. "While other parameters like target group relevance also matter, the first criteria brands look at is the number of followers."

Over half of all social media influencers in India have more than 60% inactive, non-credible or fake followers, according to a new report by B2B tech platform Klug India, which works with WPP, Reliance Jio and Firstcry.com.


"There are rampant instances of individuals purchasing fake followers, synthetic bots or utilising fake human farms to artificially boost their numbers," said Kalyan Kumar, chief executive of Klug India. Influencers in India have a mix of genuine and fake followers, some from countries such as Russia, Brazil and Turkey, he said.

"Given that influencer marketing is growing into a large market, the possibility of fraudulent followers is a big problem. Beyond cost, there stands to be significant risk on brand reputation," said Shashank Srivastava, senior executive officer, marketing and sales, Maruti Suzuki.

Fake likes and fake followers diminish the return on investment.

"Nearly half of all advertisers have faced some kind of fraudulent social engagement in the last two years, and because of this lost about 15-20% cost of influencer marketing," Srivastava said.