EP 19 The dark side of IG growth: buying accounts, giveaways, & engagement pods - Oh My!

Timestamps:

• [0:58] Buying old Instagram accounts.

• [4:03] Instagram using data.

• [6:12] The brand space and Instagram giveaways.

• [10:53] The sales strategy of a brand on Instagram.

• [16:31] What about on the creator side?

• [19:29] Red flags when scouting influencers.

• [22:53] Engagement pods.

• [25:52] The age of the "pretty girl" influencer is dying.

--

LINKS:

Find Harley:

IG: @theharleyjordan
Website: https://www.theharleyjordan.com/

Find Sonia:
IG: @Sonia.elyss
Website: https://www.soniaelyss.com/

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00:00

Welcome to brand meet Creator Podcast with me Harley Jordan and Sonia Elise, a place where we pull back

0:06

the curtain and the trashy filters on the influencer marketing industry.

0:10

So pull up a chair and grab a notebook, it's time to shed some light

0:13

on the ever changing. It's diverse.

0:22

This episode is a very interesting topic, the dark side of Instagram growth, engagement pods, giveaways, buying old accounts, how this affects you now? And is all of this still going on? So let's break down the myths, the realness of it and everything in between. So let's first start with this buying old accounts thing because I don't think many people know this is an option and that this even happens. So you want to give us the rundown, Sonia? What is this? Even like? How does this even work?

0:58

Yeah, so this is specifically an Instagram thing that I'm aware of, but I am sure it's also an option on Tik Tok. There are plenty of people who spend time building an account, that is what I would consider like a meme account. There isn't like an animal's account. You know, they're they're posting stuff that they know everyone is going to like to grow quite rapidly. And they get to a place that's anywhere from 5000 to maybe 50,000 followers, and then they list their account on a black market for Instagram. Essentially, if Harley wanted to start a new company or a new account, but she didn't want to start with zero followers, she could go to this black market and look through all the accounts that are listed for sale, see the type of content that they previously posted for and make an offer to purchase that account. Yeah, once the offer is brokered, the deal is done. You then get that account, they surrender the name, and you're able to switch your name over with all of their existing followers intact. Yep.

2:03

All of their posts, change the username. And generally where this happens is when you potentially have a business that is the similar as a similar niche. So you might have like a fitness meme or something like that. And you might have a fitness influencer, buy it or a fitness activewear brands, something like that, buy it so that you still have this target audience. And we were actually talking about a beauty brand. I won't say names that you were suspecting of this behavior recently.

2:38

Yep, it's a beauty brand that is backed by a celebrity as the face. And I thought that within the time that they announced it, it was just way too many followers. So it happened organically. And I questioned if perhaps the brand bought a fan account of the celebrity. So there's so many celebrity fan accounts on Instagram, that they perhaps purchased one where they knew all the followers would already be fans with this person, which is sneaky, sneaky, but also like kind of smart. I actually had a brand do this. And I didn't really question the ethics of it. And I'm sure there are a lot of people questioning the ethics behind this. But I did a project for a brand that was launching something. For the first time, they didn't want to launch it with zero followers. They had a larger umbrella brand that had lots of followers, but they wanted this to be a sub scenario. And that was my first experience with purchasing off of the black market. As Harley mentioned, they did buy within the same niche as what this new product was going to be. And be you know what we even kept some of the old content on so that people wouldn't be like, Wait, whoa, well, well, total left hand turn here. What am I following? And no, it's still, it still takes in engagement. Still tanked and engagement right away. Unfortunately,

4:03

first and foremost, let's talk about the amount of data that's on an old account because I think that is a hinderance in and of itself. I mean, there's all of this information right now around Instagram, that's like, make a new account, if you're changing anything, make a new account. And for me, someone who started their Instagram in 2011 and made their converted their personal account, the account that I've had ever since into my business account started posting on this account. I don't have two accounts and like growth is still a potential. But you have to get over a hump like there is a hump where you're gonna be like, Oh, God, this sucks. This is a long haul.

4:43

Absolutely. Instagram definitely works off of data. And that includes like where in the world you are. So if you're buying an account and the person wasn't, I don't know India, and you are based in London, like Instagrams, like He was going on, like all the posting times are different. Now I don't know what's happening. So it's essentially that you're feeding Now Instagram all of this new data and information that it was not previously interested in. And I will back up the information, the idea about starting a new account. I am not saying it's for everyone, it's definitely only reserved for people who are making a major pivot a major shift, and they just don't think that they can do it from their current account. Because as we've all talked about, I had my account deleted. And I had it since 2011. And it was primarily a personal account. But you know, since I had started my own business, I was talking a lot more about education and my stance on different things in influencer marketing and all types, right.

5:45

I mean, like different topics easier to wait for people that aren't actually interested to unfollow or to start fresh and only have the people that are interested in your staff.

5:56

So I did start fresh. And now I'm close to 1k. In, you know, I don't put in as much effort as I probably could. But I think that 1k grows definitely came much more quickly than my previous account got to 1k. So whether

6:12

it's buying an old account or giveaways, I feel like this is a huge thing in the brand space, more than anything.

6:22

Absolutely. When we work with brands and manage their social media, there always comes a time where we go head to head with someone who wants to do way more giveaways to increase the followers. And I am a big naysayer of the giveaway because this is what happens when Sonia we want to do a giveaway. And we want everyone to tag three friends and they have to be following our account and the giveaway is worth $1,000. Okay, so then what happens after the giveaway is over, everyone masks and follows or they're not engaged in the content, or they're not even going to see the content in the future because we haven't created a strong enough association for that person to be looking for us. Essentially, their friend randomly tagged them in something they saw, it was worth $1,000, they followed and they're excited about winning that thing. And we will never see them again. So I am very anti the giveaway. The only time it makes sense for me is if a brand is doing a collaboration with another brand. And they want to do a package giveaway and the brands are very well aligned or they're co collaborating on product. Okay, I can see doing a giveaway for that. But starting your giveaway with the idea that this is going to increase followers and help your account in some way is not the way to do it. Doing a giveaway and thinking to yourself, I really just want to reward the people who are here, that's great, then do a giveaway and don't force anybody new to be following you do the giveaway and just do it. That's fine.

7:59

So I'm gonna take this a step further. Because I think running your own giveaway and like collaborating with a brand and saying tag tag couple people share us your story, whatever, like that's one thing. But what I'm thinking about in a giveaway is the huge, like Kardashian level giveaways that people with a million plus followers, let's let's like break down how this works. So you have this huge, huge account millions of followers, and you sign up for this giveaway, they're going to post something that basically says go to this account, follow everyone that your fault that they are following a loop, big loop of following. So you can pay, you know, $300 to be a part of something like this. And this goes up to like, you could spend like five grand doing giveaways like this. And what people do actually is they will ask for the analytics of this person. So they know who will actually come in. They asked for, you know, all of the insights and all of that, like it is really this like crazy deep market. So when this person posts when they start promoting this giveaway, what you see is this, like, I just went viral moment of oh my god, I can't even see my phone. Like there's so much noise coming in. And there's so many followers streaming in. And it's a whole it's a whole can of worms,

9:29

similar results to what I just described, but on a mass scale. So I actually had another brand that I no longer work with, participate in these Kardashian giveaways and I don't know the exact number that they paid, but I know it was well over $5,000 to be included well over $1,000. But we

9:47

because those demographics are there. It's not like you're buying followers. You're buying this different opportunity,

9:55

correct? Yes, I know you aren't buying bots. But you are getting a lot of influx of traffic, that is not people that are what you want to be following your account, they're not going to purchase from you, they're not going to engage on the account. And I would say we saw an increase of like 60,000 to 80,000 followers. That's an insane amount of growth for an account. But the engagement rate was never there. And you know what, that's fine. For some brands, some brands, I think it's good to keep in mind that some brands are on an exit strategy, right? They're building the numbers as high as they can build, so that someone comes in and purchases them, and they peace out. And that's fine. If they know that they don't want the engagement, they don't want the community, then and this is the way they want to get there, then that's how they want to spend their money. Like okay, then what I recommend it to most people, no, it's a no for me.

10:52

So let's actually talk about the sale strategy of of a brand. Because I think sometimes your Instagram is it can act as a landing page, instead of a like, actual ad. Like we're not advertising the content. We're just trying to produce enough good content that someone sees this. And they're like, oh, okay, this is this is tangible and clicks on that website, or buys it in the store food brands, for example, am I really going to be following Nesquik? Like, maybe not, that they're a name brand in a store? So is it worth it having like, a huge platform online?

11:35

Yeah. I mean, I think that is a thing that more brands should really ask themselves, like, how important is this platform to the success of my company? And I think that there's a lot of brands out there that that is not their vehicle. And I think we've talked about this a little bit offline, where it's like, does the presence on Instagram hold as much weight as brands lead it internally? And I think it's a no, I think that there you could be have a mediocre presence on Instagram, be there say what you need to say, be consistent, but not make it this whole huge portion of your marketing strategy, and place that effort somewhere else, and still being highly successful? Absolutely. Right is possible. And I'm seeing more and more people do it, especially as they see that the saturation is so high, the cost to play is very high, the amount that they are having to spend on content production on ads on their team that maintains this whole channel, it's a ton. And I think that they're realizing, you know, I could put these dollars somewhere else and get an immediate conversion much more quickly. And they do. I applaud that.

12:48

I mean, let's let's break this down with an example like Nesquik, like, Sprite, let's like that household name. If I was to find their account, and it had 2000 followers, would I care? Would you care?

13:04

No. I, to me, the number of followers has never triggered me, which is why I don't understand why brands are so obsessed. And even why creators are so obsessed with a follower count. And now creators I understand because monetization is their selling packages, and they want to get higher views, I get why they might be more obsessed with the follower growth. But landing on someone's page brand or creator and seeing that they have 501,000 2000 followers has never made me say this is not an authentic person or brand I'm not going to follow. It's what the content looks like. And the feeling of the account for me personally,

13:45

I don't know what's going on. Yeah, I don't know if I'd be following Nesquik or, I mean, maybe I'm just giving bad examples. I don't think I'm gonna be following Nesquik in general.

13:54

I mean, I agree. I think that there's certain mass brands that like people just are not maybe that motivated to follow, but maybe others are like they're super fans, or they like are really into the food scene, or there's something else that like we just don't understand that makes them follow. It's like Oreo or Doritos, right? They actually have very entertaining feeds and social media and they have really excellent Twitter accounts. And you wonder, like, who follows Oreo, but then you get into and you're like, oh, wait, this is clearly kind of fun. I mean, I think there truly is, what a lid to every pot that's like,

14:35

something like that. What's the cost benefit here upholding the whole staff that's involved in the Twitter and the Instagram scouting the content, all of that or Oreo? Versus if they just didn't have that, let's say they used to giveaway used to loop giveaway and they had 20k followers. And they were just a landing page.

14:59

I mean it If it would still be successful, but I think certain brands do want to continue the communication there, whether it's exciting or not, you know, there's a lot of B to B companies that have a social media presence. And B, for anyone listening b2b is business to business instead of business to consumer. So a lot of people might say that's a snooze type of business to be in, why would you have a social media presence, but they still see that it is important as a channel of communication in some way. You also have to think of a major company like that has the money to burn on those things, you know, they're spending millions of dollars on a single Super Bowl, like the retainer that they're paying to their agency, or the salaries that they're paying for internal social media is really not it's negligible in comparison to how

15:58

they pay to a social media person.

16:00

No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I think that if you want to be a social media person, that gets paid very well for what you do go into a major corporate environment like that, that will pay you so well. And you will also have like all of your holidays and benefits and stuff. And hopefully, the content is sometimes fun, but because normally what happens with fun content, and people who are experimental is they don't have as much money.

16:31

True that What about on the Creator side? What are those red flags of? Because I mean, I feel like it doesn't necessarily matter. That's the only reason we're having this conversation about like, should should a man even do it, you know, like, that's not a conversation that I would ever have as a growth strategy. Or as like a present strategy. But what about your Creator? Like? When do you I'm sure you come across across creators who you're like, not it, not it? That's fake following.

17:04

Yeah, well, yeah, of course, we always do. And I think it was much more popular, maybe four years ago to be participating in these constant giveaways. And they weren't realizing how how much it would hurt their engagement rate and their follower growth later on. But I remember a time where every holiday season, almost every single influencer, I was following was doing a giveaway every day for 24 days or something insane.

17:34

And like, that still is still a thing. I always when I started, when I started, I remember a friend who had been around the influencer scene a little bit longer telling me that giveaways loop giveaways were the way that every single big travel influencer kick started their following. Because at that point, I mean, Instagram was, you know, how old like it was less complicated with growth. And if you were just posting good content like that was that instead of all of this, like, strategy side of it, I think there's a very different side of strategy now. And it's not like their accounts have gone anywhere. They built that 50k following, and then could go from there, and there was only a way up, but that that first 5k, that's the hardest 5k you're ever going to build. So like, sure, I mean, I see the appeal as, as a creator to just, like, get pressured into I'm over this.

18:31

Yeah, I mean, I think it really depends on what type of creator you want to be. If you're the type of creators, like travel creators, I think, especially the early ones, were much less connected to their community. And they were building more of a lifestyle, and they were showing all these incredible places that they went. And in order to get places to sponsor them to go there, they needed to have the numbers. So it makes sense. Now, I think travel influencers are much more connected to the community and talking about the discovery and the journey and giving recommendations that are more personalized. And I don't think that that number really matters as much anymore because hotels are much more selective probably in the people that they're working with and sponsoring. So yeah, I think just generally the shift of creators and their goals entirely, as well as businesses and their goals and working with creators. That sort of loop giveaway strategy just doesn't apply like it used to.

19:29

What about while you're scouting influencers? What are some of those red flags that immediately turn you for the hills? Um,

19:38

I mean, I think that I'm very forgiving when it comes to the numbers when I first see them, right. So if someone has like a very low engagement rate, I'm not like oh, red flag, I'm never going to work with them. They clearly have fake followers because they could have been one of those groups that did an early giveaway. They could have done a giveaway in collaboration with a brand early on. On, there's a lot of there's a lot of things that could have happened that could have attracted a lot of followers that are no longer engaging. So I don't like to immediately say like, oh, you bought your followers, you know, because you don't know how this happened. So that's not something that I like to pass judgment on. I am much more weary when it comes to casting creators when I reach out and the engagement rate is low. And they're not aware of that. And they price as though they're following or their follower count is the only thing that matters. So to me, say 100k followers with 1% engagement rate versus 100k followers with 3% engagement rate, I think that their brain should be different, which means that you as a creator, know what that engagement rate is, and understand what the partnership is, and price accordingly. Now, if I'm asking both creators to just create content and send it to me, and they don't have to post it, then of course, their pricing could be more similar, depending on their styles. But if I'm asking two people with 100k, hey, I need you to post something and promote it, then I'm willing to pay more for the person who has the higher engagement rate,

21:08

you know, I do see a lot of like, turning of eyes to some of the like lower engagement rates, though. And I don't know if this is because the brand side doesn't know the difference, or they don't look for it, they just see the follower count. And it's just kind of laziness that takes them on down that path. Sure. And I feel like the creators that I know with 100k, and really low engagement that maybe have done loop giveaways in the past, or they basically an old 100k versus a new 100k is very, very different in your ability to grow just because of everything. You know, it's just a different climate. So those old 100k influencers, they get tons of brands in their inbox, but they price themselves about as low as a 30k influencer. And that's just how they make tons of money. Yeah, I

22:03

mean, I think the industry will always be so varied, because I think the education behind where people are coming from is so different, both on the Creator side and the brand side. You never know, like, I'm always shocked as well, seeing brands work with certain creators that have really low engagement rates, or like the content that comes out is not good. I'm just curious, like, who lets this happen. But then I have to realize that not everyone has been in this industry since 2013. Like I have, not everyone has seen all the sauce. And some people just don't know that they could do better that they couldn't have a better strategy. They just think that this is the way it's supposed to be. And you know, we all have a learning moment. So yeah, I think it's a it's a wild time out there always for influencers and brands.

22:52

What about engagement pods? Isn't I mean, it's just a thing of the past. I mean, okay, we wait, contact, I actually started an engagement pod back in the day. And I did this. I know, I know, I know, I can't believe I'm putting this online. Anyway, so I started an engagement pod. And my point of this was less so like, I want everyone to be spammy. And like, interact. What I actually did was I found all the girls that I love that were interacting with my content anyway. And I pulled them in, and I was like, hey, like you guys. Like, I mean, we support each other, like we have each other's backs, like, there is part of that in being an influencer. And you are kind of alone in the beginning. So pulled them into a group, there was like 20 Girls, and the goal was like, just to hype each other up. And if you weren't leaving, you know, real comments, comments, where you're actually reading a caption and all of that you were booted from the group, and it was all about friendship, and that was the point. But regardless of my intentions, after a while, it got really spammy. And I think I was one of the first to leave my own group. My question here is like, do you add on the brand side? Do you look for that? Do you

24:06

know I don't have a problem with it at all on within the engagement pod at all. I think it can be difficult to recognize if you're doing it with the right people. And I agree, I don't see there being any sort of problem with like, bands of similar influencers who really want to support each other commenting, or they've been to events together, and they were friendly. And they're always making sure that the comments are happening, where it bothers me as if someone's going to charge for people to be in a pod like that, or use the pod and start commenting on everyone's content with offers and things that don't belong, that I don't really care for. But that's my personal view from the brand side of things. I would say we do look for comments that are not spammy. And I don't think that I'm paying attention that closely are all these people in other influencers. Is it The same people on every single thing, right? What I do pay closer attention to, especially if it's a partnership that I'm going to have with someone for a longer period of time, we scan their comments to see if they're relevant to the content. If every comment is Yeah, because I know exactly and I think that's less of a comment pod and more of buying your comments maybe from bots or something else. When I'm seeing every comment is, this is cue you look great heart heart, her and it's just so general and like, this is great, Dave, like, I wonder if people are actually consuming the content or if they are just interacting to interact because either they were paid or whatever else. If you have a truly engaged audience, I think that the comments will be about something.

25:49

I agree. I agree. I mean, here's here's our gray area of this episode is the age of the pretty girl influencer dead dying,

26:00

dying, dying, dying, dying for sure she's just not as relatable as she used to be.

26:06

She's not do you I mean, I think value comes in 12 billion different packages. Like you can be funny and that's a value you can be teaching something and doing tips and tricks and tutorials like you can be relatable whatever that is, but I just think the girls that are relying on I'm a pretty girl I don't think your account is going anywhere.

26:27

Yeah, we have enough pretty girls on on that Okay, so what is our to go bento box

26:35

bento box.

26:38

What are you telling people to go here Harley,

26:41

my okay, my take home message for you is community over follower account. Whether you are a brand, whether you are a influencer, if you're building that connected community, where you're interacting with your followers, and you're building those those behind the scenes relationships, you're never going to feel like you're speaking to, you're never going to feel like your message is landing on deaf ears. And I think a lot of people already feel that way with engagement dropping, and you know, all these new changes on Instagram. So if you can build that community where it's connected, no matter the following, like you can have, you can be making six figures that 2k 2k followers like that's a potential. So why are we pretending that it's otherwise?

27:27

Yeah, I agree. I think if I was going to give a little to go moment, it would be similar to that. But it would also be that what is the goal of your account overall, because I think that building an engaged community is much more difficult and much more time consuming. And if that's what you really want out of your brand, and out of your presence on Instagram as a whole brand, or creator. That's incredible. And I do encourage people to do that. But there are also people who just want to show up, they want to do what they want to do. They want to put in the effort that they feel like they can, and they want to get Jack the numbers up as quickly as possible. And to those people, if you're realistic and knowing that you're not building an authentic community that this is just about maths and numbers and having a presence. That's also fine. If you're okay with that, and you can sleep at night and that hits your goals. Dive into that engagement pod. Go ahead and do the crazy Kardashian giveaway. Like I don't care. I think that the people who follow you are going to know either way, they're going to know if you're there to be the authentic leader, and they're going to know if you're there to just post content and run. And both options are options and I don't judge people who whichever one that they choose. I think it's about being realistic about the effort, time and energy it takes to do either one from the start.

28:52

Thank you for listening to this episode of brand meet creator and diving into the depths of the dark world of Instagram growth coming out with us on Instagram at the Harley Jordan and Sonia Natalis. And of course we need to hear what you want to hear about next.