Australian beauty Youtuber Chloe Morello hits out at fake followers during 17 minute exposé video
ONE of Australia’s biggest Youtube stars, Chloe Morello, has lashed out at some of her rivals, accusing them of being “fake” and committing “fraud”.
THINGS are about to get ugly.
Australia’s biggest beauty influencer and YouTube star Chloe Morello has launched an attack on “fake Instagrammers” who she claims are “committing fraud” by using fake followers to get products, overseas trips and exposure from big brands.
Morello posted a 17 minute video on Thursday night in the hope it would reach the Australian beauty industry and “clue them in” to the fake influencers circulating online and ripping off companies.
Morello, who launched her career in 2008 and now has more than 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube and 992,000 followers on Instagram, said she is seeing influencers “committing fraud” by acquiring followers and comments on Instagram that aren’t real.
“It is definitely frustrating to see people given the same opportunities as me, going to the same events ... overseas holidays, hundreds and hundreds of free product and even being paid by brands,” she says to the camera.
“I’ve done a lot of research and I believe their following is fake.
“I have a real following, but some of these people have a fake following and at the end of the day, the brand is investing their money to sell product and these people don’t have a real following.”
Morello, who doesn’t name any of the influencers she’s accusing of being fraudulent, spoke of how “frustrating” it was to see fake followers get paid opportunities over those with a genuine audience.
“It’s my duty as someone in my position to Edward Snowden this sh*t,” she said.
Morello said the first fake influencer she came across, posted a beauty video that had more likes than views.
“I’m not good at maths, but that’s not possible,” she said.
“She has really good pictures, so it’s very frustrating that she can’t be patient and work hard like I did and like my friends do.”
Morello said that the Instagramer in question consistently had around the same amount of comments and likes for every single post, whereas legitimate influencers have a “natural fluctuation” when it comes to interaction and engagement.
“I think it does matter ... because a make-up brand will want to work with these people based on their following and engagement,” she said.
“They look at it and say: ‘Wow, this person has a really loyal following, they are really engaged and commenting on all their posts’.
“So the brand is paying for nothing. They are paying for fake followers, fake likes and fake comments. And that’s fraud.”
In August this year, Marketing Agency Mediakix created two ‘influencer’ accounts using purchased followers and comments, to prove how easy it was for fake Instagramers to get paid brand deals.
According to the Independent, the organisation constructed a “lifestyle and fashion-centric Instagram model” and “a travel and adventure photographer,” who locked in four paid brand deals by the end of the short experiment.
The first account created, calibeachgirl310, was reportedly made by taking photographs of one girl in multiple locations during a one-day photoshoot.
The second ‘influencer’, wanderingggirl, was created by using exclusively free stock images of popular, scenic destinations like Paris and Maui.
The first step in the experiment was using stock images that looked legit, while the second part of the process was updating both Instagram feeds on a regular basis.
Mediakix bought 1000 “followers” per day from websites selling fake Instagram accounts, and when Instagram failed to detect the practice, they started buying 15,000 at a time.
Eventually, the accounts had amassed a collective 80,000 followers, and Mediakix were able to move onto simulating engagement.
According to the publication, once both accounts were signed up to marketing platforms, they were able to pick up four sponsorship deals.
“The fashion account secured one deal with a swimsuit company and one with a national food and beverage company,” Mediakix said.
“The travel account secured brand deals with an alcohol brand and the same national food and beverage company. For each campaign, the ‘influencers’ were offered monetary compensation, free products, or both.”
Mediakix said these fake influencers were becoming more and more commonplace, and were damaging to the brands and the authenticity of the industry.
“Instagrammers with completely or partially fake followings and/or engagement present advertisers with a unique form of ad fraud that’s becoming more and more commonplace and could be siphoning tens of millions of dollars from brands,” it said.
In March this year, a code set by the Australian Association of National Advertisers stipulated that under new standards, all social media “influencers” must clearly label all sponsored content.
Basically, the new code meant that Australians would now have a pretty good idea when a post that popped up in their Instagram newsfeed was paid or not.
But there are grey areas when it comes to the code.
While it’s usually pretty clear when an influencer spruiks a hotel or a brand of make-up, the grey area falls when a brand simply sends an influencer a pair of shoes — and then they endorse it on social media.
According to The Tribe Group, influencers are generally able to ask between $75 and $1200 per post depending on their following.
Speaking to news.com.au, Media Law lecturer Geoff Holland, from the University of Technology in Sydney, said the laws around brands and influencers are a delicate situation.
“It really is up to the brand to do its due diligence and ensure that there is a contract in place to protect them,” Mr Holland said.
“So the brand can withdraw their product from the use of the blogger as soon as they become aware of any irregularities, such as a fake following.
“So at the moment, there is very little that can be done [for brands], so it comes back to the business to do due deligance at the beginning of the discussion [with the influencer] and continue monitoring throughout.”
Morello said that some influencers were even resorting to comment pods to increase their engagement.
“A comment pod is a group of people or influencers that want to create engagement on their page,” she said.
“It’s a WhatsApp group or something similar and it will have hundreds of influencers in the WhatsApp group.
“The idea is that you post your pictures in the WhatsApp group and everyone in that group will go and like and comment on your picture. So if there’s 200 people in that group, you know you’re getting 200 comments.
“I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times ... it’s fraud.”
News.com.au has contacted Morello’s management for comment.
