Are Fake Followers On Social Media a Problem? EP2

Episode 2 Transcript

Welcome to the marketing combat podcast. I'm Jason Donnelly and this is Chris Kubbernus. Every single weekday we battle it out for five minutes, maybe a little bit more for your pleasure. The best part is we both know the marketing topics beforehand, but one of us gets to decide what they're fighting for, which means the other person might have to defend something that they actually don't believe. Today's topic is going to be fake.

Followers widespread problem or minor issue and honestly in today's day and age Chris and I talked about this earlier today I'm gonna go on a sidetrack as we dive in here So many of the people who actually follow you don't see your content You're 99 % of the content you put out there is going to people who've never known you never met you So I don't think that followers mean literally anything in today's world

I think it's all about just getting good content out there and then that content finds its own followers and brings in new followers. So fake followers, most of them are anyway. So it doesn't, it doesn't mean anything to me. So you're an advocate for fake followers. No, I'm an advocate for doesn't matter as many followed. Like the only thing that you're getting out of followers at the end of the day is the ability to join like creator program on TikTok. Your content is going to go out no matter what. You don't need the followers. So you're for like, you could have fake followers. You don't care.

That doesn't matter either way, but I wouldn't pay for them. wouldn't pay for them. So now, okay. you're for fake followers, but against pay for them. No, I don't think fake followers. I don't think it matters either way because the content, like if you have, if you have a million fake followers, whatever, if you have a million real followers, your content still not going to go to them. Your content is going to go out to the

the masses, whatever that is, and it's never gonna get to your followers anyway. The way that the algorithm or whatever you wanna call it works, it's not getting to them. So who cares if you have as many followers as you want, it doesn't matter. It's a cloud thing though, right? Like don't you think you probably invited to more cool parties, probably get some influencer deals, probably like, because entity metrics still rule the social media marketing world, the advertising world. So don't you think like having that many fake followers, even though they're fake?

probably gives you a little bit more clout and gives you more opportunities to, you know, sell your products or sell yourself, get into places that you wouldn't normally get into. I completely hear you. But at the end of the day, if the contact kicks ass, it's going to get to the people that it needs to get to. And the algorithm will get it to them because - quotes for those of you listening didn't hear - Didn't hear the air quotes. That silence there was air quotes because -

algorithm. I don't think it matters if you have a million real followers or a million fake followers. Either way, your content, if it sucks, isn't going to get to them. Even if it's good, it's not going to get to them. It's just going to get out there. So just keep making good content and hope it gets to people who actually

like it.

you're not gonna have any engagement and that'll actually look bad on you. And unfortunately, it shouldn't look bad on you because you can't, like Jason just said, you can't reach your audience anyways. Most people will take that as a sign that the content isn't good or that you bought your followers, even though they might be completely real. So it's a difficult position that you're in if you're buying them because then it'll look bad. And if you haven't bought them, it'll look bad.

Essentially, I would say like, don't buy them because either way are both pain, bad situations. Might as well have some real followers and have less. I would say go for, you know, talking to...

1 ,000 people, but they're super into what you're doing. Super niche, like they love your content. You are just focused on those 1 ,000 people. And if you put 1 ,000 people in a room, like that's a lot of people. If you had to speak to 1 ,000 people every day about a specific topic, I mean, that's pretty special. So I wouldn't, I don't think anybody should do this rat race of followers, gaining as many followers as possible. I think you should just focus on how do I talk to a very specific niche of people and that.

That's what I would focus on in today's day and age. And those opportunities are there. Just focusing on a thousand people that you can serve content to interact with, then your day won't be crazy as well. 20 or 30 DMs in your inbox every day that you have to deal with, or thousands of comments that you probably should deal with as well. This is the thing. I agree with you with everything you just said.

Community management, if this is for a brand or a person, is way more important, especially at the beginning. Because if you're interacting with these people, if they actually give a shit about what you're doing, a thousand is gonna be worth way more than a million fake followers that don't do shit for you. That is the thing. If you're giving them the content they want, if you're giving them the content that they like,

They will interact with you, they will tell their friends about you, they will share your stuff with other people, and then you'll have real followers that care about you and want to help you succeed. Fake followers will do that. Fake followers will just sit there, make you look like an idiot because you have a million followers not engaging with a single thing you post. That's it. Agreed. I don't think we really fought on this one. I don't know. Tell them in the comments what you think, what you like, if we won, if he won, if I won. Tell them I won. Alright, see you tomorrow.