Australia's most popular beauty influencer, Chloe Morello, has attacked beauty influencers who're “committing fraud” by buying fake followers and garnering false 'likes' and 'comments' on Instagram.
Speaking in a 17-minute video posted on YouTube last week, Morello, who has a lot more than 2.3 million subscribers on her channel and around a million followers on Instagram, said the fake influencers were behaving fraudulently to garner products, overseas trips and income from beauty companies.
Readily acknowledging it's understandable that “so many people” want to be an influencer as they “get paid to advertise products, get sent away outdoors, reach visit great events and obtain gifted so much cool stuff”, Morello said hello was still being wrong to create false accounts.
Morello, who started her online career in 2008, said her complaints about fake influencers were directed at the Australian beauty industry which was investing “so much money and products” in fake influencers.
“I am mostly hoping the Australian beauty industry will see it [her YouTube video] and hopefully it'll just clue them in on a few of the stuff that is going on, she said.
“Brands are paying 1000s of dollars for posts with these people (and at no more your day the brand is investing their money to market product) – however, many of these individuals don't possess a real following -“
Morello stressed that fake influencers should not be dismissed as “harmless” as numerous beauty brands are fooled into believing the accounts are really the and invest in them.
“They think when we advertise our product on this person's Instagram we're going to generate sales- but the brand is spending money on nothing (fake followers, fake likes, fake comments),” she said.
“The second a brandname invests their ad dollars or gives opportunities (eg, free trips and events) or products to one of those fake influencers it is fraud – the company isn't taking get anything from it.”
On a far more positive note, Morello said beauty brands and PR companies are starting to “cotton on” to fake accounts.
“I'm only some of the person who is aware of this.”
She concluded the video by advising fake influencers to close their accounts and start again.
“If you are an influencer that has been doing this and it has been committing fraud make an effort to your only form of recourse would be to begin a new account – just tell everyone else you have hacked and start again.”