Ten of the world’s most popular beauty brands have been caught out deceiving their fans with ‘fake followers’.
According to new research by UK-based digital marketing company, PilotFish, the beauty brands with the highest percentage of fake followers are:
Too Faced Cosmetics – 49 percent
Kylie Cosmetics – 49 percent
Anastasia Beverly Hills – 48 percent
KKW Beauty – 47 percent
Sephora – 46 percent
NYX Cosmetics – 46 percent
Benefit Cosmetics – 46 percent
Tarte Cosmetics – 46 percent
MAC Cosmetics – 45 percent
Urban Decay – 42 percent
To discover the biggest offenders, PilotFish took a list of the most followed brands and then used SparkToro’s Fake Follower tool and igaudit.io to discover the percentage of fake followers on Twitter and Instagram. The company then calculated the overall percentage of fake followers across both channels to determine the ranking for each brand.
According to PilotFish, the authenticity of follower counts for influencers on social media has been very publicly debunked in recent times the authenticity of brand followers had largely being ignored.
“The jig is up, and the average person is now aware that many of the influential people who have bagged themselves glittering careers hawking goods on the ‘gram aren’t playing a fair game,” the company said.
“By buying followers, using bots, and otherwise gaming the system, people have been faking their influence in order to seem more attractive to brands and real followers alike.
“But what about the brands themselves? Is everything as it seems? We thought we’d take a look at some of the world’s most popular brands on social media to find out.”
Apart from investigating fake followers in the beauty industry, the company also investigated brands in cars, fashion, food and sports.
The 10 fashion brands with the highest percentage of fake followers are:
Prada – 46 percent
Dolce & Gabbana – 46 percent
Michael Kors – 45 percent
Louis Vuitton – 45 percent
Calvin Klein – 44 percent
Gucci – 44 percent
Chanel – 43 percent
Dior – 42 percent
Versace – 42 percent
Good American – 41percent
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