Content creators, especially new channels found developing an online presence difficult for ages. Brands and influencers both were desperate for visibility and attempted every trick in the book to get it, some resorted to fake engagement which made everything worse. Though it was viewed as controversial, using Fake engagement to drive channel growth was standard operation procedure in the early days. This resulted in a sudden increase in metrics, making channels seem more popular and attracting audience attraction. While complicated the idea greatly impacted digital marketing.
Creating social proof was the concept behind this fake engagement power. In 2019, 85% of people trusted these types of reviews and engagement metrics as much as they trusted personal recommendations. As a result, even the smallest channels just starting out started accumulating likes, comments and shares using your attempts to artificially inflate popularity and credibility. Fake engagement became a core ingredient of growth hacking in your social media strategy and by creating nice first impression to the audience.
The Role Of Fake Engagement In Early Growth Strategies
For example, it was really hard to get discovered organically when new channels popped up on Instagram, YouTube or Twitter. In 2020, there were around 37 million active YouTube channels, which ultimately contributes to the difficulty of standing out. One way this challenge is tackled is with fake engagement, which has worked to inflate important engagement metrics like likes, view count and followers — so the channel may appear more established than it really was. While dangerous, the tactic caused enough of an appearance of popularity that it frequently had a snowball effect and led to real complies with.
ContentsA most comprehensive guide to explaining what is fake engagementIn the golden age of content marketing and social media dominance, countless beings from businesses to influencers were using fake engagement to legitimize their online presence Influencer Marketing Hub 2021 report: 60% of influencers used fake engagement to rise to the top Old but popular titles dominated the market, it was nearly impossible for newer channels to make themselves visible and most of them struggled to engage with their target audience.
Originall most channels used fake engagement as part of an initial growth strategy to seed the account and get noticed in in a crowded space. This could game the numbers so that a YouTube channel with an almost non-existent subscriber base and view count would be able to appear more genuine. This typically has resulted in an organic boost with improved location and alg placement. Fake engagement by itself did not create success, but it showed us how to get there with real followers and audience retention.
Audience Attraction via False Engagement
According to a 2018 study on the behavior of Internet users, 75% of all social media users are more likely to start following accounts that have high engagement rates. Its content was captivating to others. Given the human proclivity to herd, fake engagement could be easily manipulated for initial follower acquisition.
Influencers, and even entire new channels that employed this trick were well aware of the risks. That said, for a lot of people, the benefits around looking more popular seem to outweigh the cons. They used inflated engagement metrics to make their content look more interesting and valuable. For example, statuses with 1 Like were less likely to be shared or commented than statuses that got a bunch of likes. This inflating was homegrown, and inspired true interest which caused natural growth.
In 2020 alone, Instagram led the way with over 25 million business accounts vying for user engagement. So fake engagement became a simple way for channels to look more legitimate, driving real user interaction in response. New channels could leverage that same social proof, and pretend to be getting a lot of engagement by faking it.
Growth Hacking and Increased Visibility with Fake Engagement
This provided a means for channels to use fake engagement as part of their digital marketing strategies — effectively engaging in growth hacking. However, like how all start-ups love to grow fast by taking advantages of platform algo’s loop holes and this is their favorite play. In the case of Instagram or YouTube, if a channel showed artificially high metrics, the algorithms of these platforms gave preference to their content. This, in return created a lift in VISIBILITY making sure the content was seen more.
So, for example the posts with fake engagement would get a shot at being added to Instagram’s “Explore” page or ending up in YouTube’s recommendations and thus getting even more organic traffic. According to a study shared by SocialMediaToday in 2019, channels with higher initial engagement tend to receive up to 40% more organic reach. It effectively acted as channel growth jet fuel in those make-or-break first weeks, allowing new creators to jump-start momentum when all eyes were on them.
The role of fake engagement in Reputation building Another area that benefited heavily from Fake Engagement. Brands prefer collaboration with more popular channels and influencers The success and widespread adoption of this tactic — known as influencer outreach — relied on inflating the perceived popularity of channels to make deals with potential businesses. In a 2021 survey, 68% of marketers said they were more likely to work with influencers that had high numbers of followers and engagment even if those metrics were padded.
Social Proof and Managing Reputation
Social proof —A direct result of likes, comments, and shares that greatly influenced consumer decisions The sort of channel that can deliver high engagement revealed itself as more legitimate that the less engaged competition. Brands and influencers use fake engagement to create a more convincing appearance that fools real users into engaging with their content. In real-time, social media strategy reports from 2021 stated +91% of the users saw high engagement as an important criterion to trust a channel.
This reputation management technique allowed new channels to establish itself and appear credible in a short period of time. Perception created by false engagement begat more follower acquisition and better engagement tactics. The challenge of cutting through the noise especially on platforms like Instagram that now have over 1 billion active users has become a new reality. The new channels that started from zero also had an edge in achieving high organic followers over time by using fake engagement.
Fake Engagement – Risks & Ethics
While this practice may have shown success in the immediate, it also posed its own risks. In 2021, platforms like Instagram and YouTube began addressing fraudulent engagement. Accounts discovered to have been using fake likes, comments or followers were penalised by shadow banning or being suspended entirely. But for as many downsides as there were, the practice did still remain popular across other channels with those desperate to break into saturated industries.
Further, an exit would also disrupt impression with the audience face when and if they discovered it was fake engagement. This can cause a loss of trust in the users, many also placed importance in their authenticity and being caught with fake interaction on a channel could shatter someones sense of it as well. Still, a few new channels came around to the downside of growth hacking with fake engagement – but saw it as a necessary step in breaking through the noise.
Infographic:
Brands and Influencers using Fake Engagement_graphPercentage reduction in Fake Engagement from 2019 to 2021
- ! ( Fake Engagement Used to Grow Channel Pie Chart ) More Examples of Fake Stats Social Proof
- 2019: 42% of brands & influencers
- 2020: 53% brands and influencers
- 2021: 68% of brands and influencers
The pie chart below illustrates how fake engagement adoption by brands and influencers surged from 2019–2021, suggesting that the large majority of competitors on social platforms had begun using this tactic.
Infographic:
- A Fake Engagement Overview On Organic Growth
- ! Organic Growth After Fake Engagement Boost
- Channels featuring fake likes and shares saw a 30% rise in organic growth rate over the first quarter, —
- This graph shows how fake engagement strongly pumped up organic growth, particularly in the channel launch year.
Effective Ways to Use Fake Engagements
Channels that engaged in fake engagement, but as part of their social media strategy had a particular rule book to follow. They supplemented fake engagement with good content, that way they could avoid ruining their reputation solely using bots. This meant that once the bot was discovered by a real user, they would be pretty engaged.
Channels transitioned intentionally from realistic faux engagement to a balanced approach over time, resulting in natural behaviors. For new channels, they needed to be for sure that the type of content they were creating was well suited to their brand and what their audience wanted so as to keep proper genuine followers when they came.
This strategy also leveraged on engagement tactics Channels deployed influencer shoutouts, collaborations and user-generated content (UGC) campaigns to build credibility and keep the ball rolling. After social proof was in place through fake engagement, real followers would then be more likely to engage with the content and trust the brand.
Pseudo-engagement was, in a way, a discovery tool, which gave upstream channels from zero the necessary view velocity initially to kickstart growth. Coming across as more established than they were helped channels accelerate the growth of their following, that growth remained, and set them up for future success.