Being an avid fan of the CSI television series, I think it would be appealing to have a show on social CSI to spot social posers. As Gil Grissom, the original CSI guy, said “I don’t trust people, they tend to lie. Evidence never lies.”

5 Reasons Why People And Brand Become Social Media Posers

There are many reasons for people to be social media posers.

  • Social Ego. Having more followers is better.
  • Credibility. Having more followers impacts credibility.
  • Management Pressure. Management views success as the amount of followers vs. reach, engagement or clicks to a landing page.
  • Influence. The need to get hired in a social media position or build up one’s positioning.
  • Scoring. Looking at your numbers as a score of success vs. leveraging them for increased business.

It’s beneficial for you to understand how to spot a poser. You may be developing a social influencer strategy or looking to hire a social media guru for your brand, so you need to be able to audit an individual’s authenticity.

How To Find A Social Media Poser

Here are easy ways to spot a poser and related behaviors to ensure a brand truly has authentic followers:

  • Facebook. Barracuda Labs reports that 97% of Facebook fakers pose as women while about 40% of real Facebook accounts are women. Also, Barracuda also reports that 58% of Facebook fakers accounts note they are interested in both men and women while only about 6% of legitimate accounts say the same. Phony profiles bubble to the top of the faker list since they average 736 friends while real users average 130 friends. Nearly 70% of the posers claim to have attended college while about 40% of legitimate users’ profiles include college educations and these posers went to school closer to their high school than authentic accounts. So, how can you spot a Facebook faker? Spotty accounts typically have a large amount of likes without the typical associated amount of account activity like comments or People Are Talking activity.
  • Twitter. We all remember how Mitt Romney acquired 100,000 new Twitter followers overnight while in the heat of the 2012 election. So, how do you tease out the Twitter fake accounts? A quick perusal of a Twitter account can typically flesh out a social media poser. Flip through an account’s followers, and if you notice a large amount of followers with an egg as the profile photo, then you likely have found a poser. You can also observe if any of these follower accounts produce engaging in their Twitter feed. Pay attention to their timeline to make sure it’s not populated with repeated tweets. Go a little deeper with your investigation by using these two other tools:
  1. Twitter Counter to spot giant spikes in follower counts. Check the time around a new business announcement, a new opening or close to a job application
  2. StatusPeople.com to spot what percentage of a company’s Twitter followers are faker (i.e., http://fakers.statuspeople.com/Fakers/Scores)
  • Pinterest. Peculiar Pinterest accounts are not picture-perfect, nor as influential as they claim, if there are many followers without bios and pictures. Also, pay attention to their pins!
  • YouTube. Daily Dot reports that late 2012 audit of YouTube video channels cut 2 billion fake views from record company sites, affecting high-profile record companies like Universal Music Group and Sony. There is no tool to make this authentication process any easier. However, there are a few things you can do. View YouTube differently by drawing conclusions from high view counts and a small amount of followers and likes (since this costs more for fakers to buy). Also, look for an unusually low amount of dislikes and comments which also provides you a view into a social poser.

Do you have another way to find a social media poser? If so, please pass it on.

Understanding how to flush out social media posers is key to you understanding your influencers or even hiring the right person for your social media staff! So, turn on your Hulu Plus and watch a few reruns of CSI and get pumped up to start to expose the social media posers in your life!