SBS The Feed: Like, Subscribe, Follow…

Influencer marketing has been in the spotlight in recent weeks with the hot topics being the fraud issue of fake followers and inflated metrics, as well as the requirement for paid social media posts to be disclosed as advertising.

Calliste Weitenberg, a reporter for SBS The Feed, went undercover for 6 months posing as an influencer to dive into what goes on behind the scenes of an influencer’s life. She set up a profile under a pseudonym Mia Wilde with the handle @thatcoastalgirl on Instagram, started posting and bought some fake followers then started approaching agencies and influencer platforms for paid partnerships. The four-part series was of particular interest to AiMCO as it utilised a media sting to raise some pertinent issues.

We determined early on when the series first aired that even though Calliste approached a number of AiMCO member agencies and influencer platforms - Day Management, Havas Co-maker, Hypetap, Social Soup, The Lifestyle Suite, TRIBE, Vamp and WOM Network - their thorough influencer vetting processes rejected her and she was not taken on by any of our members as an influencer for brand partnerships.

However, she was accepted by one Sydney agency and engaged to post for a range of products.

The show highlighted a few of the key concerns that marketers, agencies and creators need to be aware of:

1.     Creator Vetting Practices are essential. Checks that address basic business credentials (eg. is the person legit and have a TFN and an ABN), ensuring that the audience and engagement metrics don’t flag anomalies and that the content meets brand safety criteria, must be thoroughly performed before engaging an influencer for a brand. Marketers should ensure that their influencer marketing business partners have established a thorough and transparent vetting approach. Refer to the AiMCO Code of Practice clause 1.

2.     Advertising disclosure is not an optional extra.The Feed made very clear how duping consumers is unacceptable by showing how it can have very detrimental impacts on individuals. Not every person reading a post is savvy enough to realise the influencer may have been paid to endorse a product, they may assume it is a genuine personal endorsement. All industry practitioners and influencers need to be aware of their obligations to disclose paid partnerships under Australian Consumer Law which is outlined clearly in the AiMCO Code of Practice clause 2.

3.     Gifting is not a means of going under the radar of ad disclosure. The ATO consider gifts or value-in-kind to be a form of payment and likewise the AiMCO code stipulates that gifts as part of an influencer engagement require advertising disclosure. Refer clause 2.4.  

You can stream all four compelling episodes of Like, Subscribe, Follow on SBS The Feed here.