The solution to fake KOL and fake traffic!

In the era of social marketing, KOL (key opinion leaders) have become the biggest beneficiaries and darlings of the times, and the most important traffic owners and content producers. Because of this, fake KOLs and fake traffic have emerged.

Nowadays, fake traffic is becoming more and more rampant. It is said that 7 out of 10 leading self-media are inflating the traffic. In my personal opinion, fake traffic has indeed become more and more serious in the past one or two years.

I am probably one of the first Internet content marketers, starting from the forum era. At that time, I conspired with the moderators and assisted by the Internet water army. The "ban on Wanglaoji" in 2008 was a well-known case in the forum era. Therefore, fake traffic has never been a new topic, it has existed since the beginning of traffic.

The practice of Internet trolls to inflate traffic is like prostitutes; it is old-fashioned, shady, and unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

Over the years, I have experienced various second-party companies, from a water army hype company more than ten years ago, to the later international creative hot shop, and then to Alibaba and other first-party companies. Now I am considered a KOL in the marketing vertical industry and have become a so-called traffic master.

Today we will talk about what fake traffic is and possible solutions.

We need to be wary of fake traffic, but I won’t explicitly oppose it. As the old fable goes, if God wants to destroy the world, all he has to do is place a moralist on earth. So we must be more wary of moralists.

1. A conspiracy of all

After experiencing all positions over a long period of time, my view on fake traffic is that it is a conspiracy by everyone.

Every link in the marketing industry has an unshirkable responsibility, from the client's CMO to the marketing director to the first-line brand manager, to the second-party advertising and media companies, and finally to the KOLs themselves. Everyone has a responsibility, or everyone knows it, and it is not a secret at all.

2. The boss only looks at the data

Party A’s boss wants results. At the top of the marketing industry food chain is the client's vice president of marketing. Managers who reach this position have usually been away from the front line for a long time and are better at top-level designs such as brand strategy direction and organizational structure management rather than front-line marketing skills.

Therefore, when they judge whether something should be done, they first look at whether the general direction is right, then see how the people below report, and finally do it on a whim.

I also know CMOs who are still on the front line all year round. They never need to be persuaded by their subordinates, nor do they ask for results. They have their own keen judgment and are very clear about what they are doing and what value it will create.

For most CMOs who are not on the front line, the only criterion for judging the quality of a project is objective data . There is no subjective judgment, so it is inevitable that their subordinates will inflate the volume, and they will even actively ask media companies to create effects.

So you see, it is the client bosses who are shouting every day that they don’t want fake traffic, and it is also the client bosses who only judge good and bad based on data. Who can they go to for justice?

3. Traffic decline is the norm

Then KOLs are actively increasing the number of views. Why? Because the traffic has dropped, and it’s serious.

A public account that had over 100,000 followers four or five years ago now only has 20,000 actual readers. Don’t you think it’s embarrassing? If we don’t create some false prosperity, what will our fans and customers think? Will we still have any face?

Traffic decline is normal, and it will continue to decline.

The growth of China's Internet users has reached its peak, with just over 1 billion Internet users. Four or five years ago, the largest traffic in the mobile Internet was on WeChat. The public traffic of WeChat was limited to official accounts, and there were not many of them. But as long as there was some content, the number of fans and readers would increase rapidly. So at that time, 100,000+ was very common, and it didn’t matter if the content was watery.

But now, the total number of users (total amount of attention) has basically not increased. It is still the same people, but the Internet platform is becoming more and more fragmented. Toutiao, Honor of Kings, PUBG, Douyin, Kuaishou... Comparing the articles on WeChat public accounts with these "pacifiers", it is impossible for the traffic not to decline, it will definitely decline.

So you see, the case closing reports from four or five years ago easily had over 100,000 views, and the number of readings of the topic on Weibo was several hundred million. Now when you are making the closing report, you said that the number of readings was only 20,000, the budget has not been reduced, but only one-fifth of the data is left. Who can tolerate this? It would be strange if you don’t brush it.

Those who keep shouting that they don’t want fake traffic don’t dare to put real traffic in their reports. That’s the way it is. The current situation is that everyone needs fake traffic, just like stimulants. Everyone takes stimulants, and whoever doesn’t take them will lose.

Is there any solution for this? Is it possible to form an industry alliance to fight counterfeiting? The lesson from historical experience is that the more vigorously we fight counterfeiting, the higher the level of counterfeiting will be. Don't underestimate the wisdom of the people.

The solution to fake traffic is definitely not real traffic .

4. Party B: Responsible for the Results

Party B, as a bridge between Party A and KOL, plays an important role in the traffic industry chain. How do they view fake traffic, what kind of mentality do they have when serving Party A, and how do they optimize service quality? For this purpose, I talked to my friends from IMS New Media Business Group.

IMS is creating a new, large-scale social marketing company based on the Internet social environment. Currently, it has an ecological system that includes social full-case service capabilities, self-media technology screening, advertising trading platform, self-media copyright and commercial value ranking. At the same time, leave content creativity to KOLs.

IMS connects 860,000 KOL traffic owners, serves 80,000+ small and medium-sized enterprises, and 450+ brand customers. The game of business is that whoever is more scarce has more say. When customer resources are scarce, serving customers well is the top priority, and KOLs become the chosen party.

To sum up the answer I got at IMS, it’s all about effectiveness, and don’t be a follower of traffic.

As a marketing company, if we want to serve our customers for a long time, we must focus on effectiveness, long-term value and be responsible for the results.

Party A does not hire a marketing company just to do execution, but hopes that they can better understand the character of each KOL, be able to give more professional advice, and tell Party A what kind of KOL to look for and what kind of content to produce.

I asked my friends at IMS how to solve the problem of fake traffic, and they said directly that it cannot be solved in a short time. They can only eliminate fake traffic and retain truly valuable KOLs through long-term service experience. IMS is using its own technology and experience to build a benchmark for evaluating KOLs. For example, the IMS-owned Crowley Index is now open to the public for free. Establish an authoritative list to give truly valuable KOLs a greater advantage, rather than KOLs with "traffic".

At the same time, today's customers pay more attention to the integration of brand and effect. Marketing companies need to be responsible for the results for their customers. The so-called effect is directly understood by most practitioners as traffic, and traffic equals effect. This is wrong.

I asked my friends at IMS, what do you mean by effectiveness? It can be roughly divided into the following categories:

The first is direct conversion, including sales, downloads, trials, etc. This fake traffic cannot be deceived, and increasing traffic will not be accompanied by increasing sales. It is easier to screen out who has stronger ability to bring goods and who seems to have traffic but does not bring goods. For example, Li Jiaqi who sells lipsticks.

The second is the effect of public opinion. Whoever can generate public opinion is the opinion leader. Some brand communications do not require the promotion of products. In my previous articles, I have repeatedly mentioned a concept called "setting the tone". The current brand tone setting needs to be completed by KOLs. Therefore, KOLs who can set the tone for the brand and drive public opinion are of high value. As for traffic, it does not seem to be that important. What is more important is the value of opinions. For example, "The Cruel Story of the Lower Class" for Kuaishou, "Waiting for Tencent at the Time of the Dog" and later "Tencent Has No Dreams" are all tone-setting content (and they all seem to be negative).

The third is cross-border ICON. Top KOLs usually have their own role attributes, and brands and KOLs co-create content, which is more about utilizing the tone and role of KOLs. For example, BMW MINI and Rebecca cross-border car sales, and what I talked about some time ago, New World and Disney redefine princesses. These are all cross-border content exchanges between brands and KOLs to produce a content ICON, and traffic is not important.

So you see, there are many kinds of effects, and KOLs have many uses, not just traffic.

Brands should work with professional marketing companies to make good use of KOLs, maximize their value, and achieve win-win results for all parties, rather than just using the traffic value of KOLs.

5. Party A: Forget traffic and create high-quality content together

The advice to Party A is to forget about traffic and just focus on content . It doesn’t matter whether the KOL has fake traffic or not, we only focus on the quality of the content.

From traffic-only theory to content-only theory. Yes, just look at the content, nothing else matters.

There is too much junk content now, supported by fake traffic. Party A please block the data directly and only look at the content, so that high-quality content producers can live a better life. Those fake junk contents with 100,000+ views will gradually lose their market, and eventually high-quality content creators will no longer need to fake content, and the ecosystem will gradually get better.

As you know, I am now a KOL of some importance in the marketing industry. Some client cases will ask me to write about them. Although my rejection rate is more than half, I will of course also take some high-quality cases.

Every time I tell my clients not to provide any data and that I am the one producing the content. So thank you to the customers who purchased my content. You don’t care about traffic, you only care about the quality of the content.

We found that most of the advertisements that KOLs take are naked sales of traffic. They write some irrelevant content at the beginning and insert an advertisement at the end. This cooperation model saves trouble for everyone, but it is definitely wrong.

Pure traffic has no value, yes, no value at all. It's no different than posting flyers on telephone poles, even if they are gold-plated poles.

Traffic is only high-quality traffic when it is accompanied by high-quality content. Even if it is an account of a high-end fashion magazine like GQ Lab, if you write irrelevant content at the beginning and a "surprise" advertisement at the end, even if this article has a million readers, it has nothing to do with your brand and this traffic is worthless. What brands need to do is to co-create brand content with GQ. Only traffic generated by high-quality brand content is valuable.

First-line brand managers should have the ability to judge whether content is good or bad. I have said before that the most important thing in marketing now is diligence and not trying to cut corners.

In order for a KOL to be successful, he or she must have his or her own public role and attributes, and a unique content perspective. We must make good use of this feature of KOLs, combine the brand with the KOL’s content, and co-create branded content.

As long as Party A is satisfied with the brand content, the amount of traffic is not important in the end. What you buy is content. When you choose a KOL and when you decide what content to produce, the amount of traffic has already been determined. With this amount of traffic, you insist on getting 100,000+, then the KOL will have to increase it in order to make money.

Solving fake traffic is an ecological problem and takes time. First, we need to change awareness, then start with the content, and ultimately change the ecological rules.

6. Summary

Fake traffic is a conspiracy of everyone. Everyone in the industry chain has a responsibility. When the only evaluation indicator is data, data falsification is inevitable.

The problem of fake traffic cannot be solved by fighting against counterfeiting. Fighting against counterfeiting can only improve the level of counterfeiting but cannot solve the problem of fake traffic. This is a content ecology problem.

Then there is the question of what to do, for social marketing companies, to build their own database and share it with the industry. Large new media marketing companies such as IMS open up and share their high-quality lists to build an ecosystem.

From the perspective of long-term interests, Party B should first be responsible to Party A and communicate with Party A honestly. Traffic does not equal effect. There are many kinds of effects and many kinds of uses of KOL. Pure traffic is not of great value. It is a waste to buy KOL just to buy traffic.

For Party A who holds the power of decision-making , my suggestion is to improve their professional level, enhance their ability to judge content, and change the evaluation criteria from traffic to content. Forget traffic, focus on content.

From an article to a campaign with a budget of tens of millions, it is difficult to measure the value of something with clear data. Brand managers should have their own standards, be sure of what should be done and what is right, and then do it boldly. Data is only an aid. Don't just stare at the data. If you only look at the data, you will definitely be deceived by it.

The above is all. I hope everyone can be more professional. Marketing is not just about traffic.

Author: Yang Buhuai

Source: Yang Buhuai