Could this be the end of the road for influencers in Kenya and those around the world? The influencer’s scene in Kenya has over the past one year grown exponentially. As people embrace the culture of vlogs, most of those with a high number of followers have been lucky enough to have jobs handed to them on a silver platter.
Think about Sharon Mundia known as ‘This Is Ess’ or Tabitha Tongoi AKA ‘Craving Yellow.’
Sharon started out as a fashion blogger but has over the few years managed to get endorsements from brands like Vivo and is now hosting a lifestyle talk show on NTV. Craving Yellow on the other hand is a natural hair vlogger who was recently appointed, Digital Marketing Manager for ‘Darling’ Kenya.
The two and many others can be referred to as ‘Instagram successes’ as they have managed to garner a large number of followers who brands now use as a marketing strategy to influence the public.
However, it now looks like the few who will come after them will not have it easy as Instagram this week announced a plan to do away with fake followers, likes and comments that are generated by applications tailored to make accounts appear more popular than they actually are.
This move will see a lot of influencer’s accounts around the work lose followers and will reduce the number of likes they get on the photo-sharing platform. The Facebook owned app said that the move came after accounts started using third-party apps to artificially grow their audience.
“Starting today, we will begin removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity,” read a blog post from Instagram.
Instagram said that it will use machine learning tools to help identify accounts that use these services and remove the inauthentic activity. Accounts identified using these services will receive an in-app message alerting them that they have removed the inauthentic likes, follows and comments given by their account to others.
“We will also ask them to secure their account by changing their password. People who use these types of apps share their username and password, and their accounts are sometimes used by third-party apps for inauthentic likes, follows and comments,” read the blog post in part.
The move was pioneered by Twitter, which recently kicked out inauthentic accounts resulting in declines in the number of followers for some users.
As many influencers use these tools to create perceived growth in their audience and to appear more successful than they are, the time has come to really know how popular they are.
Do you think the move by Instagram to wipe out fake followers will affect the influencers in Kenya?