Unethical Marketing BS: If you can’t beat them, should you join them?

Do you feel like everyone’s cheating their way to success right now?
Faking followers, buying engagement, making up luxury, client wins and all that?
Well, you’re not alone.
And today we’re exposing why joining them will cost you more than you think and how to win without actually selling your soul.
And because this episode, I don’t know, I feel a bit like a reality check and a pep talk all hold into one.
So prepare for a bit of tough love, but also some real actions you can put into place if you’re feeling the temptation to get involved with the unethical marketing strategies that are now rife everywhere.
Hello and welcome to Sniffing Out the Bullshit, a podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs who want help wading their way through the bullshit jungle of entrepreneurship and then the tools, skills, and mindsets that are actually required for success.
I’m your host, Sabrina Chevannes-Denman, the no bullshit entrepreneur, right, So let’s start with the state of what’s happening in entrepreneurship at the moment and why people are even thinking of going down this room in the 1st place.
And first of all, I’m going to preface by saying that when we’re talking about marketing, we’re generally talking about digital marketing and concept marketing about because that’s just how it is these days.
Everything revolves around content.
And even though marketing is so much more than that and can be done offline through events, through public speaking, etcetera, the focus is still mainly on content marketing.
And even these offline activities, right, are only considered important if you can capture the content of them and stick them online to grow your following.
So that’s why there’s this temptation to buy followers because people look you up and immediately judge you on your following.
It’s ridiculous, I know, but the amount of people who come up to me and say, Oh my God, you have like 22 K followers.
That’s incredible.
I don’t know where the American accent comes from when I do that.
I feel like this when you and you was put on American accent voice when you do it.
But no, they didn’t have to sound like that.
But I just making a point that those people come up to me and say that that sort of thing is impressive and I don’t even realize how many followers I have all the time.
Right?
And is it even incredible?
Like what did I even do to get like there are now people with million followers who have faked absolutely everything they’ve done and essentially calling people out of their money.
Is that something to be part of?
So this is what I’m saying.
The first thing to realize is that this is all vanity metrics and it’s bullshit and we need to get that out of our heads.
The problem is we are all actually wired this way.
And so it’s going to take some serious rewiring for us to like rethink this little thing through.
And I get it, organic reaches down and I mean severely down.
Like even when I see these like big names screenshots in their pages, their numbers are low and, and like they have a silly number of followers, right?
And although again, if they’ve actually purchased their followers and they’re not real, then that will also explain there’s no numbers.
But OK, regardless, the reach is down.
The algorithms feel like they’re punishing us.
Authentic content is drowned out by the polished fake hype, right?
We constantly see low likes and crickets on real posts while all the fake gurus pop off with their made-up stories.
And of course, this is going to make us feel like crab.
So what does this ’cause people to do?
Well, they fake it in every way possible.
They join engagement parts, which are often masqueraded as communities.
They fake brand deals, they tag brands and they’ve ever worked with, they screenshot fake DMS, social proof, etcetera.
And all the hope that people buy it and they think they’re good at what they do.
So eventually they will earn real money from deals, right?
I mean, there’s even chat on Reddit I’ve seen about the White House buying followers.
Like I don’t think you can get more crazy than that, but you know this bullshit is being cracked down upon.
I don’t know if you saw the Rantic Daboomi case a while ago.
These click farms sold 10s of millions of fake followers, likes and views right?
Daboomi alone sold over 200 million fake Twitter followers before the FTC fined them $2.5 million in 2019, making them the first enforcement action against fake social media metrics, which was great because it set a precedent, right?
So it will show other brands what will happen if they keep up this nonsense.
And there’s been studies about this, there’s been a recent study of about 7000 UK influencers which found that nearly half of them has significant low quality followers which were bots or ghost accounts.
So that’s crazy.
And of these influences, actually 12% in the study even admitted to buying followers like straight up, with 24% of them showing abnormal growth patterns.
So, you know, these guys are not even hiding it, they’re admitting it.
And that’s only the ones that I’ve admitted it.
Like think what percentage are out there?
It’s nuts.
Now we know that the FTC has been cracking down those people who have not like disclosed their pay partnerships and you know, always influencers that haven’t said they’re doing paid ads, but like promoting brands and like, and they’re starting to make examples of some like big names of the business, like even the UK.
Stephen Bartner has been, you know, made an example of he’s put into a lot of scrutiny recently.
And there’s also like negativity around this podcast, a result because they were saying that he wasn’t declaring like fuel and all like Zoe and all the products that he’s like already invested in and he was advertising them.
There’s a whole thing like read about it.
But you know, there, there’s there’s a lot of people that are cracking down on that, which is good because we do want to know, you know, when there’s a financial benefit involved.
And even if it’s like affiliation or like sponsored ads, we want to know whether it’s genuine because obviously there’s money behind it.
It’s not always going to be genuine.
So, you know, if you’re fine trying to find ways to promote your brand, but you’re thinking about not disclosing paid relationships, don’t do it because it’s so ripe at the moment and people are really cracking down on it and you know, it’s just not worth the massive fine that you can get.
But on the other hand, people now doing the opposite.
So influencers of faking brand deals online and they’re putting that sponsored content there on posts which aren’t even sponsored.
So think about this.
It’s kind of crazy.
Well, I take it to spiggle my water.
So why would anyone do that?
Makes no sense.
Well, the idea is to look as though they’re getting paid for the deals and they’re like, you know, working with all these cool brands and it basically legitimises what they do, right?
And they suddenly look like they’re landing on those big brand deals and, and they look popular.
But this has been massively backfiring on influencers.
And Business Insider just did an article on this recently exposing all the influencers doing this and like interviewing them and saying, actually, it’s shot themselves in a foot because the competitors of those brands then don’t want to work with them because it looks they’re looking at, they’re working with the competitors.
Why would they work with them, Right?
But The funny thing is they lied about it in order to impress them.
They thought, oh, if I want to work with Mercedes, I will then say I’ve, you know, landed a brand deal with Audi because, you know, like they will think, oh, if I can work with Audi, then I can, you know, but and then Mercedes are like, why would I take a Audi influencer?
It makes no sense. So they actually screwed themselves over.
It’s so silly.
And some brands are not even like openly disclaimed.
They have nothing to do with these influencers, which makes it even more embarrassing.
And I’ve found this piece of research by this company called Juniper Research, and they estimated the fraud like that’s been accrued.
This is like from 2023, but it’s only a couple of years ago.
They estimated that across ad networks and influencer star content, it accounted for around $84 billion in wasted digital ad spend. 84 billion.
Like those are crazy numbers.
It’s nuts, right?
How much money is being wasted and all the like.
This is not just influence, but it’s like, you know, ad networks, all these sort of things, but fraud.
And there was also another study from the influencer marketing hub, They reported that nearly 60% of brands, I think it was like 59.8% encountered fraud with influencers back in 2023, again, which discovered of numerous things like fake and fake followers, engagement bots and phrase and metrics, 60% of brands had Ford.
That’s wild.
So naturally brands are cracking down on there and exposing the bullshit that they see in influencer marketing.
So it’s harder to do, but it’s still going on because obviously, like if you’re a smaller name brand, they, they think it’s worth the risk.
You’re not going to get exposed as much.
But do you really want to risk your entire reputation on looking popular?
Because remember, it takes years to build a reputation and only seconds to destroy it.
I know the bullshit is so tempting, especially right now when you feel like it’s just not going well and you need to do things and like, you know, the economy sucks and everything sucks.
Like. And there’s also actual psychology behind this too, right?
So for example, humans are hard wired to compare themselves with those who seem more successful as a good comparison and social social media just turbocharges in this way.
We see endless highlight wheels with like no behind the scenes reality, even though those BTS videos are made all the time which are fake BTS and actually just staged as well.
So it’s just so dumb and it builds this whole if they did it then I should be able to too attitude.
And then then if you can’t do it, then you’re sort of like, well, then, So what am I doing wrong?
And it’s, it’s causing this problem.
And everyone is sound desperate to keep up with the Joneses, as my parents used to say.
But now all of these Joneses have millions of followers on social media and their lives just got a whole lot more fake.
And so the fear of falling behind is so real and it’s raw.
And there is this like real illusion being created here, like fake success signals make people look more credible, right?
And so you think that you need to get this to to get clients.
It feels real and bomo and scarcity triggers are like a classic marketing strategy and influence.
Know this the classic like only 10 spots left or enrollment closes tonight.
They they fake this urgency to push people into making decisions.
And even smart people panic by because of the fear of missing out because it feels worse than overpaying or getting scammed sometimes.
It’s crazy. And the problem is there’s also something called validation addiction, like those likes and shares and praise or light up your brains reward centre and give us that dopamine hit that we all love.
So when like your reach drops or likes dip and then people start to panic, they’re like, oh, am I irrelevant now?
Am I failing?
And so they turn to quick hacks, bots, pods, ballot, big followers, all that stuff to get that fixed back.
And this is what’s happening because after all, right now, many small business owners are in survival mode.
They are financially stretched, even if people don’t admit it.
But I don’t know many small businesses who don’t feel this in some way.
They see people with fake followers pulling in sponsors, or so it appears.
So they feel if I don’t do the same, I’ll get left behind.
And it’s not cheating, it’s just surviving.
And this is what’s going on.
And there’s this very real stress loop that’s happening.
It’s like 1 moment.
You’re not going.
If I don’t fake it, then no one’s going to take me seriously.
But then you’re like, but I feel sick doing it and it’s just you don’t know what to do.
So I’m going to give you a little bit of a reality check here and let you realize that people spend more time looking successful than actually being successful.
And most people are actually broke behind the scenes.
So if you just remember that, hopefully we’ll hold you off from doing anything unethical and we know who the biggest culprits are, right?
I don’t even need to mention names.
You’ve seen them on every platform on LinkedIn.
They’re dressed up as those 6 figure a month community leaders, right?
But really they’re just running engagement pods to fake the morality on every single post.
And they’re on TikTok teaching you overnight success techniques.
And they’re on Instagram as a luxury lifestyle consultant, like helping you achieve your dream car, home, holiday lifestyle and all that stuff, all by not really doing any work or perhaps just manifesting it.
So they’re everywhere.
But do you know what?
If you want me to name names, there’s one that I think about a lot because she obviously like, you know, became a big deal.
And I don’t even think she’s done anything different to what other people are doing apart from maybe she’s like doesn’t even hide the fact that she’s a bit scammy.
In fact, she’s embracing it.

I’m talking about Caroline Callaway.
Like, I don’t know if you know her, but this lady gives me serious Fire fest Meat and Adelvy vibes, right?
And that before I talk about her, I just want to preface that saying that all the information that I’m about to give you is stuff that I found online.
I cannot confirm if they’re all 100% true.
This is just for my research and what I’ve read and what I’ve watched.
And I just feel like I kind of legally have to say this as she’s been in a lot of legal battles and she’s often claiming, but she’s a victim a lot.
And so I just want to put that out there.
I did not say any of this.
This is all stuff that’s online.
But OK, Caroline, let’s go up to who she is.
So she is, she’s the girl that rose to supposed fame by declaring herself the Gatsby of Cambridge.
And sure, The funny thing is she actually later admitted to falsifying information to get into Cambridge in the 1st place, and I wonder how Cambridge only feels about that on their repertoire.
But anyway, when she was there, she started an Instagram account, she bought loads of followers and paid for ads to grow her account.
And you know, she admitted this, that’s what she did.
She just bought it all just to to look popular.
And then so she got this name of Gatsby because she was throwing these like really lavish parties in the in the dorm rooms.
But what was so crazy is that she rented other people’s dorm rooms because she felt that the college that she was in wasn’t nice enough.
And I think she paid like an extra grand a month, which to be fair, sure is entrepreneurial as hell, to be honest.
So I’m giving her credit.
And so she like threw all these lavish parties and posted about them online.
Now, I don’t really get what people loved about it and what made her so popular, but I guess seeing a young pretty girl live a lavish lifestyle in Cambridge and partying all the time made people think she had everything right, Brains, beauty and money.
So they loved it. Like guys wanted to be with her and girls wanted to be her.
Absolutely classic. And, you know, so much so that she actually landed herself a half $1,000,000 book deal.
Yeah, an actual giant publisher signed her.
I mean, it shows you the type of content people actually want.
And This is why people are so tempted to go down this unless they call rabbit hole of bakery, you know, but just.
But since she was fakie, she didn’t even fulfil her book contract, right?
She pulled out and like, apparently she got this $100,000 advance and she, I know she was supposed to pay them back.
She pulled out, but it’s all a bit unclear online, I think. Apparently she supposedly did pay back her money with money she earned from only fans apparently, because apparently that’s the only way she was able to pay back such a large significant sum.
I, I don’t know.
I don’t know. But yeah, anyway, my whole bio festivives bit comes from her, her like, what does she call it?
The creativity workshop tour where she basically sold tickets to workshops where she would teach people how to grow an Instagram brand online.
Now I know what you’re thinking. What is the difference for this converter?
All these are the people selling personal branding services online right now.
Well not that much to be honest. And well the problem is Caroline didn’t even host Missy’s workshops.
Like these days there are workshops but they’re more generic and mostly bullshit and like they’re just praying on the naivete of other people.
Caroline didn’t even host them. She didn’t even secure venues.
She claimed she’d have fun people but she didn’t, hence the fire fest vibes.
She didn’t seem to care. She eventually ran 2 workshops in New York City and even called them the scam.
Now she doesn’t even hide the fact she’s scaring people. She she loves it so much so she’s even now got a book out called scammer and she’s even started her own products line of grapeseed oil mixed with essential oils and she calls it snake oil.
So she’s literally calling herself a snake oil salesman.
But so I guess when you’re caught out in all this, the only thing to do is embrace it or you’re just being embarrassed, right?
So it’s she’s she’s wild.
I I mean, go look what very interesting.
Do you know what not so entrepreneurial skills there. If she turned it to something legitimate, she might be quite successful.
It’s very interesting. But you know what, no matter who you’re looking up to or admiring the lives of online, the likelihood of it is that most of it isn’t meal.
The follower counts certainly are meal because the stats show that over 50% of influencers inflate followers and that’s why brands are now using AI tools to detect fake engagement and drop those people who are caught cheating.
So if you’re thinking of joining those people who look like they’re doing well, don’t do it.
Brands are only getting smarter about it and don’t be these people that we all know of all share.
Actually take your time to run your business properly because there’s so many dangers here.
The shortcuts are never worth it. They are all about short term buzz and long term rot.
Because the fake engagement destroys trust when client finds out.
Plus the algorithm catches on and your fake followers actually hurt the reach to your real customers.
So instead of moaning that you’re you only reach 1000 real potential customers, you may not be reaching any now because you’re only putting content in front of the bots and most of you don’t need 1000 customers, so you should be grateful that you’re reaching that many people.
Or like if you’ve been combining the fake followers with shady marketing tactics, giveaways, and always offers that don’t exist, you’ve now attracted the wrong crowd anyway as your audience will be full of bargain hunters and time wasters.
So those aren’t the people who are actually going to make you money.
And do you know what? It’s not even the money and the time that you waste employing all these tactics.
It’s there’s an emotional cost too. There’s so many entrepreneurs I’ve spoken to who have given in and like gone down the fake it to make it route have said that they’ve burned out seriously from trying to keep up the facade.
They’ve lived under constant anxiety that they’d be like found out.
And they’ve even had nightmares about the embarrassment that it would cause they were smiddled or self doubt about whether they were really good enough.
And I know we all suffer from imposter syndrome of some kind, but if you’re genuinely putting yourself out there, you will have some level of benchmark of how good you are and what you need to improve on.
But if you’ve faked everything, you have no idea and you’re not actually learning anything at all, does that sound like it’s worth it?

Because to me, it doesn’t. So what should you do instead?
First up, breathe. Don’t panic, You’re not alone.
We all feel this pressure at some point.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought so many times about giving up because I didn’t want to go down one of the cheap routes, but I didn’t even see the point of because honest like work doesn’t seem to lead to success anymore.
But I realize that’s a hugely negative way of looking at it, albeit understandable.
And I’ve just gone through a million different ways for tea and the example of people who are, but I feel like it’s not all that bad and we can get through it.
I think a good place to start is with an audit of your accounts.
So if you have got fake followers, you should remove them because they actually do more harm than good.
Your content only reaches A teeny tiny portion of your followers anyway.
So do you want them to be fake? No, I presume so. Remove them.
Yes, your outward numbers will go down, but your results will go up.
And if you’re cringing right now, you’re thinking you’ve spent months trying to build up a following and this nut job here is telling you to decrease your following.
Please just answer your question for me.
What is genuinely more important?
More impact, more connection with your target audience, and more sales or looking more popular than you are?
Because it’s the same question I want you to ask yourself about engagement pods.
You need to leave them. If you’re in them, they actually damage all of your insights and your beach.
Your posts will constantly be shown to people in your pods, even though they’re not in your target audience most of the time.
And you’ll have no clue who like at all, who actually genuinely likes your content, and which pieces of content performed better than the others because they’re all skewed with fake data.
So you’re ruining the best part about digital marketing, the powerful analytics, all just to look popular.
So you need to refocus, you need to double down on value driven content and you need to teach and share your results and showcase processes, etcetera.
And I know these posts don’t get as much engagement as like say one of those fluffy motivational quotes, but the people who aren’t interacting will actually be some of the ones who are most influential to you.
They will benefit from this. They’ll love it and they’ll remember you.
Because think about that.
How much do you actually remember someone with the generic quotes or a regurgitated piece of leadership crap?
And how much do you remember someone who gave you an invaluable resource or told you a really powerful and personal story that really helped them?
And you know you want to be remembered and recommended, so you need to be a real community and not a fake 1.
You have genuine conversations rather than those fake likes.
Spend more time on real sales conversations, partnerships and offers that actually convert instead of hours in the comments section responding to people who don’t actually care.
Probably just doing the rounds on comments because some guru told them that’s what they’re supposed to do to grow their own accounts so they’re there for personal reasons.
So remember, clients hire results, not follow accounts. And even if people fall for it at first, which fewer people are doing now, they’ll always find out eventually and go back to those with the real results and stay with them for a long period of time.
Because sustainable businesses aren’t built on illusions, they’re built on reputation and delivery.
So when you’re tempted to fake it, remind yourself every fake follower is a distraction from a real client.
Every made-up story is a step away from real impacts.
So stay in your lane, do the work, serve your people, and the right people will find you.
And look, you’re not crazy for feeling this pressure.
It’s a system, but you can beat it by being better than a system.
And I know it’s not easy because I still go through these struggles myself.
But I felt I needed to create this episode because I’ve had so many conversations with other founders who are not sure what to do at the moment, and they’re really considering joining them because they don’t think they can beat them.
But I think you can, because you just need to realize that they’re not actually winning, they’re just cheating.
They’re pretending they’re winning. But do you want to pretend to win or do you want to actually win?
Because I know I’d rather win small than pretend to win big.
And if you’re ever feeling it, please just drop me a line.
I’ll be happy to have a chat with you. And if you feel that you needed this pep talk, and please do share it with a friend who’s feeling the same pressure.
And if you’re building a real business and not just a highlight reel, then you’re exactly who I want to hear from.
And until next week, please keep sniffing out the bullshit.