WE ARE SOCIAL ASIA TUESDAY TUNE UP #275

Tuneup
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By Jeannette Tan, Vivian Tan, Jeremy Lim

Fake Influencers on Instagram: How To Spot Them
While Instagram has taken several steps to crack down on fake influencers, this recent social experiment shows that such fraudulent activity still exists.
Mediakix, a dedicated influencer marketing agency, created two fake Instagram accounts and populated them with images of a model and free stock photos. After spending approximately a total of US$1,100 on fake followers and engagement, multiple brands have offered these fake accounts a sponsorship combination of free products and money valued at more than US$500. The lesson – we need to look beyond the numbers to engage Instagram influencers. 

Here are some ways you can spot the fakes:



Instagram Adds The Guest Feature to Its Live Stream
Instagram is live streaming to the next level with a new feature that allows you to go live with a friend. When a person joins, the screen splits into two equal-sized blocks to accommodate the images of both streamers. As always, users are allowed to comment during the live-stream. The main broadcaster can also choose to post their stream on Insta stories, save it on their phone or delete it from the app entirely. The feature is currently being tested among a small subset of users, but Instagram plans to roll it out more widely in the coming months.



NEON, the world’s first social augmented reality messaging platform
NEON is the world’s first social augmented reality (AR) messaging platform with geolocation features, enabling users to find nearby friends through AR markers placed by other users. The app is still in beta, but it looks pretty cool from the videos here and here.
It’s a little uncertain how far NEON can really last when social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp are already dominant players in the market, but it does give us an indication of where we can expect AR to appear next in the near future.