January 17, 2018, by aeynh4

Dodgy Digital Marketing: The rise of the club-promo catfish

At the heart of University society is our social media. Sports team pages, events for nights out, group chats – its hard to imagine where students would be without it really.

As such a massive platform for university social networking, it was only a matter of time before clubs in Nottingham started taking advantage of Facebook to target students for online advertising. Now, we have an epidemic on our hands of fake, Facebook profiles; of club-promoting catfish. The term catfish is a relatively new term that became popularised by the MTV film/turned TV show ‘Catfish’, which follows people who have been victim of forming online relationships with people who are not who they claim to be. In fact, the term became so relevant that it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2014, with the definition;

“[verb] to lure (someone)into a relationship by adopting a fictional online persona”

The ingenuity of these accounts comes in their method of gaining friends. Take ‘Harry Carruthers’, for example. I have 19 mutual friends with him, all from Cavendish Hall. I must know him from somewhere then? Nope. A quick scroll down reveals that this is merely a fake account for SoulJam; an up and coming Nottingham night out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These accounts are targeting UoN halls of residence in order to create a more convincing, false persona. They’ll add you and systematically invite you to events that you probably don’t want to go to.

Here are a few things to look out for when identifying a fake account:

Only one profile picture/cover picture;

The fake accounts tend to have one profile picture, one cover picture and nothing more. The lack of profile pictures is a pretty clear indication that the account is fake and has been made solely to advertise. In addition, the profile pictures are unlikely to have any likes. It makes you think, who are the people in the photos? Are they aware that promoters are using their profile pictures for their own personal gain?

Empty timeline;

If you want to see if an account is fake, simply scroll down their timeline. The only things that will feature on there is them updating their profile and cover picture, and their birthday; the bare essentials of a Facebook profile page. This is an obvious indicator that you are dealing with a fake Facebook profile, as a legitimate profile would normally contain evidence of personal use (pictures of friends, previous posts etc.)

 

 

So be wary next time you receive a friend request from someone you don’t know on Facebook. By tricking students into accepting friend requests, club events like SoulJam are infiltrating your Facebook feed to advertise their events for free. More shockingly, they are using other students’ profile pictures as the face for the fake accounts without their knowledge. I received no response from SoulJam when I messaged them on Facebook to comment on the matter, which suggests that this illegitimate method of online marketing is something that the company are actively encouraging their promoters to do. Social media can be used by brands as a perfectly legitimate and effective platform for digital marketing (sponsored posts, event pages, online competitions etc.). However, this is a clear example of the dodgy digital marketing methods that are present on social media today.

 

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