Raffles

As an example of why you do it ..... I was offered an all expenses paid trip to Tuscany last week (which I turned down as totally irrelevant to my readership) but one of the criteria for being accepted was to have a stated number of followers on each of the main social media platforms.

TMM1982

I would have jumped at that

Raffles

I've got a wife and two little kids .... there needs to be a decent commercial rationale to leave them.

I have just hired someone part-time to do this sort of stuff because I can't spare the time - she has had paid (my me) 5-star review trips to Bordeaux, Estoril and Milan this year and is about to head off to New York to do a flight and hotel review. Tough life ....

Troopers

But not for the industry leader, the TPG. Makes (some) sense if your social following consist mostly of friends/family/peers, a peon in the respective industry, etc. B6 didn't partner up with him to give away 1M points because of his social media numbers.

Troopers

FWIW, Instagram numbers:

TPG - 72.6k followers, last 4 posts:
1) viewed 7,855 times (video)
2) liked 1,139
3) liked 465
4) viewed 4,315 times (video of TPG TV Vietnam)

MMS - 2.7k followers, last 4 posts:
1) liked 19 times
2) liked 23 times
3) liked 20 times
4) liked 32 times

gpapadop

Interesting discussion here on social media and FB.

Which reminds me, I should one day start a FB page for my blog

Buying followers is the ultimate mega scam thing to do. I block these bots selling me followers, there is a special place in hell!

84fiero

Credit card pimping P&M blogs are now an "industry"? Who knew!?

And who declared TPG The Leader?

By the way Raffles isn't exactly a peon.

TheBOSman

I've gotten hit up quite a few times (low level stuff) on my Instagram account (the one linked in my signature). Also, probably 10-20% of my followers are obvious fake accounts. I haven't paid any of them a dime of course (I don't care that much).

Troopers

You're right about "industry" by definition or when compared to the auto or medical "industry". Perhaps "community" is a better term?

General consensus. And your vote is for?

Who said Raffles is a peon? I didn't.

84fiero

You quoted Raffle's post (along with another) that had an example of an offer made in connection with his site, and then you wrote that

I don't know how Head for Points compares to TPG but it's certainly a well followed frequent flyer site within the UK.

Troopers

I can see how you made that connection. My foul...apologies to Raffles. I did have an etc at the end of my statement though. Don't know anything about Raffles readership/following in the UK.

Point being is that the anyone looking to get started, aiming to the the top player, etc, it may make some sense to buy fake social status. TPG is in the pole position, lapped the field and doesn't don't need to buy his social following.

skunker

Who said when TPG got the 1 million likes? I have a hunch that if you track them there would be a large spike shortly after he sold out to Bankrate. Your assumption is that TPG is the leader because he has 1 million likes, but if they are fake, can you really say he's lapped the field?

He doesn't need to buy social following because he already has, but he still advertises the hell out of TPG on Facebook.

Troopers

You may be right, I don't know when TPG got the 1M likes...does it matter? I am NOT assuming he is the leader because he has 1M likes. Maybe his likes are fake and FB reduces the likes by 99% or simply ignore all his FB likes, is he still not the leader? I can go buy 2M likes without a single blog post...am I now the P&M leader now?

As the leader, whether he has 100k likes or 1M likes, he wouldn't have to buy farm likes (those below him would have less likes anyways). That's the point.

Look at his readership numbers, media exposure, industry pulse/influence/connections, dollars monetized, etc. This is why he's the leader, undoubtedly. No assumption there. Whoever is second is not even close...he has certainly lapped the field. Feel free to provide data to the contrary.

Yep, as I previously stated, he still has to continue to pump money into advertising (if wants to stay on top). There's much competition and the P&M scene is constantly evolving.

Astrophsx

It has already been proven that businesses purchase fake likes... so not that ridiculous. Some of the top companies and celebrities have been caught on Instagram/Twitter with fake followers and have lost up to 90% of their followers after the fakes were cleaned out.


Several have pointed out that the points guy may be doing this for status. Also, he has a staff working for the website. Who knows.. maybe an intern or someone at bankrate purchased the fake likes and they can't clean them out?

First you are saying he didn't pay for Facbook likes, now you are saying he did?? How do FB likes significantly get you more app clicks.



You are really flip-flopping now.

Astrophsx

2013: 21,000 likes
December 2014: 313,000 likes
August 2015: 336,000 likes
Sept 2015: 375,000 likes
October 2015: 552,000 A bit of a jump in numbers
November 2015: 575,000

I remember seeing that he had 1 million around January/Feburary. That's quite a growth rate. It's also around the time TPG TV was announced. Coincidence? The fact that his YouTube TPG TV has very little organic views... I don't think it is a stretch to think he purchased likes.