This isn’t the first time I’ve come across a verified account on Instagram that I had doubts about whether these people were actually “celebrities” or famous in general.
Before I start explaining and showing, I should say this: this is not a step-by-step guide or anything like that. There is no guaranteed outcome. Why? Because it’s real people at Instagram or Facebook (and not an algorithm) who review your account and decide whether you deserve the blue checkmark or not.
A quick review
It’s been a while since I first came across an account like this. Anyone who is into social media marketing, automatic growth through bots, buying likes, followers or other services will immediately recognize that there is something going on. You don’t have to be an expert to recognize that someone is faking something.
That’s how I came across this one account a while ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a screenshot and after a few hours I just couldn’t find his username, but this guy was definitely not famous, probably used Jarvee or some other bot and got the popular blue checkmark. That blue tick that people spend thousands of dollars on and are even willing to scam other people for.
What exactly did this account do?
- Claimed he was a singer and uploaded songs to Soundcloud and Spotify, on which he then bought followers/plays/etc.
- Claimed he was an author (he published a Kindle ebook on Amazon – it’s really not that hard, and anyone can do it)
- Claimed he was an entrepreneur
- He bought 3-4 newspaper articles in rather unknown magazines
- He uploaded about 10-20 professional looking pictures of himself
- Obviously, he used some bot to get more followers (he followed 4,000 people and had 9,000 followers)
- He had a website link (firstname+lastname.com) in his profile
I also took a look at his website. The website looked pretty professional, but really nothing special. Just a website that was made with WordPress and had a premium theme. He had an Instagram feed and some other cool WordPress plugins. He also wrote something like “more than 1 million plays in more than 100 countries” in reference to his Spotify account, which is actually pretty easy to achieve if you buy the plays from an SMM provider.
Then a few days ago I saw a similar account, but this time I made a note of the username. And not only that, I found more similar accounts.
Of course, I don’t want to cause a shitstorm and have blacked out the personal data.
What I noticed right away:
- This account also claims to be anything (singer, producer, actor, entrepreneur, photographer, influencer).
- He follows over 7000 other users, which is a pretty unrealistic number and from this, it can really only be concluded that he himself uses a bot like Jarvee for example or someone else manages this account
- He has only 11 posts, which also look professional and possibly all taken on one day (photoshoot)
- He tags his company account, which has no pictures or anything else.
- He links to his website, which consists of his first and last name
So it’s exactly the same characteristics that I saw before with the other account. It follows exactly the same pattern.
And while we’re at it: Let’s dig a little deeper.
I also looked at his other accounts on other social networks to see if he really is a celebrity. After all, it could be that he’s a YouTuber or something similar.
Here are the stats from his YouTube profile:
Doesn’t look very famous if you ask me. If you search for his real name (which is also his stage name), you won’t find any videos uploaded by other users or channels. That’s pretty atypical.
On his Facebook Fan Page and his Pinterest account exactly the same. Almost no posts. Almost no likes or anything like that. But maybe he’s a singer?
On his website, it says something about a “Media Group”. Looks like this is a music label and they signed him as a singer. But if you search for the exact name of this Media Group, you won’t really find any information. If this music label really exists, then the guy above did a better job at branding than this music label.
How does it look on Spotify?
In fact, he is a verified singer and has uploaded three songs. But: he has only 5 monthly listeners. Notoriety looks different. By the way, on Fiverr and other platforms, you can also just pay artists to record a song and then you can upload them independently under a different name since you are effectively buying the license from the actual artists.
What about social proof?
If you search for a name on Google, you will mostly find profiles on popular social networks, but if the person is Prominent, you will also find articles from news or magazines. So if the gentleman should be an entrepreneur, singer, producer and actor, surely one would find one or another article about him or? Unfortunately, no. The only thing you can find are accounts on social networks, which mostly lack content or are incomplete.
Now you can claim what you want, but this user is neither a singer, nor an actor, nor an entrepreneur, nor anything else. It rather follows the pattern: fake it until you make it.
And you think that’s it? Oh no, of course, I looked at his pictures and read the comments.
Countless irrelevant comments from verified accounts, which all follow the same pattern as from the account I analyzed. Probably these accounts are all managed by the same person/agency? Is it possibly a network of verified accounts? I also looked at the individual accounts which commented. They are not celebrities or well-known people either. Now, one could argue that this could be an engagement group, that is, a group of Instagram accounts that comment and like each other. Such groups definitely exist. However, this post is about the blue badge.
Bottom line?
You basically have to fake your entire existence. Lol. The more claims you make (author, entrepreneur, singer, actor, producer, etc.) the better.
My guess is that the easiest way to get the blue badge is to claim you are a singer. And why? Because it’s the easiest to fake. Have someone record a few songs for you, make a Spotify, Soundcloud, YT account, etc., upload the songs and buy plays, subscribers, followers, etc. for social proof.
Basically, you can pretend to be a “popular singer” with millions of listeners, subscribers and so on without even being a singer. You just have to be willing to spend a lot of money on it. The question is: Is it really worth it? Not in my opinion and that’s why I don’t do it. Good luck to the staff at Instagram or Facebook to be able to tell if it’s really a well-known personality or a real singer or not. I don’t think they spend hours checking a single person.
Careful: Be aware of scammers who want to sell you the popular Instagram verification badge.
