How do you turn a pensioner from Khimki into a rich, successful Instagram alpha male? “I am 65. I live in Moscow. I want to teach you how to live.” That was the tried and tested algorithm for spinning up successful personalities in 2016. What will the criteria of popularity be in 2021?
(1) settle on a persona. To do that, run a survey and pick the ten criteria that appeal to the public most. For example, a successful 60-year-old man, sharp-tongued and with an eye for young women.
(2) Find a pensioner who has never appeared in public. Pay him 30 euros for a day of shooting (2,000 roubles).
(3) Post a dozen photographs on Instagram.
(4) Drop a fake news story about the rich dandy into a few VKontakte communities and collect the first 2,000 followers. The rest will come on their own.
(5) Widen the popularity, unfolding the persona step by step and adding new details to it. For example, Boris owns a restaurant and a factory that is being modernised.
(6) Correspond with the followers. The “millionaire” asks them for advice on whether he should buy a helicopter, shows off his fashionable girlfriend and, of course, posts plenty of food pics! The result comes out quite close to the more genuine specimens, such as millionaire Gianluca Vacchi:
Results and side effects:
- For 800 dollars (50,000 roubles) an Instagram persona with 30 thousand followers was built up in 3 months.
- Brand advertising can damage the persona
- Business owners read Instagram and may come through it for advice and with commercial offers (to invest money)
- A rich older man's persona will attract offers of intimacy from young women.
Further details in the article “Who turned a pensioner from Khimki into a millionaire and a favourite of women” (https://lenta.ru/articles/2016/10/18/boristherich/)
