You make excellent points about the hype adjectives and self-promotional phrases. For me, the first red flag that goes up is that they're not good enough at writing to come up with something more compelling. And you're right — it speaks volumes about the sincerity of the person and the motive.

You're right to love all of Jennifer's stuff. She's one of the best there is.

It's more when you get into the thousands to tens of thousands range. That's when it looks fishy and I take a closer look to see if the followers look legit or like they might have been purchased or come from a reciprocal follow scheme to artificially inflate their numbers.

It always makes me sad when I see someone (usually a social media "expert") using follow-back schemes to raise numbers, only to tell me that they don't pay attention to those they follow at all. Instead they only pay attention to lists where they follow far fewer accounts. It's about ego-stroking, making others think you care what they have to say when your behavior clearly shows you don't.

As for the "bribing for positive feedback" BS, I know exactly what you're talking about. And surprise surprise, it's coming from one of the worst offenders around. You're absolutely right. Legitimately happy customers don't get paid to say that. They offer that feedback willingly. Any kind of compensated feedback that's required to be positive is problematic. When you're doing it for pay, you're nothing but a pathetic shill. And other new writers deserve better than to be misled into buying something thanks to the unethical jerks on both sides of those kinds of deals.

Good points about following-follower numbers, Jenn. I hadn't considered the reciprocal (Pavlovian) following game – if I follow you, you'll follow me – leading to a big disparity between following and followers. That's probably because I've fallen for it a few times only to discover they unfollowed me after a few weeks anyway. You're right – more than how many followers they have, how – and how often – they interact with those followers will be more telling.

I really hate hearing of unscrupulous "experts" bribing students with discounts, rebates, or refunds in exchange for testamonials to help promote their supposed expertise. Not only is that unethical (and possibly illegal) you know unfavorable reviews won't be used. If you didn't get your money's worth, don't offer false praise in the hopes of a refund. Demand a refund.

Not sure I think the same way regarding the Twitter followers. I seem to have equal numbers (just slightly more followers than those I'm following). I tend to follow people who interest me in some way. I have odd criteria — they can't repeat the same post, I should see at least one RT in their recent feed, and their interests should mesh with what I'm looking to read.

Oh, and if they send me an automated note trying to A)sell me on their book/service or B) convince me to follow on Facebook or LinkedIn I'm pretty much over them. The latter might be okay, but for me, it's a bit of a turn off. I'd rather they didn't thank me at all than send me anything automated.

You made a comment about "trusting newbies." And that's key. The fake experts (who usually do little more than regurgitate what others have said, even if it sometimes makes them a total hypocrite), almost always focus on newbies. Exclusively. They're not out there trying to appeal to more experienced professionals, because they know they'd be laughed out of the virtual room.

There's nothing wrong with trying to help new freelancers out. But when that's the only group you make any effort to reach, you make it sound like you have the key to going from newb to pro in no time at all, and you make a point of nickel and diming them over nearly every bit of dim-witted or swiped "advice" you spew, you're relying on the naivety and trusting nature of newbies to make a buck.

Very little pisses me off more than people who do that. And the problem is that they're so good at talking themselves up that many newbies don't know they've been getting sh*t advice until a year or two have gone by, hundreds of dollars have been spent, and they've barely made any progress.

Sadly, it happens a lot, and it's usually the same few "experts" to blame. Their unhappy customers don't want to speak up because they're afraid of backlash, so instead they come to the rest of us looking for help getting things moving again (and most do a great job once they're out from under said "experts'" thumbs and getting advice that's actually tailored to them).

The only good thing about that is that many of us more experienced freelancers hear about it from those newbies, and we talk. Some of these pseudo-experts have no idea what kind of reputation they've been quietly building among colleagues — including people who used to respect them. Eventually that'll come back and bite them on the ass.

On a more positive note, I've noticed in recent months that more newer writers (who have finally sought help elsewhere) are finally speaking up in various networking groups I'm in. There's little point in most of us naming names because if you're seen as competing with the pseudo-experts at all, their little minions just jump on you, saying you're trying to ride their coattails (funny given that it often starts the other way around).

Change needs to come from the newer folks who bought into the garbage and have so far been scared to speak up. But finally they're sharing stories about the crap advice they've gotten in these smaller networking groups, and they're starting to realize each of them isn't alone in that. Word might be getting around slowly. But it's finally getting around, and from the people it needs to be heard from.

When I see you're following nearly as many people as are following you (or more), that's when I know to be suspicious. You can't legitimately follow thousands of people and actually pay attention to what the bulk are saying. I give much more weight to people who follow realistically and actually interact with the people they follow (and yes, we agree that interaction is important — you just have to look for it).

On the other hand, following a lot of people is the number one way scammers and pseudo experts get their follower counts up. That's because far too many people engage in ridiculous reciprocal following — "I'll follow you in the hopes that you'll turn around and follow me." Some go so far as to unfollow anyone who doesn't quickly follow them back (which is juvenile and kind of pathetic).

So if anything, legit experts are going to follow fewer people, not more. Not just a handful. Not just their family and friends while posting things for a larger audience. But far fewer than the fake experts who (with some exceptions) tend to follow massive numbers of people just to increase their own follower counts.

Real experts are going to earn far more followers than any one person can legitimately connect with one-on-one. We don't always like to admit it, but that's reality.

Buyer beware — exactly!

Anne, thank you. Likewise, my dear. 🙂

BTW, Lori, Paula, Cathy, Emily, Ashley – all those who commented so far are freelance writing experts imo. Many of Lori's readers are.

Paula, I despise the word, "expert". It's overused and misused to the hilt. I worked in a field for three decades and I still don't consider myself an expert.

Laughter is all I can exude when I land on an alleged expert's website — rife with spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. You've seen those, too, eh? Pfffftt!

I have nothing pithy to add to your genius, only to say BUYER BEWARE.