DAVID RUTKAUSKAS Are His 500,000 Twitter Followers Fakes?
David Rutkauskas, founder & CEO of Beautiful Brands International (BBI), claims to have more than 500,000 Twitter following his tweets at @DavidRutkauskas.
UnhappyFranchisee.Com asks: Are they real people, or fake followers manufactured to create the illusion of popularity for David Rutkauskas?
According to an analysis by Fake Follower Report, 486,065 (94.81%) of Mr. Rutkauskas’ Twitter followers are fake.
Are you familiar with David Rutkauskas & Beautiful Brands International? Please share a comment below.
David Rutkauskas Claims He Ranks with Martha Stewart & Mark Cuban in Twitter Followers
In September 19, 2012, QSR magazine published an article titled Beautiful Brands’ CEO on Twitter’s Top 100 List.
QSR wrote: “Rutkauskas has over 500,000 active followers and is ranked among top entrepreneurs including Martha Stewart, Mayor Bloomberg, and Mark Cuban.”
The article quoted David Rutkauskas, who said he was honored to have achieved such popularity as a business leader:
“I can’t tell you what an honor it is to be mentioned side by side with some very trendsetting, inspirational people,” says David Rutkauskas, BBI founder, president and CEO.
“My followers are great and they feed my inspiration as I continue to set new milestones and grow my franchises worldwide.”
Mr. Rutkauskas seemed as truly, honestly humbled as those Oscar-winning actors during their acceptance speeches:
“This has been such a great year for BBI and for me personally. I hope people will keep following my posts,” says Rutkauskas. “Twitter is really a great way to express myself and connect with people from every walk of life. I love writing about my life and business philosophy and staying engaged with everybody I come in contact with.”
Fake Follower Report Claims 486,065 (94.81%) of Rutkauskas’ Twitter Followers are Fake.
FakeFollowerReport.Com did an analysis of David Rutkauskas’ twitter followers at @DavidRutkauskas.
FakeFollowerReport.Com estimates that 486,065 (94.81%) of David Rutkauskas’ alleged Twitter followers are fakes.
According to Fake Follower Report, a timeline graph of a typical Tweeter with a large organic following (consisting of followers who were attracted over time by the quality of tweets or popularity of the celebrity) will show a gradual, steady growth in followers.
Fake Follower Report provided this example of a growth chart representing a tweeter with a legitimate, organic following:
According to Fake Follower Report, the timeline graphs of those who have manipulated their follower counts by purchasing or otherwise creating fake followers will show sudden, dramatic jumps in the number of followers.
Fake Follower Report claims that an analysis of @DavidRutkauskas revealed evidence of a high number of fake followers being artificially added at very sudden, isolated points (see the red arrows, which we added for emphasis).
Why WOULD David Rutkauskas Have 500,000 Followers?
Is Fake Follower Report correct that David Rutkauskas has 486,065 fake Twitter followers?
We don’t know for sure, but we have our suspicions.
We ask: Why WOULD David Rutkauskas have 1/2 million followers?
He’s not famous, and neither are his brands.
He doesn’t have a TV show, magazine or published books.
His tweets are not (Sorry, David) particularly interesting.
9For example, recent tweets include “At least the Puppy Bowl had power …” “love is the answer… ♫ Love Is The Answer – Utopia #Spotify,” and “Thank good ness [sic] Heart is going into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ♫ Dreamboat Annie – Reprise – Heart #Spotify”
These Tweeters don’t have 500,000 followers:
@BorowitzReport is hilarious and has 439,000 followers.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is famous and has 132,000 followers.
@EricIdle is a legend and has 87,000 followers.
@NickSwardson is more sophisticated and has 386,000 followers.
Why WOULD David Rutkauskas possibly have 500,000 followers on Twitter?
David Rutkauskas Tweets are Neither Numerous Nor Interesting
Another thing that’s suspicious is Mr. Rutkauskas’ relatively low Tweets-to-Followers ratio.
Franchise King Joel Libava is one of the most active Tweeters in this industry. He has posted more than 50,000 tweets, and has 14,000 Twitter followers… impressive, and far short of 500,000
Entrepreneur magazine is the top magazine in the industry. It has posted 14,160 tweets and earned 236,279 followers.
How is it that David Rutkauskas has 512,446 followers, yet has posted only 2,268 tweets?
| Name | # of Tweets | # of Followers |
| @FranchiseKing | 50,617 | 14,532 |
| @runnersworld | 10,470 | 509,244 |
| @Freakonomics | 5,291 | 500,219 |
| @RichardDawkins | 6,643 | 500,000 |
| @EntMagazine (Entrepreneur Magazine) | 14,160 | 236,279 |
| @DavidRutkauskas | 2,268 | 512,446 |
We have sent an email in advance to Mr. Rutkauskas and tweeted him the link to this post upon publication.
We have invited him to provide an explanation, clarification, defense or rebuttal, which we offered to post.
As we wait for his response, we invite you to comment below, and read more about David Rutkauskas & Beautiful Brands here:
BEAUTIFUL BRANDS INTERNATIONAL (BBI): Behind the Hype
DAVID RUTKAUSKAS Bizarre Misrepresentations of Beautiful Brands
All Beautiful Brands Posts
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH DAVID RUTKAUSKAS & BEAUTIFUL BRANDS INTERNATIONAL? PLEASE SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
Tags: David Rutkauskas, Beautiful Brands, Beautiful Brands International, BBI, Twitter, Fake Twitter Followers, Fake Follower Report, franchise, franchise scam, franchise scams, worst franchises, worst franchise, franchise lawsuits, franchise litigation, franchise fraud
On Monday March 2, 2012 D. Ray Tuttle of The Journal Record published the following article. (see below)
According to the article, Rutkauskas wants us to believe that he went from 400 followers to almost 60,000 in the course of a month by posting positive messages and staying away from hot topics. He also said his audience grew by 2000 to 3000 twitter followers A DAY! How is this possible?
To reiterate what was said above,
He’s not famous, and neither are his brands.
He doesn’t have a TV show, magazine or published books.
His tweets are not (Sorry, David) particularly interesting.
This is not possible without a majority of the followers being fake.
Twittering Away
David Rutkauskas understands and uses social media.
“I am on Facebook,” Rutkauskas said. “I have 800 friends – people from high school, college. It is a place I post pictures of my daughter.”
A little more than a year ago, his assistant suggested that he create a Twitter account. “She tells me, ‘I see you on Facebook. You need to be on Twitter,” Rutkauskas said. Though tech-savvy, he said, he had no clue about what a hashtag was. “I knew about Twitter, but did not understand it,” he said, “but she signed me up.”
About nine months pass and Rutkauskas had not done much on Twitter.
“Then in September I decided to teach myself Twitter,” he said, laughing.
“As I learned about it, I figured out what not to do. Do not tweet about politics. Do not tweet about religion. Don’t tweet when you are drunk or drinking.”
What he did was tweet positive messages about twice a day. By December, he had 400 followers. “I thought, ‘This is fascinating.’ I cannot make people follow me; they have to opt in. So, these 400 people were interested so I decided to keep going.”
Within a month, the number of Rutkauskas’ followers had mushroomed to almost 60,000. “My audience is growing by 2,000 to 3,000 a day,” he said.
Today Rutkauskas tweets four orfive times day. “I tweet with positive energy; messages that are pro-entrepreneurship,” he said. “What I am writing is resonating with people. It is bigger than me now.”
D. Ray Tuttle
need more convincing?
take a look at this article:
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/12/15/fake-followers-an-easy-game-but-not-worth-the-risk/
here’s a small excerpt:
“You can see spikes in people’s follower counts, especially when it’s a celebrity in the news and things like that. But, a spike of 10,000 followers is just really really odd,” Farley says.
Yeah….. so what.. Who doesn’t have fake followers?
http://mashable.com/2012/08/24/obama-has-13-million-fake-twitter-followers-report/
Jeff writes: “Yeah….. so what.. Who doesn’t have fake followers?”
So, it looks this guy just paid someone to make it look like he is popular and respected? Then he lies to a bunch of writers and concocts this elaborate account of how he gained thousands and thousands of followers per day with two tweets per day, sends out press releases, etc.?
Then he uses his fake persona to help him get people to invest their life savings into franchise opportunities that mostly fail?
I think that may answer the question “So what?”
Yes, I am very familiar with David and his lies. I invested my life savings into Camille’s and it cost me everything. I have lots to share if anyone is interested in listening off line. I can only hope that eventually his lies will catch up with him. His creating fake followers does not surprise me and is only the tip of the iceberg!
In the past 21 days since this post was published, David Rutkauskas aka @DavidRutkauskas has lost 102,879 followers.
February 7: 512,651 supposed followers
February 28: 409,772 supposed followers
His Tweet Count indicates that he has posted 88 tweets since the beginning of February (increased from 2237 to 2325) which seems inflated, and he actually is following 30 people less (from 7088 to 7058).
Upshot is that these numbers continue to seem unnatural and potentially contrived.
We were conned by this David Rutkauskas also. Lost our money on Camille’s Sidewalk Cafe that they hindered us from opening. Took our franchise fees for 2 sites, though. We tried to hire an attorney, but did not have enough money to fight his big guns.
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I don’t know how fake twitter followers work, but evidently they need to be replenished or they drop away.
David Rutkauskas @davidrutkauskas has lost 206,082 followers in the past week, 287,819 since Feb. 7 when this report was compiled.
2/7/13: 512,651 supposed followers
2/28/13: 409,772 supposed followers
4/18/13: 430,914 supposed followers
4/24/13: 224,832 supposed followers
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this guy is a total jerk pile of crap