Cliff Notes:
There are many rumors surrounding this and most are not true. We have this "team thing" going for 17 years now and, while mistakes have been made, we've got this process pretty figured out. It has been from these mistakes we've learned what the readers really want and who they want to follow.
We see the red flags immediately, as they are not hard to spot. For example if a huge part of what we do is "giving back" and the person has nothing to give or is unwilling to give its a really good bet they are not a good fit for what they do.
Our site is a destination location. Hastags are great but they do not bring people to the site, What brings people to the site and want to follow someone is the content they can produce. We don't care how many people see your hashtag. We want to see how many people read your articles and other content and if you have something to offer in them that is different then we already have.
One statement I hear all the time is how awesome IG is for business. Yes, we use it and we have been using it more. My reply is, how do you know it's so great. The answer is always... "I get more likes and comments there than anywhere". To this I will reply but how do you track this to clicks back to your site? Rarely is there an answer. If you have a business, no comments with no likes but several hundred clicks back to your own site has more value than 1000 likes that sends nothing your way. Social Media loves to take things that can't be quantified and act like there is huge value there.
We look for those who keep learning and want to share this with others. If you don't care to learn or know it all then there isn't much value for our readers as in many cases they will know more than you do, so you will actually be sending them away from the site.
This video covers more of this. It is not something we take lightly because these people become the voice of the company and make up almost all of our advertising budget.
There are many out there who just want free shit, or the exposure we can provide so they can build their own business. This is understandable but on the other end what can be provided in fair trade to offer the elitefts readers equal or greater value than what will be provided?