Fake followers are causing real problems on Instagram. Brands lost $1.3 billion in 2019 due to fake fans, according to Wired. And Influencer Marketing Hub found that 68 percent of marketers experienced some type of influencer fraud in 2020.
Brands are right to be concerned. No company wants to get duped into reaching out to an audience that doesn’t exist. It’s much less costly to evaluate an influencer’s account before partnering up than to find out later on after you’ve invested money into a campaign.
As Instagram has grown into the top social media platform for influencers, the fake follower landscape has grown more sophisticated. Early on, unscrupulous companies offered fake followers for sale to pad an influencer’s vanity metrics, but marketers grew savvy to the trick. Now, many fake accounts are designed to look incredibly real. How can you tell if an influencer’s audience is authentic?
Why Would an Influencer Buy Fake Followers?
Now that influencer marketing is well-established among brands, some new influencers want to hit the ground running and make money immediately. They can’t do that without a following. Instead of investing time and effort into cultivating a real following, they take a shortcut.
Newbies sometimes jump-start their Instagram accounts by purchasing a fake following in hopes of landing early ad deals with companies that won’t look too closely. The influencers gain traction, but the companies gain nothing. Here are a few ways to determine if an influencer has fake followers, or if their numbers are genuine.
Use a Fake Follower Checker
Automated tools can help evaluate an Instagram account for fake followers. These tools look for outlying data that raise red flags. This is an easy, no-risk way to determine if the influencer’s numbers indicate a high percentage of fake followers.
The downside is that fake-fan services are getting smarter at finding ways to circumvent detection. That’s why it’s a good idea to look at the influencer’s metrics manually and browse their Instagram account for red flags.
Check the Influencer’s Engagement
An influencer with lots of followers and low engagement is a bad sign. Enter the Instagram account into a free online engagement calculator and see if there’s a below-average engagement rate. Keep in mind that accounts with fewer followers — those of nano-influencers and micro-influencers — should have higher engagement rates. Influencers with large followings tend to have lower engagement rates, and that’s okay to an extent. No matter how large the influencer’s following is, the engagement rate shouldn’t be way outside the norm.
Even if the engagement rate does check out, you still need to look at the quality of that engagement to see if it’s real. Once you’ve checked out this metric, it’s time to take a closer look at the influencer’s account.
Watch Out for These Red Flags
Click around the influencer’s Instagram page, and keep an eye out for the following indicators of a fake following:
- The influencer’s posts have a high number of likes but few comments.
- Comments are short, spammy, generic or off-topic.
- The influencer isn’t responding to comments or engaging the audience.
- Followers’ accounts are skimpy with few posts or photos.
- Hidden bio details or images that look like stock photos strongly indicate a fake account.
- The influencer or followers are connected to fan-buying services.
- Most followers live in a different part of the world than the influencer.
- Followers have usernames that contain gibberish or lots of numerals.
If the influencer has good metrics but isn’t posting high-quality or valuable content, or if their posting pattern is irregular, then it’s possible something isn’t right. Professional influencers usually have an off-Instagram web presence, such as other social media accounts or a personal website. Look for those as you are vetting.
If you find a few fake followers, don’t be alarmed. Many influencers, especially with large followings, attract bots. In an ideal world, influencers regularly purge their accounts, but it’s normal to have a small percentage of fake followers.
Look for a Smooth Increase in Following Over Time
A genuine following grows slowly and steadily over time, with some losses but overall gains. A sharp spike in growth (that doesn’t coincide with a viral post or media pop) may indicate when fake followers were purchased. That’s especially true if the spike is followed by a sharp decline.
Some influencers purchase drip followers. This means the fake followers are added gradually to avoid this telltale spike. If you notice jagged growth — a series of small jumps followed by a plateau — that may be a sign of a drip following.
Talk to the Influencer
If you’re still unsure whether the influencer’s audience is legitimate, schedule a call to talk about the influencer’s community. An influencer who is engaged and effective knows their community very well. They should be able to speak fluently about their followers and what they want. If an influencer has a high percentage of fake followers, then they may not have ready answers.
There are many ways to analyze fake Instagram followers, but the best course of action is to avoid partnering with an influencer who buys them. Using a high-quality influencer management platform or discovery tools is one way to get off to a great start.
