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Fake followers pose a significant risk to your brand's credibility, campaign effectiveness, and profitability. Rushing into new collaborations without proper verification can lead to disastrous results, potentially setting your brand up for scams that undermine the success of your influencer marketing campaigns.
For a successful campaign, collaborating with influencers who have genuine, engaged audiences is essential for reaching and connecting with real people. That's why it is vital to rigorously check the authenticity of an influencer's followers before entering into any partnerships.
Fake followers are social media accounts that are bought to increase an influencer's follower count. There is no "real person" behind these accounts. They are typically bots programmed to follow, like, or comment on accounts.
Influencers buy fake followers to inflate their influence. It sells real people and brands the illusion that they are more established, experienced, and successful influencers than they really are.
A quick search of "buy fake followers" leads to a swarm of results from agencies and platforms offering bulk sales of followers. To show the significance of this issue, the top result is a Reddit post requesting, "Can you recommend where to buy Instagram followers?" with 80+ comments.
As shown by the openness of questions and sales of fake followers, buying them is not illegal. However, it is against the terms of the platforms as it undermines their validity. If a social media platform notices unusual behaviour, it will restrict its promotion of the influencer's posts.
Some brands may think they are a thing of the past as social media platforms improve their ability to check for fake followers. Yet, with every increase in follower dedication, nefarious actors also improve their approaches.
A well-known analytics platform found that 49% of Instagram influencers had used fake followers at some point. While many of these creators likely tried and quickly stopped this unethical practice due to its lack of long-term results, the data shows how undeniably commonplace fake followers are.
Brands seeking influencers to assist with their marketing must be careful. They must know the influencers they are investing in are capable of reaching their target audience. Inflated follower counts waste any funds spent on influencer marketing, and brands will pay more to sponsor posts from an influencer with a high reach.
Picture the scenario: You hire an influencer with 300K followers. You check out his profile, and he receives over 1,000 likes and hundreds of comments per post. You pay him for a sponsored post, anticipating reach in your target audience, only to see the content receive 12 likes and 2 comments.
This is the consequence of fake followers--a poor campaign with disappointing results. Done right, influencer marketing can provide a 6x ROI.
So, how what are the tell-tell signs of bots so you can eliminate them from your marketing?
Look for consistency between the number of followers and the level of engagement, such as likes, comments, and shares. While influencers with larger follower counts tend to have lower engagement rates, very low engagement often signals fake followers. Question accounts with engagement rates much lower than the average for Instagram influencers, which is around 0.9%. This may be a sign that the followers are fake.
Unfortunately, engagement rates don't provide the full answer. Many bots like posts and leave comments. However, bots often leave generic, non-specific comments such as "Nice post!" or "Great pic!" The comments are brief and lack meaningful interaction with the content of the post.
Bots often have incomplete profiles. They may lack profile pictures, bio descriptions, or posts. Additionally, their usernames might seem randomly generated, including a string of numbers or generic phrases.
Bot accounts often exhibit unusual posting activities. They may post multiple times in a short period and then remain inactive for a long time. In contrast, genuine accounts usually have a more consistent posting schedule.
Thankfully, checking the legitimacy of influencers doesn't have to be challenging. Tools specifically tailored to Instagram can flag up inauthentic creators without the hassle of searching through a profile's followers.
Each tool takes a different approach. While some analyse followers by engagement rate, others use more intricate metrics to provide a comprehensive overview of an influencer's authenticity. This may include analysing a creator's growth over time or posting habits.
There are many free tools available, so which is best?
Each one has its own method for analysing the credibility of a creator's audience.
Here is a comparison of some free tools that can help you verify the authenticity of an influencer's followers on Instagram:
Platforms streamline your influencer marketing from end to end. They give you the tools you need to find influencers who can produce the best results from campaigns. Part of that process is checking for fake followers.
As part of its influencer marketing offer, Kolsquare evaluates the credibility of influencers in its global database by calculating a specific percentage score. This score indicates the overall health of an influencer's audience by checking for bots, inactive followers, and purchased likes and followers.
Kolsquare then assigns a score ranging from zero to 100, reflecting the authenticity and engagement quality of the influencer's following. This comprehensive assessment helps marketers identify genuine influencers and make informed decisions for their campaigns.
Book in for a Kolsquare demo today.
Modash offers a reliable tool for conducting fake follower checks. However, is tool is only available if you sign up for a free trial. All you need to do is enter an influencer’s Instagram username into the checker to receive detailed insights into the authenticity of their followers and their overall engagement metrics.
Inbeat offers an effective tool for detecting fake followers on Instagram. All you need to provide is your email address, and it will tell you the number of fake or inactive followers an account has.
It analyses the average engagement rates, likes, and comments, cross-referencing this data with industry standards to evaluate audience quality.
Collabstr is a valuable tool for checking the authenticity of an influencer's followers on Instagram. This platform provides a pie chart showing the percentage of authentic followers, offering a clear visual representation of follower quality. Collabstr meticulously analyses each follower's engagement metrics, including likes, comments, and posting habits, to identify and eliminate suspicious accounts.
Identifying fake followers on TikTok is crucial for brands and influencers wanting their marketing efforts to reach a genuine audience. However, on TikTok, accounts tend to hide many details even when they are genuine.
Here's a guide to identifying fake followers on TikTok:
Fake followers may automatically like content. Due to this automation, one red flag is rapid likes and comments triggered immediately after a post is published. While popular influencers do receive quick engagement, an unnatural spike often suggests the use of engagement pods or automated services.
Using follower audit tools can also be helpful. Tools like Kolsquare analyse follower quality and engagement metrics, providing insights into follower authenticity by examining growth patterns and engagement rates. Additionally, analysing the profiles of followers for completeness, activity, and the follower-to-following ratio can reveal fake accounts, which often have incomplete profiles, low activity, and an uneven follower-to-following ratio.
Lastly, examining engagement patterns over time can provide valuable insights. Genuine accounts show consistent engagement patterns, while sudden spikes or drops can indicate manipulative practice.
Fake followers can tank your campaign. However, it's important to note that detecting fake followers does not necessarily mean the account is deliberately buying followers; sometimes, they may have inactive followers or have been targeted by bots.
Here are some key strategies to identify genuine followers and ensure you go beyond vanity metrics on any platform:
Meta, the parent company of both Instagram and Facebook, stated on its website:
"We invest in artificial intelligence to improve our ability to detect violating content and keep people safe. Whether it's improving an existing system or introducing a new one, these investments help us automate decisions on content so we can respond faster and reduce mistakes."
While Instagram continues to make efforts to protect brands and influencers, the best thing to do is protect your brand by following best practices. To verify authenticity, regularly analyse follower activity, as genuine accounts will have followers who engage with posts through likes, comments, and shares. Assess the quality of engagement by looking for meaningful comments and interactions, as opposed to generic comments or excessive emoji usage, which may suggest automated or low-quality engagement. Finally, analyse follower growth patterns for any sudden changes.
Above all, the best way to ensure your marketing reaches the right audience is to run a well-planned campaign from start to finish. Begin by defining your target audience and understanding the type of content you want to create. It's important to keep in mind that content and creators that appeal to you may not appeal to your target audience.
Conduct a wide influencer search to understand the typical engagement rates and follower counts in your industry. An influencer marketing platform like Kolsquare accelerates this process from days to minutes. It gives you immediate access to credibility scores, engagement rates, and follower counts. Essentially, it enables easy access to all the key data.
Once you've paired with influencers with real impact in your target audience, you can continue to build the relationship long-term. These partnerships with influencers who genuinely resonate with your brand can lead to more authentic and effective marketing. Use a platform to assess which influencers are having the most impact easily. To begin with, you can use low-risk campaigns such as affiliate marketing or a one-off sponsored post. These short-term collaborations reduce risk and allow you to quickly establish whether an influencer can perform for your brand.
Trust these creators to build content that speaks to their target audience.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, offering a data-driven solution that empowers brands to scale their KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing strategies through authentic partnerships with top creators.
Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.
With a thriving global community of influencer marketing experts, Kolsquare serves hundreds of customers—including Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, Lush, and Hermès—by leveraging the latest Big Data, AI, and Machine Learning technologies. Our platform taps into an extensive network of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers across 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
As a Certified B Corporation, Kolsquare leads the way in promoting Responsible Influence, championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations that inspire positive change.
Since October 2024, Kolsquare has become part of the Team.Blue group, one of the largest private tech companies in Europe, and a leading digital enabler for businesses and entrepreneurs across Europe. Team.Blue brings together over 60 successful brands in web hosting, domains, e-commerce, online compliance, lead generation, application solutions, and social media.