After analyzing 130 million Instagram profiles, IMAI discovered that 1 in 4 influencers purchased 15% of their total followers, and 3 in 4 influencers purchased over 10,000 followers.
This reveals the prevalence of follower fraud on Instagram, a deceptive tactic often used to inflate social status and eventually attract brand deals.
While these acts can have negative effects on the influencer’s account, unsuspecting brands that partner with these accounts for marketing suffer more.
This guide will show you how to tell if someone bought followers on Instagram so you can protect yourself from wrong influencer marketing deals.
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4 Ways to Tell If Someone Bought Followers
How do you know if the 10,000 followers on someone’s Instagram page are people, not bots?
Here are four ways:
1. Check the Growth Patterns of Followers on Instagram
If there’s a sudden spike in followers, that is suspicious. Most accounts that actual people follow grow gradually, maybe 5 to 10 followers daily, depending on the influencer.
However, if you notice the account went from 1,000 to 10,000 in 24 hours, then something isn’t right.
An irregular mix of audience demographics is also a telltale sign. Accounts with fake followers often have an unusual mix of large followings from a particular area the influencer is not living in, connected to, or creating content for.
💡 To get a quick overview, click on the ‘followers’ section to do a quick scan through the Instagram handles and pictures of the followers without opening the accounts.
Please note that you cannot do this for verified accounts with the blue tick because Instagram does not allow you to see their followers list.
2. Detect Fake Followers from the Engagement Rate
You must have seen some accounts with low following but with an average engagement rate of at least 50% of their followers. This means their small community is an interesting and active one.
On the other hand, let’s say there’s an Instagram account with a sudden rise in followers, from 1k followers to 10k, and an accompanying post celebrating the new milestone.
However, the highest engagement on all their posts, including the celebratory one, was only from 50 followers. That’s a clear sign to check that page for bots because that influencer’s followers might be fake.
💡 A low engagement rate compared to follower count is a quick giveaway of Instagram accounts trying to trick you into thinking they have a large number of followers.
3. Spot Fake Followers or Bots on Instagram by their Fake Profiles
Instagram accounts that bought followers are often filled with fakes or bots. Here’s how to spot them.
Bots are usually created without profile pictures.
The ones with pictures use generic pictures of celebrities, avatars, space, landscapes, or AI-generated images. The common ground is that these images do not reveal the user’s identity.
Some bot profiles are left as inactive, empty accounts without any content on their page. If this is a recurring characteristic of an account’s followers, it’s suspicious.
However, note that these accounts are not the same as real users who only use Instagram to consume content or purchase goods and not to post, making their accounts look spammy.
Fakes, on the other hand, typically repost content on unrelated topics, creating a cluster of unrelated rubble on their page. If an influencer has multiple of these kinds of followers, that means they bought Instagram followers. Some of the content posted could also be AI-generated.
Fakes have weird usernames that can be too broad, generic, filled with figures, and irregularly mixed with letters and special characters. Such accounts might also have usernames similar to real accounts but with slight variations, using symbols like a full stop, underscore, or numbers.
If it’s a celebrity account or a public figure, it will also not have the verification blue tick by Meta.
4. Use Automated Tools to Tell if Someone Bought Instagram Followers
To track fake followers using the steps mentioned above, you’ll have to run through the profiles manually, which can be time-consuming for businesses or agencies. But if you love thoroughness, speed, and efficiency, you may prefer to use automated tools to detect when an Instagram account has bought followers.
Some of these tools include:
- Modash: This tool helps businesses discover the right influencer for their brand and provides fake follower detection services regardless of the large number of followers. Their services help influencers and e-commerce businesses work effortlessly. They even have a free version for a quick check.
- Influencer Hero: The service helps businesses discover influencers that perfectly align with their brand, manage collaborations and track performance.
- Hype Auditor: This platform provides services across four pillars: discovering influencers, analyzing accounts, managing campaigns, and monitoring competitors’ influencer marketing strategies.
How to Find the Right Influencer for Your Brand
If your brand falls for inflated followers, it can have several devastating effects, including a loss of your marketing budget.
So, how can you find the right influencer for your brand?
Before you choose an influencer for your brand, ensure you have clear marketing goals. Without this, your strategy will flop from the start. Marketing goals help guide your choice of influencers that fit your message and your audience.
Next, ensure the influencer’s niche, values, style, and audiences align with your brand. Brands that randomly choose influencers with contrasting values end up with a bruised brand identity and association. You want to protect your brand identity.
Influencers with scroll-stopping authentic content are most likely a perfect fit to work with your brand. Authentic content from smaller accounts always trumps content from popular accounts with many followers but no authenticity.
You can tell if a brand is authentic by its writing tone, quality, and the consistency of its content direction. You should also check the kind of brands it has worked with to see how they delivered.
PS: Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.
Let Vivian Agency Take Care of Your Influencer Marketing
Influencers are important for connecting your brand with users. However, you must ensure you’re working with influencers who have real followers.
We’ve discussed several ways to do this. You can check the growth patterns of the influencer, observe their engagement rate, and analyze the profiles of their followers. Automated tools like Modash can also be a great help.
Alternatively, you can skip all of this stress and hire an influencer marketing agency like Vivian Agency.
With our experience working with brands of all sizes, we can build your influencer marketing campaigns, saving you the trouble of the process.
Schedule a meeting with us to find out more.
