Introduction
Follower numbers and reach play a decisive role in influencer marketing. But not all followers are real. Fake followers can significantly affect the results of your influencer campaigns if you don’t recognize them. In this article, you will learn how to identify fake followers and why it is so important to avoid them. You’ll learn what to look out for and how to make your social media presence authentic.
What are Fake Followers?
Fake followers are artificially created or purchased accounts that follow a profile. They are used to increase the number of followers and create a false impression of influence and reach. They are often controlled by bots or are inactive accounts. Some users buy them in order to gain reach quickly. Others fall for them unintentionally when they pursue dubious growth strategies.
There are different types offake followers:
- Bots: Automated accounts created to follow others without showing human activity.
- Empty or inactive accounts: Profiles that have been created but do not show any regular use.
- Purchased accounts: Some companies or individuals buy follower packages to quickly increase their follower count, often from dubious sources.
Why Fake Followers are harmful
Booking influencers with lots of fake followers can not only distort the results of your campaigns, but also negatively impact the credibility of your brand. The algorithms of social media platforms are getting better and better at recognizing fake activities and penalizing profiles accordingly. The measures range from temporary restrictions to account blocking. Ultimately, marketing is about real connections and interactions. Fake followers contribute nothing to this. They prevent you from really reaching your target group and building authentic relationships. It is therefore crucial that you pay close attention to the quality of your followers and not just the quantity, both with your own brand account and with creators you work with.
Lade dir jetzt unsere Checkliste herunter, um die wichtigsten Infos und To-dos von Social Proof auf einen Blick parat zu haben.
Signs of Fake Followers: A detailed Check
1. Suspicious Profile Pictures and User Names
Watch out for profiles without a profile picture or with very generic pictures. Fake accounts often use stock photos or random images. User names with lots of numbers or random letter combinations are also suspicious. Real users usually choose more personal and creative names. Pay particular attention to profiles that combine these features.
2. Lack of own Contributions or Content
Real users often post content regularly. Fake accounts, on the other hand, often have empty profiles or only a few random posts. If you see a lot of followers with hardly any content of their own, this is a warning sign. Such accounts usually only serve to follow others and increase the numbers.
3. Unusual Follower-to-Following Ratios
A balanced ratio between followers and followings is normal. Fake accounts often follow thousands of profiles, but have hardly any followers themselves. Or they have many followers but follow no one. Both extremes are suspicious and indicate unnatural behavior. The only exception here are influencers. These usually have thousands or even millions of followers, but only follow a small number of profiles themselves. .
4. Sudden and inexplicable Increase in Follower Numbers
Organic growth is usually steady. A sudden, massive increase in the number of followers for no apparent reason is suspicious. It could indicate the purchase of fake followers. When researching influencers, it is therefore essential to observe the development of follower numbers over a longer period of time.
5. Low Engagement Rates compared to the Number of Followers
Real followers interact with content. They like, comment and share posts. If an account has a lot of followers but hardly any engagement, something is wrong. Calculate the engagement rate by dividing the interactions by the number of followers. A conspicuously low rate indicates fake followers.
However, the larger an account becomes, the lower the ratio between followers and engagements. With influencers in particular, many users tend to watch silently rather than actively liking or commenting on every post. For influencers, an engagement rate of between 1% and 3% is a good value, and you can calculate the engagement rate of a creator using the following formula:
(Total comments + total likes) / followers x 100
6. Irrelevant or generic Comments
Fake accounts often leave meaningless comments. They write generic terms such as “Great!” or “Super!” under every post, regardless of the topic. Real followers, on the other hand, refer to the content. They ask questions or give detailed feedback. If you see a lot of superficial, repetitive comments, this is definitely a reason to be suspicious.
7. Conspicuous geographical Distribution of Followers
Check where the followers of an account come from. An unusual concentration from countries that do not match the target group or the location of the creator is suspicious. A German influencer who posts exclusively in German but has predominantly Indian followers should make you suspicious.
8. Use of fake Engagement Services
Some social media users not only buy followers, but also engagement in the form of likes and comments. Watch out for profiles where posts have a disproportionate number of likes or comments in relation to impressions or where the first comments always come from the same accounts. Such patterns show that fake engagement services are probably at play here.
How to avoid Fake Followers on your own Account
To avoid fake followers, focus on organic growth. Regularly post high-quality content that appeals to your target group. Interact authentically with your followers and build real relationships. Use relevant hashtags and features such as co-posting to increase your reach. Avoid buying followers or engagements at all costs.
Focus on quality rather than quantity. A small but engaged community is more valuable than thousands of inactive followers. Be transparent in your marketing and show real results. Only work with influencers whose followers are authentic. Carry out regular checks to ensure that your followers are genuine.
How to carry out a fake follower check
The best way to check accounts quickly and easily for fake followers is to use specialized software. This provides you directly with all the data you need to recognize the qualities of a creator in terms of their community and the authenticity of the account.
One solution for this is the Creator Tool from squarelovin. If you add a creator to your wishlist there, you will immediately see a value that classifies the credibility of the creator. Premium Insights also allows you to see the origin of followers and other demographic values such as gender or age at a glance. The composition of followers is also divided into “Real People”, “Influencers”, “Mass Followers” and “Suspicious Accounts”. This gives you a good idea of whether followers are real and you can also determine whether the influencer’s target group matches your own.
Conclusion
Recognizing and avoiding accounts with fake followers is crucial for successful influencer marketing. The signs mentioned above will help you to identify suspicious accounts. When searching for influencers, always remember: real connections and engagement are more valuable than mere follower numbers.
