Ways to Check if Your Brand Influencer Has Fake Followers
Introduction Brands should be aware that there are ways to buy fake followers or to get fake followers for free. Some influencers access fake followers to boost their follower count and to look more influential than they actually are. For those brands that work with influencers, checking for fake followers is critical when choosing an influencer to partner with your brand.
1.Check Their Followers
Before reaching out to a potential brand influencer, look through their account to see if they have fake followers. It’s easier to figure out when your influencer is being followed by fake profiles than you think.
Followers with No Photos or Posts If an influencer is followed by users that have have not posted and/or lack a profile picture, you can typically assume that these followers are fake. Brands should also look out for influencers with followings of tons of private accounts and “spammy” usernames.
Irrelevant and/or Spam Comments If an influencer has a ton of comments, it’s easy to assume that their followers are active. Look through a few photos and scan the comments. If the comments are clearly irrelevant or gibberish, they’re from fake followers.
Following/Followed by “fan-buying” services If you look through their followers and who they’re following, you might see one or two fan-buying accounts. These are huge red flags that the influencer is gaining fake Instagram followers.
2.Check Follower Engagement
If an account has thousands of followers, it can be expected that their engagement rates are proportional. Brands can figure this out by comparing the number of followers to the number of likes and number of comments. Instagram accounts with many followers and very low engagement rates likely have a bunch of fake followers. Calculate engagement rates for an account by dividing the total number of likes and comments by the total number of followers. Use these numbers as a benchmark for checking follower engagement.
3. Use an Automated Tool
If searching through followers and comparing engagement rates manually isn’t the right fit, there are some tools available to help determine whether an influencer’s followers are fake. FollowerCheck scans a profile and determines the number of fake followers versus real ones. Social Audit Pro is a paid service that provides follower analytics for Instagram accounts. The platform does a full audit of a profile’s followers that includes useful analytics.
Conclusion Many social media users have found that padding their followings with paid accounts can help them earn money as an influencer. However, this clearly undermines their authenticity and influence. Manually checking followers for spam accounts and comments is a quick way to find out if the comments and likes are from real or fake followers.
Created By www.influglue.com