Instagram is full of bots and ‘fake’ accounts that falsify the number of followers and the real activity that happens within the platform. But this is not an exclusive problem of Instagram: the billionaire Elon Musk even suspended the purchase of Twitter due to the uncertainty of the volume of bots and spam accounts that roam freely in the social network of the little blue bird.
On Instagram, the problem of fake accounts goes much more unnoticed, since it is not necessary for these bots to post messages or interact with other users. Its main function is to artificially increase the number of followers of those who hire its services.
What is considered a fake account on Instagram?
When we refer to ‘fake accounts’, we must not only take into account bots or automated accounts that are controlled by a computer program and in which there is no human behind it.
Within this category we must also highlight the ‘fake followers’ . These would be real Instagram users who are part of growth groups, in which followers and likes are exchanged to help each other and artificially increase their number of followers. The classic “follow me and I’ll follow you” of a lifetime.
Both bots and fake followers are a big problem for brands, who see how they lose millions of euros every year by investing in influencer campaigns that inflate their numbers with bots and fake followers in which the impact of advertising is nil.
How to spot a fake bot or account on Instagram
To give us an idea of the figures that are handled, a study carried out in 2018 by the H2H agency revealed that after analyzing 350 Spanish influencers, one in four followers were fake .
How can we identify these ‘fake’ followers? Here the key is to pay attention to the small details. Most fake accounts meet at least one (or more) of these requirements:
- They follow thousands of Instagram users, but they have very few or almost no followers.
- Your account has been inactive for a long time, without any recent posts or stories.
- They don’t have any profile pictures.
- Her username is something like “Maria456654923” or some other equally crappy and suspicious name.
The typical Instagram bot or fake profile: no profile image, zero posts and almost no followers. Yes, follow a lot of people.
These are the most obvious clues, but there are more sophisticated bots that will also try to go unnoticed by using a seemingly normal profile picture and posting content frequently. If you suspect that an Instagram account may be a fake account or a bot, check the following:
- Do a reverse search of their profile picture: Upload the profile picture to an image search engine like Tineye or Google Images (for more info check out THIS TUTORIAL ). If the image belongs to another person, you will know that it is a fake account.
- Shady and suspiciouslinks: Check the links that appear in the user’s biography or stories. There are fake profiles that spread bargains, offers or extreme discounts on luxury items through links of dubious origin. Its only goal is to spread malware or steal data from its victims.
- Photos of different people – Many fake profiles post stolen photos of different women as if they were the same person. Normally these accounts are more fake than a 9 euro bill and are aimed at attracting a male audience for profit.
Typical fake account.
Let’s also not forget that there are also users who are not good at this Instagram thing. If you discover an account that meets one or more of the requirements that we have just mentioned, it does not mean that it is a bot or a spam account. Perhaps it is simply a person who does not know how to handle social networks.
How to know if an ‘influencer’ has many fake followers
Now that we know more or less what bots and fake accounts look like, how can we know if a user has many followers of this type?
It is clear that we cannot waste time reviewing all the followers of a certain influencer one by one to find out if they are artificially inflating their numbers on Instagram. Luckily, there are some indicators that can help us discover the truth:
- His posts receive very few likesrelative to the volume of followers he has. For example, if an account has 100,000 followers, but their posts only receive 40 or 50 likes, most likely many are bots or artificially gained followers. The normal thing is that a real influencer receives between 1% and 10% of likes on each post, depending on the level of engagement. Any number that is below those percentages…bad sign.
- His posts have few comments and comments in other languages. Some bots often leave comments to impersonate real followers. However, most of them are very short comments, in other languages or simply impossible to understand.
- Analyze the account through SocialBlade. It is a statistical tool that allows us to see a history of account activity. This way we can see if an ‘influencer’ has increased his number of followers at a given time without any reason or apparent reason that justifies it. If so, they will probably be accounts purchased in bulk just to inflate your follower list.
At the end of the day, we must be clear that the only thing a fake bot or follower will do is follow the influencer who has paid for their service. But nothing else. It won’t leave likes, comments, or anything.
Finally, remember that there are also third-party apps and platforms designed to artificially increase the number of followers. Instagram has already declared that these practices go against the rules of the social network, so if it is detected that a user is using this type of tool, it is very likely that they will cancel their account.
If you want to increase your number of followers on Instagram, the only way to do it, and for it to work in the long term, is to grow organically . Create better content, use all the hashtags you want and post frequently. Everything else is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow.
