Ever wondered how anyone got so many Instagram followers? We have good news for your ego: some of these followers can be fake.
It is likely that even if you have never bought followers, you will still be followed by a few bots. This is almost inevitable – and many bots are harmless – but you still have to report them to Instagram. The more volatile bots can try phishing you by sending spam or malicious links via the DM, and it is not worth the risk to keep them close.
Instagram has worked hard on third-party apps that increase your account with fake Instagram followers and likes at the end of the year and promise that there will be repercussions for users who continue to buy bots. (It is unclear what the consequences were.) But that did not mean the end of false followers: according to a survey conducted earlier this week in the rounds, famous celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres, BTS, and Ariana Grande have false followers counting between 46 and 49 percent. According to CNBC, fake followers on influencer accounts cost a total of $ 1.3 billion this year alone.
Here you can read how to find a fake account
If you want to see a fake Instagram follower, look at a few story characters. For example, if you notice that a user likes a random selection of your photos or leaves random, generic comments (“great message!”), It is possible that it is associated with an external amplifier and examples to trick you into getting it back to follow. At least someone is trying to blow up his number quickly – probably not someone you want to follow.
It is also useful to look at the profile itself. If the user follows thousands of people but does not have many followers or messages, or if their account appears to have been inactive for a long time, feel free to be suspicious. Of course, there are cunning bots who use a lot of content to look real. If you’re unsure, put a photo or two in a reverse Google image search and see if it was retrieved from another user or site.
And we’ve all seen these super obvious fake accounts. There is the bot that places many stolen photos of different women as if you would not notice that they are not the same person. Then there is the fake discount account that promises low prices on luxury items (often Ray-Bans) in an attempt to make you click on a suspicious link.
Let us not forget the most obvious perpetrator of all: the account without anything on it. No photo, no messages, no followers. Their handle is “Chloe8438488382” or something like that. Goodbye. You didn’t even bother.
Finally, it has to be said: only because someone meets one of these criteria does he not automatically become a bot. They can just be very bad on Instagram.
How to see if a user has many fake followers
‘Fake followers, for the most part, don’t do anything except follow you.’
Not sure if other people’s followers are real, but don’t want to spend your valuable and limited time on inspecting everyone individually? There are a few ways to see if a large proportion of someone’s followers are bots.
First, see how many likes the user gets by Post. If it is only a small part of their followers – as in, the relationship is really, really – there is a good chance that many of their followers are inactive bots. Forged followers usually do nothing but follow you.
There are a number of third-party websites (we let you Google) that claim they can detect which followers of a user are fake. However, these results must be taken with a salt. You can also try running the account through the social media statistics website SocialBlade, which will notify you of sudden jumps in subsequent issues. If a user’s followers jump up for no apparent reason, they probably paid their number.
Generally speaking, it is a bad idea to hit bots – and blowing your followers artificially counting has no benefits that really make sense. The better option is to grow your account as organically as possible. You can still use as many annoying hashtags as you want.