A comprehensive guide to identifying fake followers on Instagram and how to navigate through them to build a successful campaign

Instagram, the social media giant boasting a user base of 2 billion monthly active users (MAUs), and has emerged as the go-to platform for brands and marketers. Content creators who hold sway over this digital realm, are the new-age marketing moguls. Their follower count is their currency, often directly proportional to their perceived influence. Yet, the nemesis named 'fake followers' is causing a seismic shift in this landscape. While these followers may contribute to an increase in the creator's follower count, they often lack meaningful engagement, making them unsuitable for brand collaborations in the long run.

Rise of influencer-led marketing

As we are aware of the rise of influencer-led marketing and how it has managed to transform the marketing strategies for businesses.  Unlike traditional advertising methods, Influencer-led marketing allowed brands to reach a wider audience through personalised content posted by influencers on their channels. Not only this, in recent years, there has been a significant shift in the consumer behaviour, particularly in making purchasing decisions. Consumers now a days prefer recommendations from the creators they could relate to. Influencer marketing ad spending is projected to reach $24 billion by the end of 2024. This evolution however comes with a significant risk of fake followers infiltrating the platform and contaminating the campaign performances. 

The phenomenon of fake followers

An influencer's sphere of influence is an irresistible magnet for brands. The promise of tapping into this loyal and often enthusiastic base sounds like a marketer's dream. Yet, like all dreams, reality can be a sobering wake-up call. The catalyst? Fake followers.

Fake followers are a digital chimera, an inflated figure parading as an influencer's reach. These artificial accounts, often created by bots, exist for the sole purpose of boosting someone's follower count. They may make the numbers look impressive, but in reality, they do not engage with the content. They are ghosts, merely padding the statistics without adding tangible value.

This phenomenon is alarmingly rampant despite being against Instagram's terms of service. Instagram tried purging these pseudo-followers using machine learning tools which caused 13.5% of all influencers to see a decrease in followers. An analysis of 33.7 million Instagram accounts, found that Macro influencers (100 thousand to 1 million followers) – lost the greatest number of followers over the period, followed by 31.3% of Macro influencers, and 30.7% of Mega influencers (accounts with over 1 million followers).

The real cost of counterfeit followers

The inflated follower count paints a distorted image of an influencer's credibility. The quality and quantity of genuine engagement take a hit. Essentially, brands end up paying for hollow visibility, a balloon of followership that bursts at the slightest reality check.

The various pitfalls: 

a) Wasted marketing spend: When marketers partner with influencers, they pay to reach the influencer's audience. If the influencer has a large number of fake followers, the marketer is essentially wasting their money. It has been observed that brands could lose up to $1.3 billion annually due to marketing fraud and investing in fake followers.  
 

b) Damage to brand reputation: If a brand partners with an influencer with fake followers, it can damage the brand's reputation. Consumers may lose trust in the brand if they see it associated with an influencer who is not authentic.
 

c) Poor campaign results: If an influencer has a large number of fake followers, their campaign results will be skewed. For example, the influencer may have a high follower count, but they may have a low engagement rate. This means that their followers are not interested in their content, and the influencer's campaign is unlikely to be successful.
 

d) Difficulty measuring ROI: It can be difficult to measure the ROI of influencer marketing campaigns, especially if the influencer has fake followers. This is because marketers cannot be sure how many real people are seeing their content.
 

e) Shadow banning: Instagram may shadow ban influencers who have a large number of fake followers. This means that the influencer's content will be less visible to their followers.
 

f) Account deletion: Instagram may delete accounts that have a large number of fake followers. This can result in the influencer losing their entire account and their following.

Authentic influencer partnerships 

Now that you know the potential pitfalls of collaborating with influencers with fake followers. Let's explore the key factors to consider when hiring an influencer for your campaign.

Authenticity is one of the significant reasons that drive the success of an influencer marketing campaign and to be honest, the easiest way too. Data suggests that 88% of B2B marketers saw an increase in brand reputation and 72% saw an uptick in brand awareness through authentic influencer collaborations. So this makes it clear, if you want your brand to succeed, focus on authentic influencers and not just the follower count. Here are some checkpoints that might help you understand what to look for when evaluating authentic influencers:

a) Low engagement rate: When a social media account boasts a substantial number of followers but the engagement rate for the content is minimal, it often signifies potential fraudulent activities. How to detect that you ask? One way to detect this is by analysing the engagement of the content. A significant gap in the metrics like average likes, comments and shares may indicate the presence of an inauthentic activity.

b) Follower quality: Examining the creatorr’s followers is a very crucial step in detecting any fraudulent activity happening on the page. By analysing the followers’ activity levels and profile it becomes easier to identify if it’s a genuine audience or a bots. You can look for profile characteristics like, images or names in their profile to understand if they are actual people following the page. To gauge follower authenticity on social media you can check various factors like usernames and profile images.

c) Sudden follower spike: Organic growth is a slow process and happens especially after several events of viral content as compared to the sharp increase in followers within a short period. A sudden spike in follower growth can indicate the creator's participation in fraudulent activities. In such cases, keeping an eye out on the quality of followers can save you from collaborating with fake creators.

d) Quality of interaction: Another red flag to watch for can be the occurrence of generic or repetitive comments which could indicate the presence of bots or fake followers. Genuine interactions ideally involve personalised responses that are authentic and can be considered as quality engagement. Paying attention to the quality of interaction the influencer has on their content can help analyse the authenticity of the page.

Manually analyzing these checkpoints can be very tedious and time consuming. What if we tell you there is a faster way of doing this and that too error free? Proprietary GAP score by Hypothesis can prove to be magic when analysing an influencer for fake following. 

Bridging the GAP 

Now that we spoke about what to look for an influencer when hiring, let’s now delve into how to do that. In a sea of over  3.2M – 37.8M Influencers , how can brands navigate towards influencers with genuine audience engagement? Enter Hypothesis, a one-stop shop influencer marketing solution, that helps you to discover, target, optimise and measure your content opportunities. What's more, we have a solution to tackle the menace of fake follower driven inflated metrics.

Our proprietary metric - GAP (Genuine Audience Percentage) - gauges the authenticity of an influencer’s audience and their engagements. Unlike industry standards that predominantly measure follower authenticity, Hypothesis examines both followers and engagements, equipping marketers with comprehensive information. This holistic approach helps unmask sophisticated methods used to disguise fake followers as real ones, ensuring campaigns resonate with real people, not bots.

The higher the GAP score, the more authentic the audience. Reputable influencers boast a GAP score of 75% or higher. Creators such as PewDiePie, MrBeast, Suhani Shah, Dolly Singh, and Tanmay Bhat have GAP scores above this benchmark, reflecting their genuine connection with their audience.

As we usher in an era of digital transparency, let's seize this opportunity to promote a culture of authenticity. It’s high time we break the shackles of numerical dominance and move towards fostering genuine connections that drive meaningful output.

After all, in the grand chessboard of digital influence, a real knight is always more valuable than a phantom pawn.