How to Spot Fake Followers Before They Derail Your Influencer Campaign

How prominent are fake followers?

A quick Google search reveals the startling truth that fake followers are easy to buy and relatively cheap. Simply searching for "buy fake followers" yields a swarm of results from companies offering to follow and engage with your profile. One of the top results is a Reddit post requesting, "Can you recommend where to buy Instagram followers?" with 80+ replies.

One of the companies recommended in the post offers 1K followers (set to any geographic location) for just £105. You can choose to have them delivered steadily over a month or at set intervals. This company has a 4* rating on an independent review site.

Despite being frowned upon, selling fake followers is not illegal. However, it is against social media platforms' terms and conditions. Platforms may punish influencers suspected of using fake followers by not promoting their content. But they do so with limited success.

Why checking for fake followers is essential for brands

Data from Statista found that 43% of Instagram influencers engaged in fraudulent activities "to inflate their engagement and follower figures" between 2023 and 2024. While many of these creators likely tried it and stopped, the data reveals the undeniable normality of fake followers.

Brands looking for creators for influencer campaigns must be careful. Inflated follower counts waste funds spent on influencer marketing, as many brands will pay more to sponsor posts if an influencer has a large audience or a higher engagement rate.

Picture the scenario: You hire an influencer with 300k followers. You check his profile, and he often receives 1k+ likes and hundreds of comments per post. You pay £5K for a sponsored post, provide a promo code, spend time creating a brief and contract, only for the content to result in only a handful of sales.

While this can happen for various reasons (such as content not resonating with the audience or poor deliverability), it is a common consequence of working with influencers who use fake followers. And it is indeed a waste. When done right, influencer marketing can provide excellent ROI and skyrocket brand awareness.

Discover creative Christmas influencer campaigns, including Lidl's "Ode to Bakery," which led to a 32% lift in ad recall.

Checking the authenticity of an Instagram account’s audience

Social media platforms are continually improving their ability to detect fake followers. Yet, with every improvement in follower detection, nefarious actors also improve their approaches.

Meta, the parent company of both Instagram and Facebook, stated on its website:

"We invest in artificial intelligence to improve our ability to detect violating content and keep people safe. Whether it's improving an existing system or introducing a new one, these investments help us automate decisions on content so we can respond faster and reduce mistakes."

While Instagram aims to protect brands and influencers, it has over 2 billion monthly users and is also working to combat misinformation and hate speech. In these circumstances, catching all fake followers is near impossible.

The safest way to ensure your campaign reaches an authentic audience is to follow the best practices for identifying fake followers or use an audience analysis tool.

How to identify Instagram bot activities

Spotting fake followers may seem difficult, but while not 100% reliable, the following signs give you a strong indication that an account is inflating its popularity.

Low engagement

Look for consistency between the number of followers and the level of engagement, such as likes, comments, and shares. While influencers with larger follower counts tend to have lower engagement rates, very low engagement can indicate fake followers.

Check for accounts with engagement rates well below average. For Instagram influencers, the average is around 1.9%. The average is higher for smaller creators, such as nano-influencers (2.2%), and lower for mega-influencers. It also varies by industry.

Generic comments

Unfortunately, engagement rates don't provide the complete answer. Creators can pay bots to like posts and leave comments. But the way bots comment can give the game away. Bots often leave generic, non-specific comments such as "Nice post!" or "Great pic!" The comments are brief and lack meaningful interaction with the content.

Incomplete or generic profiles

Bots often have incomplete profiles. They may not have profile pictures, bio descriptions, or share posts. Additionally, their usernames might seem randomly generated, including a string of numbers or generic phrases. While there are more advanced bots that post content, if a creator has many commenters with empty accounts, it's a bad sign. Bots also tend to have low follower counts (sometimes even 0, but often only 5 or 6) but high following numbers, even into the thousands.

Irregular posting activity

When bots do share content on their accounts, they often exhibit unusual posting activities. They may post multiple times in a short period and then remain inactive for months. For example, one of the bot accounts we investigated had posted ten photos all on the same day six months ago and never posted again. In contrast, genuine accounts usually have a more consistent posting schedule.

Comparing social media audit tools that detect fake followers on Instagram and TikTok

There are many tools available for detecting fake followers. Often, these tools are provided by influencer marketing platforms to help brands work with honest creators.

Here is a comparison of free tools to help you verify the authenticity of an influencer's followers on Instagram.

Kolsquare's Audience Quality Score

Kolsquare is an influencer marketing platform that streamlines influencer marketing end-to-end. It gives you the tools to find influencers who can deliver strong results by showing key metrics such as interests, engagement rates, previous collaborations, and audience credibility.

The Audience Quality Score is most helpful for assessing influencers' audiences. This score indicates the overall health of an influencer's audience by checking for bots, inactive followers, and purchased likes and followers.

Kolsquare assigns a score ranging from 0 to 100 that reflects the authenticity and quality of engagement among the influencer's following. This comprehensive assessment helps marketers identify genuine influencers and make informed decisions before activating creators.

You can see the Kolsquare Credibility Score on the free Chrome extension. It'll also tell you the influencer's audience demographics.

Conduct a free fake follower check on Instagram today with the Kolsquare Chrome Extension.

Modash

Modash offers a reliable tool for conducting fake follower checks. However, its tool is only available if you sign up for a free trial. All you need to do is enter an influencer’s Instagram username into the checker to receive detailed insights into the authenticity of their followers and their overall engagement metrics.

InBeat

InBeat offers an effective tool for detecting fake followers on Instagram. Provide your email address, and it will tell you how many fake or inactive followers your account has.

It analyses average engagement rates, likes and comments, cross-referencing these data points with industry standards.

Collabstr

Collabstr is a valuable tool for checking the authenticity of an influencer's followers on Instagram. This platform provides a pie chart showing the percentage of authentic followers, offering a clear visual representation of follower quality. Collabstr analyses each follower's engagement metrics, including likes, comments, and posting habits, to identify and eliminate suspicious accounts.

Upfluence

Upfluence's Credibility Checker is a free tool that evaluates the authenticity of Instagram profiles by identifying patterns indicative of fake followers, such as low engagement rates relative to follower count and sudden spikes in followers.

Free follower analysis and bot checker tools and apps for Instagram/TikTok accounts

You don't have to pay to access audience quality scores. Let's look at some free tools:

• Kolsquare Audience Quality Score: Kolsquare's Analytics Sidebar is a free Chrome extension that shows creator data in your browser as you browse Instagram or TikTok profiles. You need a free Kolsquare account to see the data. The sidebar displays each profile's audience quality score, from 0 to 100. Scores under 70 flag that a large share of the audience may be bots or inactive accounts. The sidebar also shows engagement rates and audience demographics.
• Modash fake follower checker: Modash offers a free tool to check for fake followers on Instagram. You type in a creator's handle and get results without creating an account. The tool analyses a sample of the creator's followers and sorts them by account type. The fake follower rate combines the suspicious accounts and the bots. The free results also include engagement rate and a basic view of audience location and gender.
• HypeAuditor free fake follower checkers: HypeAuditor has free fake follower checkers for Instagram and TikTok. Both provide an Audience Quality Score (AQS) on a scale of 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating a healthier audience. The check works on accounts with at least 1,000 followers.

How to spot fake likes

People can buy bots to like social media content. These bots are automated, so one red flag is rapid likes and comments triggered immediately after a post is published. While popular influencers do receive quick engagement, an unnatural spike often suggests the use of engagement pods or automated services.

Using follower audit tools can also be helpful. Tools like Kolsquare analyse follower quality and engagement metrics, providing insights into follower authenticity by examining growth patterns and engagement rates.

Additionally, analysing the profiles of likers for completeness, activity, and the follower-to-following ratio can reveal fake accounts, which often have incomplete profiles, low activity, and an uneven follower-to-following ratio.

Lastly, examining engagement patterns over time can provide valuable insights. Genuine accounts show consistent engagement patterns, while sudden spikes or drops can indicate manipulative practice.

Find fake followers on TikTok: A guide

Identifying fake followers on TikTok is crucial for brands and influencers wanting their marketing efforts to reach a genuine audience. However, many people use the app for entertainment rather than to connect with friends and family. This results in unusual posting patterns and higher following-to-follower ratios.

Here's a guide to identifying fake followers on TikTok:

• Check followers: Fake followers often have generic usernames and follow many accounts. By checking a sample of the influencer's fan base, you can spot these red flags.
• Growth patterns: Sudden spikes in follower count suggest the use of bots or purchased followers. Consistent follower growth that aligns with content quality and frequency is a good indicator of genuine followers.
• Engagement: Engagement rates are typically higher on TikTok. However, they may be lower if followers are fake. The average engagement rate on TikTok is 2.67%.
• Sentiment analysis: Sentiment analysis offers another layer of insight. Using sentiment analysis tools to evaluate the tone of comments on an influencer’s posts can help determine the authenticity of engagement. Genuine comments often reflect authentic engagement with varied sentiments. A large number of uniformly positive or generic comments may indicate fake followers.

How to tell if an Instagram account is fake?

Fake followers can tank your campaign. Here are some key strategies to identify genuine followers and ensure you go beyond vanity metrics on Instagram:

• Analyse engagement patterns: Genuine accounts tend to have consistent engagement patterns over time. They typically post contextually relevant comments rather than generic phrases.
• Check follower profiles: Review a sample of followers to check for complete profiles, regular posting activity, and realistic follower-to-following ratios.
• Look beyond vanity metrics: Focus on engagement metrics that are harder to fake, such as the quality of comments, shares, and saves. In addition, use sentiment analysis tools to evaluate the tone and feeling of comments.
• Engagement rates: Use industry benchmarks to understand typical engagement rates. Significantly different rates can indicate suspicious activity.

Ensuring your marketing targets genuine users on all social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube)

Above all, the best way to ensure your marketing reaches the right audience is to run a well-planned campaign from start to finish.

Free checkers are useful for a quick look at a single creator, but for long-term campaigns, deeper checks are recommended.

The Kolsquare platform gives you the full picture when you're vetting creators at scale. Every profile includes an Audience Quality Score, plus detailed audience demographics and audience growth history.

Download the free Kolsquare Chrome extension to check creators as you browse, or book a demo to see the full platform.