Demand for Fake Instagram Followers Shot Up 71% This Year
Fake Instagram Followers Are A Booming Business—How Do You Spot The Frauds?
On June 20th, Instagram announced that it crossed a major threshold into 1 billion users. They capitalized on this momentum by launching IGTV, a platform that enables creators and influencers to share long-form video content with their fans.
This move was a direct swipe at YouTube, as Instagram aimed to entice video creators to share their content via IGTV instead. This also suggests more robust opportunities for branded influencer marketing, which is predicted to reach nearly $2.4 Billion in spend by 2019.
But in the wake of all of this growth, concern over fake Instagram followers continues to rise—especially amongst brands, who fear investing money and effort into influencers with artificially inflated follower numbers.
Research suggests that this worry isn’t entirely unwarranted. Last year this fake Instagram influencer study proved it was all-too-easy to create a fake Instagram persona, buy fake followers, and get offers for products and even money in exchange for sponsored posts. This year, the numbers show that demand for fake followers has only risen.
The Trend Of Fake Instagram Followers
Searches For Buying Fake Instagram Followers 5X Higher Than Other Social Sites
Based on data from Google Trends, it appears that the market for fake Instagram followers is rising more rapidly than any other social network.
Compared to searches for followers on other social networks (for example “buy youtube subscribers” or “buy facebook likes”) searches for “buy instagram followers” had at least three times more search interest over the course of the year — more recently even five times more searches than the second-highest term, “buy facebook likes.”
Perhaps even more alarming, search interest in fake Instagram followers rose by 71% since the same time period last year, from 64 (August 20-26, 2017) to 90 (August 12-18, 2018), weighted by Google Trends on a scale out of 100.
Market For Fake Instagram Followers Rises To Meet Demand
As more people seek a quick way to boost their follower count, a slew of companies has cropped up to offer cheap solutions. A quick Google search reveals companies like Buzzoid, Instaboostgram, iDigic and Poprey, which guarantee followers for as a little as $0.80 a pop.
The Google Keyword Planner, traditionally used by businesses to identify opportunities for advertising, also suggests that searches for “fake instagram followers” get significantly more impressions and clicks than similar searches for other social networks. Based on the rising tide of interest, this market (and the number of companies willing to supply fake followers) will likely continue to grow in coming months.
How To Spot Influencers With Fake Followers
In reaction to this surge in fake followers, brands and consumers alike are more keen to distinguish “real” influencers from the fakers. There is no silver bullet, but there are several indicators that suggest artificially high followers or engagement numbers. For the full list of fake influencer red flags click here, but here are the top telltale signs:
- High Followers, Less Content – With the exception of a sudden rise to fame, most influencers with a lot of followers should have a lot of content—hundreds, if not thousands of posts, spaced out over several years. This suggests that they built their following slowly over time.
- Similar Engagement Rates – Measuring the number of comments and likes across multiple posts is important when evaluating an influencer. Engagement rates will vary based on the particular influencer and industry, but if you see extremely similar engagement levels on each post this could be a warning sign. Real Instagram influencers have a varied number of likes and comments on each post.
- Questionable Followers – Quickly click through to 10 or 20 different followers at random. If you see a lot of accounts with very few followers, almost no posts, private accounts, or no profile photo (or with a design instead of a face) their followers may be at least partially inflated.
- High Following-To-Follower Ratio – Most influencers follow approximately 1-5% of their total number of followers. If the influencer is following a very large base of people (or this number fluctuates dramatically), this could suggest they use the “follow-unfollow” approach. That means they follow a lot of users at once, wait for them to return the follow, and promptly unfollow them.
- Short, Generic Comments – One of the best ways to identify fake Instagram followers is to read through the comments yourself. If you see a lot of repeated phrases, replies in a foreign language or vague exclamations like “Love it” or “Cute!” this may be a sign of purchased engagement.
Related Post: How To Spot Fake Followers On Instagram
Looking Forward: The Future Of Fake Followers
Although a spokesperson from Instagram stated to the New York Times that “internal estimates show that spam accounts make up a small fraction” of their user base, the increasing search interest, advertising market, and industry-wide scramble to solve this problem suggests otherwise.
As Instagram continues to grow, the problem of fraud will likely grow with it. Brands will become savvier at identifying fake influencers, but fake follower companies will probably respond with more complex and subtle engagement tactics that are trickier to spot.
That being said, brands will always have options when it comes to identifying authentic influencers. They can partner one-on-one with an established influencer, who they meet and collaborate with in person. For more involved and strategic campaigns, they can also partner with an influencer marketing agency, who will have the experience, technology and industry knowledge to avoid fraudulent influencers.
As IGTV opens up an exciting new channel of influencer content, brands will want to remain vigilant for the next iteration of bot accounts and fake engagement. So, proceed with caution and do your due diligence to avoid falling prey to the Instagram phonies.
Related Post: 4 Major Influencer Marketing Platform Risks Marketers Must Know
Also See Our Posts On:
A Marketer’s Guide To Measuring Influencer Marketing ROI
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