Before we get to the ways in which you can identify fake followers, let us share a previous experience related to this topic.
Late in 2019, a client approached us and purchased our Social Media Marketing package. The company was already in existence, offline and online. They wanted a solution to grow their brand on Instagram, get more leads, sales and engagement. We began our research on the account that had 60,000+ followers. After investigation, we came up with our analysis report. The report showed that he had more followers from other countries than the physical company location. They sure were active and consistent with publishing the content, but the highest post likes on Instagram were 96, a promoted post. Now, is that realistic? With the number of followers they had? No, it’s not. The followers were bots or unreal.
We at Pristellar are transparent with our services and how we implement them, but they weren’t. Not to turn on the preaching mode; eventually, they told us that they bought the account. Now that is where the problem was. They wanted followers, but they did not genuinely gain them.
So let’s cut down to the chase. Here are ways in which you, as an account owner or a digital marketing specialist, can identify these “ghost followers.”
1. Learn about your customers.
A company already knows its target audience, the content they resonate with, and its geolocation. So ask yourself, is your audience in a region where they can access your products/services? Are you having no to fewer likes, engagement, sales, despite all of your marketing efforts? Fake followers alert! Because despite all that you do, post quality, informative, entertaining content, provide 24/7 chat support, and yet there is no progress; they are fake and not within reach.
For Example:
2. Engagement
Who doesn’t want to be the topic? With organic followers, you get a group of people who look forward to viewing your content. They know your schedule by heart. Organic followers will even call out on you if you go missing online. They’d be like, where did ABC go? They’ll be tagging you and inviting you to comment on other pages. Silence with silence those are fake followers.
For example, a regular social media account may have a follower rate closer to 1:1. In most cases, even the newbies have more followers than the accounts they are following. Depending on their niche, a standard account’s engagement rate of 1 percent is okay for many brands. If the engagement rate on your posts is regularly below this, you should be suspicious. Did you know that authentic conversations online give positive signals to IG algorithms? Hence your engagement rate increases and attracts new real human followers who can react to your post, engage with your brand, and will eventually spend money on your services or products.
3. You are spending more than your ROI.
We are not having a lecture on business, but if you are investing on social media and there is no return, of course, with regards to the time frame, fake followers alert. If an ad performs poorly within the first few hours, cancel and change your audience: using more money doesn’t guarantee good performance. Create a timeline and urgency to move people to action and avoid unsuccessful social media campaigns. Be about communication, building relationships, and long-term value. Please keep it simple! Use words as most straightforward, best.
4. Irrelevant comments.
Followers who comment on your page with similar content, which is irrelevant, keep sending many unsolicited replies; this kind of spammy behavior should alert you of fake followers. Real followers share their real-life experience with basically anything, their situation, your product, service, or staff members. Their comments will show you that they are familiar with your products/services. They are in sync with the page’s activity.
5. Take a break from boosting your posts.
Remember that ads work if :
- Your objective is only to increase traffic: views and profile visits, not sales/conversions. Organic followers will always get attracted by ads, for they attract individuals who are only interested. They may not buy then, but they have intentions of purchasing the product in the future. But if you boost and there is less engagement, oh dear.
- The engagement on your post was already high.
- Your products don’t require highly targeted audiences.
- Your goal doesn’t involve people visiting an external link such as a website.
Consistently boosting gives you less time to identify the genuine followers and engage with the followers, responding to the comments, DMS, or tags. You will have to conduct audience reactivation. This way, you will generate authentic conversations that positively signal the Instagram algorithm and increase the engagement rate.
Are you having trouble identifying fake followers from real followers? Don’t know how to get rid of unreal audiences? Oh well, worry not because, at Pristellar, we offer free Instagram audits once you reach out to us. We bring you real-life followers that will potentially go through the user’s journey towards conversion.
