Introduction
In the world of Instagram, follower count has become a key metric of success and influence. The more followers you have, the more popular and trusted you appear – at least on the surface. But not all Instagram followers are created equal. A growing number of accounts, from everyday individuals to big brands and influencers, have resorted to buying fake followers to inflate their numbers and create a false impression of their reach and credibility.
So what exactly are fake followers? In short, they are empty, bot-generated Instagram accounts created for the sole purpose of following other accounts to boost their follower numbers. Fake followers have no real interest in the accounts they follow, provide no meaningful engagement, and offer zero value to brands looking to connect with real audiences.
The Fake Follower Epidemic
Just how widespread is the fake follower problem on Instagram? According to a 2022 analysis by HypeAuditor:
- 45.5% of Instagram accounts are fake or inactive
- The average Instagram account has 35.4% suspicious followers
- Fake followers cost brands an estimated $1.5 billion in wasted ad spend and sponsorships in 2022 alone
A separate study by Ghost Data found that over 95 million Instagram accounts are bots and over 60% of comments on sponsored posts are made by fake accounts. Instagram fraud is a massive problem that undermines trust in the platform and wastes significant money for brands and marketers.
Even some major brands and celebrities have been called out for having suspiciously high percentages of inauthentic followers. In 2019, an ICMP analysis of Instagram accounts found the following percentages of fake followers for these big names:
- Ellen DeGeneres: 58%
- Kourtney Kardashian: 49%
- The Ritz-Carlton: 35%
- Walmart: 33%
- Mercedes-Benz: 23%
Clearly, fake followers are not only limited to smaller influencers trying to game the system – even household names are not immune.
Fortunately, there are ways to spot accounts that have bought fake Instagram followers if you know what signs to look for. In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll cover 8 key indicators that an account‘s follower count may be artificially inflated by fakes and bots.
Whether you‘re a brand considering partnering with an influencer or just a curious Instagram user, here‘s how to tell if someone has bought Instagram followers in 2024:
1. Suspicious profile pictures and bios
One of the first and most obvious signs of a fake Instagram account is the lack of a profile picture, a generic/stock image, or a low-quality, grainy photo. Check an account‘s followers and if you see a high number of faceless, default "avatar" photos, that‘s a red flag. Similarly, fake accounts often have nonsensical usernames full of random numbers and odd characters.
"When auditing influencer accounts for brand partnerships, one of the first things I look at is what percentage of their followers have profile pictures that look real and unique vs being clearly fake or the default avatar image," says social media consultant and Instagram expert Rachel Meyers. "If over 10-15% fall into the fake category, it‘s an indicator of purchased followers."
Also be on the lookout for profiles with no bios or very minimal, generic, and spammy sounding bios. Fake accounts are often devoid of any personalized information or may contain text in a foreign language unrelated to the account they are following. Look through an account‘s "Following" list – if many fit that description, they may be fake.
2. Unbalanced follower to following ratios
While not always the case, Instagram accounts with an unusually high number of followers compared to a very low number of accounts they are following can indicate fake followers. For example, be wary of an account following 100 accounts but that somehow has 50,000 followers. Check the profiles of some of those followers – if many of them have very few posts and are following thousands of accounts, they are likely bots.
According to travel and lifestyle influencer Scott Eddy, who has over 1.1M Instagram followers, "Any time I see an account with a follower to following ratio of 100:1 or even 1000:1, meaning they have hundreds or thousands of times more followers than people they follow, it‘s a huge red flag. No one is that selective or famous. I‘ve found a 10:1 or less ratio is more typical for authentic accounts."
3. Low engagement rates
Another telling sign is an account with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers but posts that get little to no likes and comments. Fake followers provide no real engagement, so accounts that have bought a lot of them tend to have very low engagement rates compared to their follower size.
Here is a table of average Instagram engagement rates that most experts agree may indicate suspicious followers if an account falls well below these levels:
| Follower Count | Average Engagement Rate |
|---|---|
| Under 1,000 | 5-10% |
| 1K-5K | 2-5% |
| 5K-20K | 1.5-3% |
| 20K-100K | 1-2.5% |
| 100K-1M | 0.5-1.5% |
| Over 1M | 0.3-1% |
For example, an account with 100K followers should be getting at least 500-1,500 likes and 50-150 comments per post on average. If their engagement is well below that, some of those "followers" may be fake.
Also look for inconsistent engagement patterns, such as posts with widely varying like counts (one post gets 50 likes, the next gets 5,000). Organic engagement tends to be more steady and uniform.
"One of the biggest giveaways of fake followers is a very low engagement rate under 1%, especially for small to mid-size accounts," notes Eddy. "I‘ve seen accounts with 50K followers getting only 100 likes on their posts. That‘s a huge disparity indicating those followers are not real or active."
4. Sudden, suspicious spikes in followers
Did an account‘s follower count jump by an unnatural amount overnight or in a very short timespan? For example, going from 1,000 to 100,000 followers in a day without any viral post or publicity to explain it. Genuine follower growth driven by great content tends to be more gradual over time.
"Fake followers are often bought in batches of thousands or tens of thousands at a time, so they come all at once in a very short period rather than trickling in organically," explains Meyers. "If you see an account‘s followers suddenly skyrocket out of nowhere by an unbelievable amount, that should set off alarm bells."
Use Instagram analytics tools like Social Blade to track an account‘s follower growth chart over time – if there are massive, unexplained spikes that seem out of line with their typical growth rate, they likely bought fake followers. Also compare their new posts before and after a suspicious jump – if engagement rates don‘t increase to match the new follower count, something fishy is going on.
5. Irrelevant or bot-like follower locations
Where in the world are an account‘s followers located? If their content is clearly targeted to a US audience but a huge percentage of their followers are in India, Russia, Brazil, etc, that‘s a potential red flag. Fake followers are often created in click farms overseas where labor is cheap.
Also be on the lookout for misspelled or made-up locations in follower bios like "Abcdefgland" or "United States of Mars" – clearly those are not real places! Click on a sample of an account‘s followers and see if their listed locations seem far-fetched or completely irrelevant to the account‘s content.
"For US-focused accounts, I get very suspicious when I see a high percentage of followers from countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc. that would have no obvious reason to follow them," says Eddy. "Especially if the account isn‘t posting travel content or anything related to those places."
6. Repetitive comments and bot behavior
Take a look at some of the recent comments on an account‘s posts. Do you see the same generic comments being repeated over and over like "Nice pic!" "Great post!" 🔥🔥🔥, "Love your profile!" etc? Fake follower services often use bots and automated software to try to imitate engagement by leaving unspecific, irrelevant comments that real humans wouldn‘t post.
Click on the profiles of commenters and see if they look like legitimate active accounts or just empty fakes. Do the same comments show up on many other accounts too? Dig a bit deeper and see if fake-seeming comments make up over 10% of an account‘s total – another sign of bot issues.
"A major red flag is an account getting hundreds of vague one or two-word comments like emojis, ‘wow‘, ‘nice‘, that don‘t in any way reference the actual content of the post," advises Meyers. "Often these come in big surges immediately after a post goes up, not spread out organically over time."
7. Spammy or suspicious bio links
While not a hard and fast rule, be cautious of accounts whose follower profiles contain a lot of shady-looking links in their bios. These often lead to porn/adult sites, gambling, online scams and other sketchy destinations. Many fake account services add these spammy affiliate links into profiles to monetize them.
If you see a high number of an account‘s "followers" dropping links like "Free followers here!" "Make quick cash downloading apps!" or "Check my private pics!" proceed with caution as those are common hallmarks of fake accounts. Of course, real accounts may link to their other social profiles, website or business – but be wary of an excess of clearly spammy and scam links.
8. Using third-party analysis tools
For more advanced analysis of an Instagram account‘s follower authenticity and quality, you can use tools like:
- HypeAuditor
- Modash
- Social Audit Pro
- IG Audit
- InfluencerDB
- FakeCheck.co
- Analisa.io
These services can generate reports showing what percentage of an account‘s followers are likely to be fake, inactive, or low-quality by analyzing data points like engagement rates, account age, posting frequency, username characteristics and more.
Simply enter an account‘s Instagram username and get instant metrics to assess their audience credibility. Some offer free account checks with limited data, while others require a paid subscription for deeper insights and tracking.
"The top tool I recommend to quickly check an influencer‘s follower quality is HypeAuditor because of their AI-powered audience quality score and engagement rate benchmarks by industry and follower size," says Meyers. "It gives you a clear overall picture of an account‘s legitimacy."
Why authenticity matters on Instagram
In the end, brands and influencers who resort to buying fake Instagram followers are only cheating themselves. Fake followers provide no real value, engagement or ROI – they are just a vanity metric that will likely backfire in the long run by:
- Damaging your reputation and credibility with your real audience, peers, and potential business partners
- Wasting your marketing budget on an audience that doesn‘t exist
- Getting you shadowbanned or suspended by Instagram for violating their terms of service against artificial engagement
- Skewing your performance data and making it hard to accurately measure what content resonates
- Stunting your organic reach and growth by signaling to Instagram that your account provides a poor user experience not worthy of being shown in your followers‘ feeds
With influencer fraud costing businesses over $1 billion a year, brands are getting better at spotting inauthentic accounts and audience inflation. The influencer marketing space is maturing and brands now expect more transparency and accountability. Faking it until you make it doesn‘t cut it anymore.
As Instagram cracks down harder on fake followers and engagement bots, accounts that take the fake follower shortcut put their accounts at serious risk. Instagram updates its algorithm regularly to identify and penalize accounts with inauthentic activity – if you buy fakes, don‘t be surprised if your ill-gotten followers vanish overnight. Your real followers and engagement rate may take a hit too as your content gets deprioritized.
"Instagram is really a ‘pay to play‘ platform now, so while some people buy fake followers to appear more influential to brands, it‘s a waste because those followers won‘t see or engage with sponsored posts. Only real followers have any value for driving actual visibility and conversions," says Meyers. "It‘s so much better to invest in building an audience of real people who are genuinely interested in your niche. The results are worth it."
How to grow a real Instagram following the right way
So what‘s an aspiring Instagram influencer to do instead of succumbing to the temptation of a fake follower quick fix? Focus on creating quality content that appeals to your target audience and engaging with them authentically.
Here are some tips for building a genuine community on Instagram:
Post consistently – Aim to post at least once a day, if not more. Keep your feed active.
Create compelling content – Post eye-catching visuals paired with engaging captions that encourage likes, comments, and saves. Give people a reason to want to follow you.
Write detailed, keyword-rich captions – Treat captions like micro-blog posts that tell a story, share valuable information and include relevant hashtags to aid discovery.
Engage your followers – Respond to comments and DMs, ask questions in your captions and Stories, do polls, go Live, etc. Show you care about connecting with your audience.
Post saveable content – Share tips, recipes, workouts, quotes, how-tos etc that people will want to bookmark for later reference. Saves are a key signal for the algorithm.
Get featured on big accounts – Reach out to larger feature accounts in your niche and pitch your content to them. Tag relevant accounts for the chance to get regrammed to their larger audiences.
Run contests and giveaways – Partner with complementary accounts and brands for a loop giveaway to gain exposure to each other‘s followers and incentivize them to follow you.
Do collabs and takeovers – Team up with other trusted influencers in your niche for Instagram takeovers, IG Live chats, Guide contributions, etc to get your name in front of their audiences.
"Real recognizes real on Instagram. The key to growing an engaged community of followers who will actually buy what you are selling is focusing on delivering value and cultivating real relationships," notes Eddy. "There are no true shortcuts. Put in the work of showing up consistently, interacting with your niche, and giving people a reason to hit that follow button. One real follower is infinitely more valuable than 100 fake ones."
Conclusion
As Instagram continues to grow as a marketing channel, the pressure to have an impressive follower count has led too many accounts to take the fake follower shortcut. But with 88% of influencer marketing budgets wasted on accounts with fraudulent followers, brands and content creators alike need to be able to separate the real from the fake.
This guide covered 8 of the top signs that an Instagram account may have fake followers:
- Suspicious profile pictures and bios
- Unbalanced follower to following ratios
- Low engagement rates compared to follower size
- Sudden unexplained spikes in followers
- Irrelevant or spammy follower locations
- Repetitive bot-like comments and engagement behavior
- Shady links in follower profile bios
- Using third-party Instagram auditing tools for deeper analysis
When choosing influencers to partner with, don‘t just go by vanity metrics like follower count. Dig deeper into the quality and authenticity of their audience and engagement. Are their followers the real deal or just hollow fakes? Remember, engagement rates and audience demographics are far more important than hitting an arbitrary follower number.
The good news is that focusing on organic growth through creating quality content, engaging consistently, and cultivating genuine connections is still the most reliable and rewarding way to build a loyal following on Instagram. It may take longer than buying fakes, but you‘ll gain a real audience that trusts you, engages with your content, and wants to buy what you promote. In a world of perfectly curated highlight reels and photoshopped fakery, authenticity still wins in the long run.
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