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How To Spot Instagrammers With Fake Followers

February 7, 2017

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I’ll probably get some sh*t for this post, but so be it.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, by day, I’m a publicist. This includes crafting pitches for clients, reaching out to traditional media and now, because of the importance of the social media influencer industry, pitching influencers as well.

By night (or just any other moment I’m not doing PR things), I’m a content creator and “social media influencer.” <—I actually hate calling myself that. I internally cringe. But for the purpose of this blog post, had no clue how to categorize myself.

So, as you can see, I work on both sides of the industry and as a publicist, I understand what influencers want and as an influencer, I understand what publicists want.

Why am I explaining this? Because as of recently, I’ve become increasingly discouraged and frusted by how many Instagrammers I’ve “caught” buying followers. Now, I don’t actually call them out on this, but you can bet that they’re immediately put on my black list as an influencer I’ll never let work with my clients. I mean, if you buy followers, what’s the point? It isn’t like you are directing your audience to my client’s busines… because the fake followers are… fake.

To help my fellow publicists, I’ve included below a basic “how to” on determining if an influencer has fake followers.

  1. Visit www.SocialBlade.com
  2. In the top right corner, type in social media influencer’s handle and choose the “Instagram” option – clieck enter for influencer’s profile details to show up.
  3. On left side of screen, click the “Detailed Stats” option
  4. Scroll down and view the line graph — above line graph I’m talking about, it’ll say “Total Instagram Followers for X”

Now, if this influencer’s following grew organically (aka – no bought followers), you’ll see that the line gradually rises with no steep jumps (see photo below).

If the influencer DID buy followers, you’ll see a large jump in followers in one day — rather than the line gradually getting higher. This shows when and how many followers were purchased (see photo below). Even better, if you see their followers decline steeply, it is most likely because Instagram did a fake follower cleanse (hehehehehe – yay!).

Lastly, some social media influencers don’t buy followers, but it could possibly look like they did. To give them the benefit of the doubt, there is a possibility that one that day, they received a huge media placement and/or a larger Instagram account shared their image. But, just to make sure, do your research and don’t just rely on the # of followers they have.

 

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Filed under: BLOG, CAREER, Social Media

Comments

  1. Danielle @ Follow My Gut says

    February 15, 2017 at 12:03 am

    ROOOOBBBIIINNNNNN!!!!!!!!

    Girl. Just Girl.

    You clearly have had it, and I have too! I love that you spoke out on this. I’m about to write a similar post but in a couple of weeks because these fake followers and bots are just too much. Some people are just doing the MOST and I don’t understand why they think no one knows or even more how they plan to keep it going. It’s not cheap, I looked and I was like, “What are people spending” and to keep it up is insane!!!!”Anyway, I love that you know both sides, PR and “influencer” and that you put this out there. Great post!!!

    P.S. I like to call myself a social media creative instead of influencer cuz that word is so odd.

    Danielle | FollowMyGut.com <3

    Reply
  2. Ali Graham says

    February 15, 2017 at 1:42 am

    This was really interesting! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  3. Lauren says

    March 15, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    I do marketing and PR for a home decor company as my full-time job, and I run into this all the time with influencers reaching out to us! Sorry, but if you have “10,000 followers,” your posts getting only get 12 likes and 0 comments is a huge red flag. Thank you for this post calling it out and the new tool I’m going to use to prove the fakers to my boss, haha 🙂 (“But they have so many followers!” “Yes, but they’re not real…” “How can you tell?”)

    Lauren | Boston Belle

    Reply
  4. Traviewler says

    October 2, 2017 at 5:10 pm

    This is a very good indication to start with. However, this is not enough. And as you wrote, a major publicity like some repost from a big account or a news cover may alter this graph. I work with social media influencers my self and I use a number of metrics to understand if their followers are real or not. The most important metric for me is the engagement to followers ratio. I don’t care if you have 2 million followers. The important thing is how many of them like or comment on your post.

    Reply

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Meet Robbin

Hi there. I'm Robbin, founder of The New England Life. I'm a publicist-turned-kinda-blogger who is still a publicist. Weird, right? I'm obsessed with historic light houses, mermaids, vintage maps and I think coffee ring stains are beautiful. Check back often as I document my favorite things about New England (& beyond).

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