IG Management Secrets: 3 Tricks to Spot Fake Followers and Easily Eliminate the Obstacle to Your IG Account Growth

In the process of managing an Instagram account, the number of followers is a key metric for measuring an account's influence and popularity. Consequently, many brands consider purchasing followers to make their accounts appear more popular and influential.

According to data released by Forbes in September 2022, 3 out of 4 influencers have purchased at least 10,000 followers; among IG users, 1 in 3 have bought followers, with fake followers comprising over 15% of their total follower count.

In this article, Arachne Group Limited will briefly discuss the dangers of buying fake followers while managing an IG account and methods to identify them. Interested readers are welcome to continue reading!

IG Management Basics: What Are Fake Followers?

Unlike genuine followers, fake follower accounts are typically created in bulk by automated programs or humans. Consequently, they do not like, comment on, or share your posts, nor do they interact with your account in any way. The sole purpose of fake followers is to inflate the apparent follower count, creating a false impression of popularity or influence.

Generally, fake followers fall into three main categories, each with distinct attributes:

Zombie/Ghost Accounts: As the name suggests, these accounts lie dormant in your follower list like ghosts, never interacting with others. They typically have very few posts, rarely update, have a low follower count themselves, and remain inactive for long periods.

Bot Accounts: These are non-human accounts primarily created and controlled by computer programs. Early bot accounts were often easy to spot due to lacking profile pictures. However, with technological advances, modern bot accounts may have profile pictures and even post occasionally, but their content usually lacks authenticity and depth.

Mass-Following Accounts: These accounts typically follow a massive number of users and can be created/controlled by programs or real people. Even if operated by a "real person," they will not view your content or interact with you. These accounts might be used for advertising or spam, often having a high volume of low-quality posts updated frequently, aiming to gain follow-backs.

IG Management Basics: How Do Fake Followers Harm Your IG Account?

With the rise of social media marketing, the issue of fake followers has become widespread. These seemingly quick fixes for boosting popularity actually harbor significant risks. Below, Arachne Group Limited provides a detailed analysis:

Lower Engagement Rate, Affecting Credit Rating

Engagement rate is a crucial metric for measuring content quality, reflecting how much your followers appreciate your posts. However, the presence of fake followers significantly drags down this metric. When your account has a large number of fake followers, the total follower count may increase, but these accounts do not interact with your content. This leads to a sharp decline in the account's overall engagement rate. Consequently, the IG algorithm may interpret this drop as an indicator of poor content quality, thereby lowering your account's credibility score.

Reduce Reach, Impeding Account Growth

A lowered credibility score directly reduces your posts' reach on Instagram. Content that could have been shown to a broader audience gets limited by the algorithm, reaching only a smaller number of users. This hinders or even stalls your account's growth. Worse still, this effect is cumulative. Once a vicious cycle forms, it can be difficult for your account to recover, potentially leading to permanent restrictions.

Undermine Authentic Engagement, Harming User Experience

To deceive the IG algorithm, some brands might not only buy followers but also purchase likes and comments. However, this merely masks the true engagement situation – essentially, "followers don't interact, and interactions aren't from followers." This inorganic pattern of engagement can often be detected by Instagram's algorithms. Furthermore, even if the same batch of accounts follows and likes your posts, their lack of genuine user behavior often leads IG's algorithm to flag them as spam or bot accounts. This can result in lower priority for content they interact with, and potentially even restrictions or penalties for accounts engaging with them.

IG Management Basics: What Should You Do If Your IG Account Has Many Fake Followers?

As purchasing fake followers becomes more common, identifying and removing them is a major challenge for many IG managers. Here are some practical suggestions to help monitor and clean fake followers from your IG account.

I. Master Three Key Techniques to Identify Fake Followers

Since fake followers bring no real interaction or value and can harm your account's reach, mastering these three identification methods is crucial:

① Observe Account Activity: Fake follower accounts typically have very low activity or never post. They often have only a few photos or videos uploaded at registration, with no subsequent updates.

② Check Privacy Settings: Many fake follower accounts are set to "private." This is often because they contain little to no content, and the setting helps avoid detection. You can try following them, but requests are usually rejected.

③ Analyze Following-to-Follower Ratio: Some fake follower accounts follow a vast number of users but have very few followers themselves, seeming to exist solely for following. Additionally, sending direct messages can help gauge authenticity, as fake accounts typically do not respond.

II. Promptly Remove Fake Followers from Your IG Account

A high number of fake followers can lead to a lowered credibility score, reduced reach, or even account suspension. Therefore, upon identifying fake followers, the priority is to accurately find and remove them. Note: This approach is most suitable for accounts where fake followers constitute a small percentage. If a large proportion of your followers are fake, starting a new account might be a more viable option.

There are two main methods for removing fake followers:

Manual Removal: Inspect each follower's profile page to judge if they are fake or low-quality. This method is very time-consuming and labor-intensive. Moreover, many ghost accounts now closely resemble real followers, making manual judgment prone to errors. Thus, manual removal is inefficient and challenging to complete thoroughly.

Using Third-Party Tools: For accounts with many followers, using third-party tools for bulk actions might seem appealing. However, note that these tools often require accessing IG platform data via API, which can sometimes lead to account blocking or suspension. Additionally, providing your login credentials to third parties carries security risks.

In summary, having a large number of fake followers on your IG account not only fails to provide any substantial return but also wastes the time and money spent on acquiring and maintaining them. It can even negatively impact your brand image. Therefore, while tracking follower count, we should emphasize the quality and value of followers. Only genuine followers can deliver real value and influence.