Identifying and Eliminating Fake Followers on Instagram: A Must for Influencers | by Spencer Hawken | Jun, 2023

When it comes to Instagram, it’s super important not to allow fake followers to sit on your followers list. I know I’ve written about this before, several times. But it’s something you really need to take seriously, especially if you consider it part of your strategy to promote yourself or your business. People who want to become influencers or move into User Generated Content (UGC) need to be particularly wary.

I joined Instagram in 2012 and have been active on the platform almost as long as I’ve been active on Facebook. Over the last ten years, I’ve drifted in and out, often being inactive, often being prolific. I can’t lie, my life is quite mundane unless I’m on vacation, so I generally tend to post only during those times because otherwise, it’s just day-to-day stuff. Many people do the same or maybe even abandon the platform altogether. Let’s face it, Meta has messed with the algorithm so much that it’s hardly surprising. And now they are working towards returning Instagram back to how it used to be.

If you’re looking to use your Instagram account for marketing purposes, agencies will scan your account to identify the volume of “fake followers” you have. They consider it perfectly acceptable to have 25% of your following as ‘fake.’ However, anything more than that will red-flag you with these agencies, not just now, but forever. So if you’re considering a career in influencing or UGC, the first step is to address how much of your following is fake. If you have less than a thousand followers, unfortunately, it’s going to be a painstaking task. You will have to go through your followers list one by one.

Check each follower. Do they have anything in common with you? Are they active? Do they make controversial posts? Are they even posting at all? You need to be as selective about who follows you as you are about who you choose to follow. If they don’t have a profile image, that’s a good place to start. Or if their profile name is just a load of random characters, get rid of them. Yes, it’s nice to have followers, but if they don’t align with you now, they never will. They have to go.

If you have over a thousand followers, it’s a lot harder. However, there are websites that can check out your profile and give you a breakdown of fake followers. Be wary, though, as these are paid services that charge a significant amount of money. Some of them offer a certain number of free searches, so you need to use them cautiously and keep the free account for as long as possible. For example, only search once a week.

A website I like to use is called Modash. It provides the best breakdown and tells you exactly how big your percentage of fake followers is. Remember, if you have above 25%, you’re in trouble. Another tool is Inbeat, which allows you to check for fake followers without signing up. However, the information is more general because, of course, they want you to sign up and pay them.

The sad truth is that there is no safe way to remove fake followers in a blink of an eye. Unfortunately, you need to go through and remove each profile manually, one by one. I did a search yesterday and discovered that over 10,000 of my followers were now deemed fake. That means I have to go through a minimum of 10,000 clicks to make my account look okay again.

Of course, you might not plan on going into UGC or influencing, but having a disproportionate rate of followers to active users means you’re not getting the exposure you should. If you have a 50% following that is technically ‘fake,’ it’s highly likely that your posts will be seen by up to 90% fewer people than those with an inactive follower rate of, say, 30%.

Instagram does have one little tool that might help you. If you go to your followers number and then go to following, it shows you the Instagram users you have the least engagement with. However, this requires you to be following them, not just them following you.

Instagram was built on followers and following, but too many people chased the numbers and now they are paying for it. Instagram is now a place where the work you put in matters much, much more than the number of followers you have. If you have 10 followers and all 10 of those people like every one of your posts, you are 99 times more likely to become a marketer than someone with a hundred followers but only 10 likes per post.

So remember, every time you get that new follower notification, check them out. Do you really want them following you? If not, it’s time to give them the big heave-ho.