How to spot fake influencers on Instagram
Influencer marketing has exploded and today, nearly every B2C brand has done some kind of collaboration or sponsorship with an influencer, or at least considered it. It has been estimated that the industry will reach $10 billion by 2020.
And naturally, when you use the force and impact of an influencer, you can make your brand seem more authentic and reach potential customers in a new way.
The idea of being sponsored by big brands and getting paid for posting branded images in social media can be enticing. And shady companies have found ways to build a whole business around fake engagement and fake influencers.
So before you get started with influencer marketing, make sure you find the most relevant influencers for your brand and above all — that they are real and authentic.
Here’s a checklist to help you spot fake influencers on Instagram. Some of the tips can work for other social platforms too, but we’re focusing on Instagram here:
1. Look at the followers to following ratio
Real influencers often don’t follow more than a few percent of their total following. For example, if an account has 25,000 followers and is following 7,000 accounts, it can be a sign that the account isn’t real.
A common tactic to get a lot of followers is to follow other accounts, then unfollow after a certain period of time. So following a large number of accounts can be an indicator of foul play.
2. Calculate their engagement rate
Calculate the engagement rate in terms of percentage of likes, comments or shares compared to the number of followers. The engagement rate should be proportional to the number of followers.
If an influencer has a lot of followers but no engagement, it probably means the followers are fake. And if they do have high engagement on posts, the comments are probably spam comments. Let’s dive into this topic further in the next section.
3. Analyze the comments on the posts
Real accounts have real comments of value — comments that say something relevant and specific about the photo itself or the context. Of course, even real accounts can have a certain amount of spam comments from bots.
But if an influencer is truly fake, they will have an excessive amount of emojis or nonsense comments on their photos, such as ”love this”, ”great photo”, ”awesome”. Why? Because a fake account will have a hard time generating real engagement and will likely take shortcuts to get a lot of likes and comments in order.
So keep an eye out for generic comments. A true influencer has a real community and followers that are engaged.
4. Evaluate the quality of the content
As basic as it might sound, remember to simply just check the quality of the content that is being posted.
- Are the photos unique, real and authentic?
- Does the influencer have his or her own style of imagery?
- Are there a lot of stock photos?
Using stock photos is not a sign in itself that the account is fake, but in combination with other signs, it could be. Do a quick search in some of the most common stock photo libraries.
5. Is the influencer active on other social platforms?
If an influencer is real, he or she will be present on several platforms, not just Instagram. Check if the influencer is present on for example Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or has a blog.
A lot of influencers might have one or two platforms they focus more on than others, since maintaining a presence on multiple platforms can be difficult. But if you find an influencer with several hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram but has no Facebook page at all, that’s a warning sign.
6. Check their earned media value
Earned media is publicity gained through word-of-mouth, reviews, news, articles, shares, mentions, comments. In other words, any kind of publicity created by a third party that is not paid for and that isn’t owned media. If an influencer is real, they will most likely have a certain amount of earned media value. If they aren’t mentioned or talked about online at all, but just have a big following, they are probably not genuine.
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