Are They Trying to Trick You With Fake Followers? Here’s How You Can Tell.

Wait, followers can be fake?

Living in Egypt you’ve probably come across your fair share of “fake” things from Guess bags that fall apart in weeks to Channel perfumes that make your skin itch. When it comes to followers, things aren’t too different. You need to know how to spot fake followers since they will always exist.

What are fake followers?

Fake followers are followers that can be purchased to make an account appear more popular. One source offers to add 10k followers for 3k egp. There are two main types of fake followers. The first type is robot accounts. These are accounts that are created to look real but aren’t. The second type is payed followers. These are people who are asked to follow you with the promise of winning an iPhone.

How can I spot fake followers?

Fake followers are quite easy to spot if you know what to look for. The vast majority of fake followers do not interact with an accounts posts. This is because they’re either inactive or have been used to follow thousands of other people. This results in a large number of followers, say 50k, but a comparatively dismal number of likes and comments, usually less than a hundred.

Some people are looking to cheat their way into collaborating with big brands. They purchase thousands of fake followers as soon as they start their account. These accounts will usually have very few posts but many followers.

Some robot accounts are programmed to comment and like on posts from accounts they follow but these are easy to spot as well. Comments are usually generic compliments and feature many emoji.

The magic number

The most reliable and fastest way to tell which influencers are trying to trick you with fake followers is by checking their engagement rate on Trendster marked by a lighting bolt.

A general rule of thumb is that influencers with 5000 followers or less should have an engagement rate of around 7% while influencers with tens of thousands of followers should have an engagement rate of 1% or more. If you see numbers dropping below 1% that’s generally a sign that a large percentage of their followers are fake or inactive.