{"id":65724,"date":"2019-08-31T11:48:13","date_gmt":"2019-08-31T10:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsforher.com\/?p=65724"},"modified":"2019-08-31T11:48:16","modified_gmt":"2019-08-31T10:48:16","slug":"how-to-spot-fake-instagram-followers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/?p=65724","title":{"rendered":"How to spot fake Instagram followers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"c5b541d88d911dcbb84397def1a3492d\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- m -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3943282228430444\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"5751019935\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p> [ad_1]\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"id_text\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><i>It\u2019s <\/i><a data-mashable-topic=\"cheat-week\" href=\"http:\/\/me.mashable.com\/cheat-week\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Cheat Week<\/i><\/a><i> at Mashable. Join us as we take a look at how liars, scammers, grifters, and everyday people take advantage of life&#8217;s little loopholes in order to get ahead.<\/i><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Ever wonder how someone got <i>so<\/i> <i>many <\/i>Instagram followers? We have great news for your ego: Some of those followers might be fake. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s likely that, even if you&#8217;ve never bought followers, you&#8217;ve still been followed by a few bots. This is largely unavoidable \u2014 and many bots are harmless \u2014 but you should still report them to Instagram. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.refinery29.com\/en-us\/2018\/05\/199439\/fake-followers-on-instagram-problem-check\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">more volatile bots<\/a> might try to phish you by sending spam or harmful links via DM, and it&#8217;s not worth the risk of keeping them around. <\/p>\n<p>Instagram <a href=\"http:\/\/me.mashable.com\/tech\/922\/instagram-cracks-down-on-apps-that-give-fake-follows-and-lik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cracked down<\/a> on third-party apps that boost your account using fake followers and likes late last year, promising that there would be repercussions for users who continued to buy bots. (It&#8217;s unclear what, exactly, those repercussions were.) But that didn&#8217;t mark the end of fake followers: In fact, according to a survey that made the rounds earlier this week, celebrity accounts like Ellen DeGeneres, BTS, and Ariana Grande <a href=\"https:\/\/www.harpersbazaar.com\/uk\/celebrities\/news\/a28695143\/celebrities-most-fake-instagram-followers\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">have fake follower counts<\/a> between 46 and 49 percent. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/07\/24\/fake-followers-in-influencer-marketing-will-cost-1point3-billion-in-2019.html\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">According to CNBC<\/a>, fake followers on influencer accounts will cost brands a total of $1.3 billion this year alone.<\/p>\n<h2>How to spot a fake account<\/h2>\n<p>To spot a fake account, watch for a few telltale signs. For instance, if you notice a user liking a random assortment of your photos or leaving random, generic comments (&#8220;great post!&#8221;) in rapid succession, there&#8217;s a good chance it&#8217;s affiliated with a third-party booster and is trying to tempt you into following it back.  At the very least, it&#8217;s someone trying to rapidly inflate their follower count \u2014 probably not a person you want to follow anyway.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"image\">\n<figcaption class=\"image-caption\">\nWatch out for generic comments.<br \/>\n<\/figcaption><div class=\"image-credit\">\n<p>Image: Vicky Leta  \/ mashable<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"see-also\">\n<p class=\"see-also-link\">SEE ALSO: <a href=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/watch-instagram-stories-anonymously?utm_cid=a-seealso\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">The preferred methods of extreme Instagram lurkers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s also helpful to look at the profile itself. If the user is following thousands of people but doesn&#8217;t have many followers or posts themselves, or if their account appears to have been inactive for a long time, feel free to be suspicious. Of course, there are sneakier bots who <i>do<\/i> post a lot of content in an attempt to appear real. If you&#8217;re not sure, pop a photo or two into a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/imghp?hl=en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">reverse Google image search<\/a> and see if it&#8217;s been lifted from another user \u2014 or another website entirely. <\/p>\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"c5b541d88d911dcbb84397def1a3492d\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- 2 -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3943282228430444\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"5511153269\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>And we&#8217;ve all seen those super obvious fake accounts. There&#8217;s the bot that posts a bunch of stolen photos of different women as if you will not notice they&#8217;re not the same person. Then there&#8217;s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/tech\/9259720\/instagram-ray-ban-sunglasses-scam-post\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">fake discount account<\/a>, which promises low prices on luxury items (frequently Ray-Bans) in an attempt to get you to click on a suspicious link.<\/p>\n<p>Let us not forget the most obvious culprit of all: the account with nothing on it. No picture, no posts, no followers. Their handle is &#8220;Chloe8438488382&#8221; or some garbage like that. Goodbye, bot. You did not even put forth an effort.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, it must be said: Just because someone meets one of these criteria does not automatically make them a bot. They could simply be really bad at Instagram. <\/p>\n<div class=\"twitter-wrapper sort-rerender\">\n<div>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-twitter-extracted-i1567240206893390246=\"true\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">imagine being able to hack into thousands of people\u2019s instagram accounts only to advertise twenty dollar ray-bans<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 maha khan (@mahaaaay) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mahaaaay\/status\/999426349914669056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">May 23, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>How to tell if a user has lots of fake followers<\/h2>\n<p>Not sure if someone&#8217;s followers are real, but don&#8217;t want to spend your valuable and finite time inspecting each one individually? There are a few ways to tell if a big chunk of someone&#8217;s followers are bots. <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pull-quotes\">\n<p>&#8216;Fake followers, for the most part, don&#8217;t do anything except follow you.&#8217;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>First, look at how many likes the user gets per post. If it&#8217;s only a tiny portion of their follower count \u2014 as in, the ratio is really, really off \u2014 there&#8217;s a good chance many of their followers are inactive bots. Fake followers, for the most part, don&#8217;t do anything except follow you.<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of third-party websites (we&#8217;ll let you Google) that allege they can detect which of a user&#8217;s followers are fake. Those results, however, should be taken with a grain of salt. You can also try running the account through the social media statistics website <a href=\"https:\/\/socialblade.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">SocialBlade<\/a>, which will inform you of any sudden jumps in follower count. If a user&#8217;s follower count skyrockets for no discernible reason, it&#8217;s likely they&#8217;ve paid to inflate their numbers.<\/p>\n<p>In general, it&#8217;s a bad idea to get involved with bots at all \u2014 and inflating your follower count artificially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.refinery29.com\/en-us\/how-to-buy-instagram-followers\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">won&#8217;t have any benefits<\/a> that are actually meaningful. The better option is to grow your account organically <a href=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/article\/common-instagram-photo-mistakes\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">as best you can<\/a>. You can still use as many annoying hashtags as you want.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bonus-video-card\">\n<h2 class=\"title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/video\/instagram-adds-ar-effects-to-app\/?utm_cid=a-bonusvideo\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">WATCH: Instagram users can now create their own AR effects on app<\/a><\/h2>\n<div class=\"jw-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"vplayer\"><iframe allowfullscreen=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/mashable.com\/videos\/embed?video=LNlgj5D3n2&amp;player=default\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"c5b541d88d911dcbb84397def1a3492d\" data-index=\"5\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- 5 -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3943282228430444\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"9258826580\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>[ad_2]\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/me.mashable.com\/culture\/6873\/how-to-spot-fake-instagram-followers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"c5b541d88d911dcbb84397def1a3492d\" data-index=\"3\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- 3 -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3943282228430444\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"2884989920\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] It\u2019s Cheat Week at Mashable. Join us as we take a look at how liars, scammers, grifters, and everyday people take advantage of life&#8217;s little loopholes in order to get ahead. Ever wonder how someone got so many Instagram followers? We have great news for your ego: Some of those followers might be fake. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65726,"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65724\/revisions\/65726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsforher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}