How Fake Followers Ruin Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

Fake accounts plague Instagram since its start. These accounts or bots are usually computer-based and randomly follow Instagram channels, post spam comments and like huge quantities of pictures. But there is another side to the story: More and more Instagram users deploy fake followers to increase their follower group and multiply the likes and comments on their pictures.

WHAT ARE FAKE FOLLOWERS?

Fake followers are unauthentic subscribers to an account who are in most cases artificial bots. Some of these fake followers are inactive but some of them aren’t. In the case of automated bots, fake followers often engage with content posted and increase an accounts engagement rate with liking or commenting a post. Nevertheless, fake followers have no real interest in the content and are a non-valuable audience.

At first glance, it might seem pointless to put the effort in creating content and then artificially increase one’s follower group by paying for fake followers, likes and comments instead of relying on real people and their honest feedback. But as a matter of fact, the majority of marketers first takes a look at an influencer’s follower base before acknowledging other metrics like engagement rate and audience quality. A certain follower number is needed to warrant awareness of a brand or a product and also displays a standing of the influencer in the industry.

Continue reading here: Celebrity vs. Micro-Influencer: Who Wins The Battle Of Engagement?

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