When it comes to influencer marketing most brands will mass approach influencers that have the highest number of followers. However, we’re here to tell you that quantity doesn’t equal quality. Here’s how to spot fake followers to ensure all campaigns get the best engagement possible.

1. Higher Follows than Followers

If the account has an unusually high “following” number this can be a sign of a spam account. These accounts follow every person they can in the hope that they will follow them back and increase their follower account. Sometimes these are real people, however, this shows that these accounts have followers who aren’t genuinely interested in their content. So, if you see an influencer with a high follow rate try to void partnering with them as your campaign may be seen by many, but won’t be acted upon by these people.

2. Sporadic Activity

Genuine influencers tend to have a steady growth of follower numbers and post regularly to try and increase this organically. They won’t tend to have a massive burst of new followers in a short space of time, unlike bots.

3. Lack of detail in bios

If the influencer you’re looking to approach has lots of generic bot followers then your campaign won’t be seen by real people. Therefore, consider this when choosing the influencer you’re hoping to work with.

4. Spam Comments

Look at your influencer’s comments. If the comments are generic or don’t make sense it may be that most of their followers are spambots. These post comments on random accounts to try to get that account to then follow them back.

While comments are technically engagement, they are not good engagement that would lead to sales from a campaign you ran!