It’s 2024 and influencer marketing has turned out to be one of the most powerful ways to increase brand awareness and grow your customer base. When influencers promote your product or service, it helps build trust with your target audience. 

But what if the influencer you partner with is fake? 

Sure, celebrities are authentic. There is no doubt about that. But celebrities don’t represent the entire influencer community. 

Amidst all the good apples, there are bad ones too: The Fake Ones. 

As per experts, fake influencers are turning out to be a concerning menace that brands need to be cautious about. And how do you do that? Read this blog till the end to find. 

We have shared tips and tactics to help you identify the fake influencers from the rest. Let’s begin:

What or Who is a Fake Influencer? 

A fake influencer is someone who pretends to be popular or famous on social media, but they're not.   

They might show they have many followers, but these followers aren't real people – they're often bought or made by computer programs.   

Check the table below to understand the difference between a fake influencer and a genuine influencer:

How Do Fake Influencers Impact Your Campaign?

As per Statistica, the global influencer marketing market value stood at 21.1 billion U.S. dollars as of 2023. That shows how much is at stake if you spend even 1% of this on fake influencers. But it’s not just the money that gets wasted due to fake influencers. The impact is much bigger. 

Here is how collaborating with fake influencers impacts your campaign and brand: 

• Wasted Budget: Collaborating with influencers who have fake followers means your marketing dollars are reaching bots or inactive accounts, not real consumers. This leads to low return on investment (ROI) and wasted resources.

• Reduced Engagement: Since fake followers aren’t real people, they won’t engage with your content. This results in low engagement rates, which may also hurt your brand's visibility and reputation.

• Damage to Brand Credibility: If your audience or industry peers notice you’re working with influencers who don’t have genuine followers, it can hurt your brand’s credibility. It may signal to your customers that your brand doesn’t do thorough research.

• Poor Conversion Rates: Fake influencers may have high follower counts, but their influence is superficial. Without genuine influence over their audience, they won’t drive meaningful conversions, whether that’s product sales or brand awareness.

How to Spot Fake Influencers

Here are some ways to spot fake followers for your next influencer marketing campaign:

1. Analyze Follower Growth Rate

Analyzing the follower growth rate will help you to detect fake influencers. A sudden increase in follower count is worth noticing. If there is a spike in follower count in a single day, this is to say that they purchased followers.

Genuine Growth Vs. Bought Growth: How Do They Look?

• Genuine Growth: It's like a hill that slowly goes up. Some days, you might get a few more followers, maybe because you posted something really good or got mentioned by someone famous. It's steady and makes sense. If you see their content is good, they might get more followers because of that.

• Bought Growth: It looks like a mountain suddenly popping up. One day, there are very few new followers, and the next day, thousands of new ones appear. It doesn't make sense. If they didn't post anything special or didn't get a shoutout from someone famous but suddenly have many new followers, it's suspicious and often bought.

If you are using impulze.ai, you will get an extensive report of the influencer's followers. Following is an example report of an influencer - Jared VanderMeer.

2. Disproportionate Follower-to-Engagement Ratio  

The ‘Disproportionate Follower-to-Engagement Ratio’ refers to a situation where influencers have a large number of followers but receive a notably low level of engagement on their content.  

For instance, if an Instagram account has 100,000 followers but only receives 50 likes and a couple of comments on their posts, the engagement is disproportionate to the follower count. 

This could be a sign that many of the account's followers are not genuine or are inactive. Or it might indicate that the content being posted isn't resonating with the audience.  

The ratio helps brands gauge the authenticity and effectiveness of an influencer. An account with genuine growth and an engaged audience usually has a more balanced follower-to-engagement ratio.  

If you are using influencer marketing tools like impulze.ai, you will get ready insights into an influencer, including their engagement rate, likes-to-comment ratios, and more.

How To Use impulze.ai For Spotting Fake Influencers?

With impulze.ai by your side, you can filter out the influencers by niche, followers, engagement, and other key metrics. You don’t need to stalk every influencer on the social media platform to understand the average likes, comments, and views they are getting.

The credibility score lets you know how credible the influencer’s followers are, and you can see the most used “hashtags” by the influencer.

Want to know the sponsored content created by the influencer? impulze.ai has got you there. By generating an analysis report, you can understand the type of content they create, the list of recent posts as well as their sponsored content.

The report further includes all the crucial data you need to know about an influencer and authenticate them. This includes the fake followers check, age and gender split among the followers, follower growth over time, and more. 

Try out impulze.ai for a 14-day free trial and see how it can help you track down authentic influencers that best fit your campaign.

The Takeaway: Influencer Vetting Checklist [Free]

Handling an influencer marketing campaign is already a challenging task; so finding out that your efforts have gone in vain due to fake influencers is heartbreaking. The best way to avoid such a mishap is to invest in time and tools to spot fake influencers. 

While we have already shared a tool, here is a free influencer vetting checklist that will also help you determine if an influencer is the right fit for your campaign. It contains a checklist covering essentials like audience demographics, engagement quality, brand alignment, content quality, and so much more. 

Download it for free and save hours of effort!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you know if someone bought followers?

You can tell if someone bought followers by looking for red flags like a sudden spike in follower count without corresponding engagement (likes, comments), or low engagement rates compared to their follower size. Also, check for a high number of followers with empty or suspicious-looking profiles. Tools like SocialiQ can help you detect such anomalies by analyzing engagement rates, follower quality, and audience authenticity. 

How to find fake influencers on Instagram?

To spot fake influencers, examine their engagement rate—if it’s unusually low for their follower count, that’s a warning sign. Look for generic comments or bots, and check if their follower growth shows unnatural patterns. Tools that analyze follower quality and authenticity, like Impulze, can give you detailed reports on potential influencers before you collaborate with them.

Do celebrities have fake followers on Instagram?

Yes, even celebrities can have fake followers. Sometimes it's due to bots randomly following high-profile accounts, but there are cases where people deliberately inflate their follower counts. However, with celebrities, this is less about deception and more about bot-driven activity or follower purchases to boost their influence.