A few years back, having a huge follower count on Instagram was the ultimate sign of success. People would buy followers to look more popular, and some influencers still do this. 

But such things affect a brand’s credibility if they collaborate with such influencers. 

We all know that it's not just about follower numbers. To get real results, brands need real engagement. Consumers trust the recommendations they see from genuine influencers, which is why brands spend so much on influencer marketing in 2024.

There are still fake influencers on social media with inflated numbers, and it's essential to spot them so you don't waste money. 

Now, the main question is: how do you know if someone bought followers on Instagram? 

We've compiled some critical tips on that along with a free tool to spot fake influencers. Let’s begin. 

Can Someone Buy Followers? 

Yes, people can buy followers. Fake influencers buy followers and inflate follower counts. It's easy to buy followers: do a Google search with the words 'want to buy followers', and multiple results will show up about websites that claim you can buy followers' instantly' and 'cheaply.' So, yes, it's possible to buy followers.

That being said, Instagram uses advanced algorithms to detect fake accounts. Moreover, brands know how engaging with fake influencers can hurt their credibility and engagement. So, they’ve figured out how to find and work with authentic influencers. 

If you also want to know if someone bought followers on Instagram, we’ve covered 2 ways to find out. Read on:

How Do You Know if Someone Bought Followers on Instagram?

A. Manually

To know if someone has bought followers, check for these things when you go through the profiles of influencers: 

1. Follower Count 

Quantitative Check: Check how many followers the influencer has. Fake influencers on Instagram and other social media platforms have a disproportionate ratio between the amount of content they post and the number of followers they have. 

Qualitative Check: Open the profiles of the influencer’s followers and see if the followers have accounts without photos and content. Also, see if their usernames seem genuine or if the usernames are strange and seem made up. 

2. Follower-to-Following Ratio

Quantitative check: Genuine influencers will have a reasonable follower-to-following ratio. Fake influencers usually have many followers (some of which will be bought followers) but follow very few people. 

3. Likes

Quantitative Check:

• Check for the number of likes on their recent posts.

• Check if the number of likes is disproportionate to what other influencers in the same niche usually get.

• Check if the number of likes exceeds their number of followers in multiple posts. This could indicate they have purchased likes and followers.

Qualitative Check: For a qualitative assessment of the likes, open the profiles of followers who engage with the influencer. Check if the likes are from genuine followers who actively use social media or from profiles with no photos, content, or strange usernames.

4. Comments

Quantitative Check: Look for the number of comments on posts. Fake influencers will have a high likes-to-comments ratio. An unusually large number of comments on multiple posts can be a red flag.

Qualitative Check: Determine the quality of comments. Fake influencers on social media have generic comments from multiple accounts on their posts. These comments are from bought followers or from bots.  An example of such generic comments is comments like  ‘nice photo’ or ‘nice pic’.

5. Engagement Rate   

Quantitative check: Calculate the engagement rate of influencers to know if they get genuine engagement or engagement from bought followers.

Here’s how you can see engagement rate quickly: install SocialiQ – our free Chrome extension – that’ll show you the engagement rate for each post of an influencer’s profile. For an Instagram influencer, you can see more information about the comparison of their engagement rate when you click on ‘View Insights’.

6. Follower Growth pattern

Quantitative Check: An authentic influencer will have steady and consistent growth in followers. Fake influencers have sudden or inexplicable spikes in follower count. 

Curious about other things to keep in mind before hiring influencers? This influencer vetting checklist can help with everything you should consider before hiring an influencer. 

B. Using a Tool 

Let’s say you have 100 influencers to collaborate. So in such a case how do you know if someone bought followers super quickly? 

You can use tools like impulze.ai!

Suppose you have a music-streaming app and want to work with a micro-influencer to promote your streaming application. You search for Instagram-based micro-influencers in the music niche and find Ebon Lurks, an American musician with 93K followers.

Here’s how you can find out if he has genuine followers: 

Step 1: Login into impulze.ai. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up here for a 14-day free trial. Once you are logged in, you can see the home screen. 

Step 2: Click on ‘Search’.

Step 3: You can use Ebon’s username to check if his details are available in impulze.ai’s database. Choose 'Username' on the left and type his Instagram username ‘lurksebon’ in the search bar. Choose the Instagram icon on the left. Click on ‘Search’.

Ebon is a part of impulze.ai’s database. So his profile will show up in the result. 

Step 4: Click on ‘View Report’. This will generate a report that has details about Ebon's followers and their demographics.

Step 5: Scroll down to the ‘Audience Details’ section. You can see what type of followers Ebon has. The graph below shows how his followers have grown in the past seven months.

Ebon has 40% real followers, 10.8% influencers as his followers, 42.8% mass followers and 6.5% suspicious followers. This is what these categories of followers mean:

• 40.8% Real Followers: Real followers are Instagram users with less than 1500 followers. These are usually people who use Instagram for personal purposes.

• 10.8% Influencers:  These are other influencers who follow Ebon.

• 42.8% Mass Followers: Mass followers are Instagram users with more than 1500 followers.

• 6.5% Suspicious Followers: impulze.ai’s machine learning algorithms scan and process millions of profiles to look into the profile characteristics and can differentiate and predict a bot profile. This category shows the followers that our algorithm identifies as ‘suspicious.’ 

For a successful influencer collaboration, choose to work with an influencer who has more real followers than mass followers. 

Also, use the graph to see if the influencer is a fake influencer or a genuine one. If you see an increase in followers, a genuine influencer will likely have a consistent growth overall or after any follower spikes. Fake influencers are likely to have large, sudden spikes in number of followers and a suspicious pattern in this graph.

Want to go a step ahead and use impulze.ai to find influencers whose followers match your target audience? Find out here how you can do this. 

Choose The Smart Way With impulze.ai

Suppose you want to find out which influencers to work with for your business’ influencer marketing campaign. You’ve shortlisted a list of ten influencers and want to pick three out of these ten who would be a good fit for your campaign. Imagine opening their profiles on Instagram and manually checking if they have genuine followers.

You’ll have to go through their follower lists (open profiles to see if they seem genuine), check comments on their posts, and calculate the percentage for how many of their followers seem genuine. 

Sounds exhausting, right?  

It’s going to be time-consuming. It will take you atleast half a day to do this manually.

Instead, you can use impulze.ai to make this process 20x faster and find genuine influencers in a few minutes.

Use our 14-day free trial to do this. Sign up in a few seconds (without providing any bank details!)

Frequently Asked Questions 

How do you know if someone bought followers on Instagram? 

You can know if someone bought followers by checking manually if their followers seem genuine or by using influencer search tools like impulze.ai to see how many genuine followers they have. 

What do bought followers look like?

Bought followers do not have profile photos in their profile. They often have strange usernames and bios. They may have little or no posts and activity on their profile. You can also check for their activity on social media. Irrelevant or spammy comments can indicate that it’s a bought follower’s profile. 

Is it OK to buy followers?

It’s never okay to buy followers whether you are an influencer or a brand. You won’t get genuine results when you buy followers. If you’re a business owner looking to use social media to increase awareness and sales, your social media efforts can be successful only when you can engage real people. 

Can people tell when you buy Instagram followers?

People can tell when you buy Instagram followers. They can check your followers manually or use influencer marketing tools to check if you have genuine followers.

Are there companies that sell followers?

Yes, some companies sell followers. For instance, Boostlikes, Famoid, and Social Viral offer packages to buy Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok followers, likes, and shares.