How to Tell if Someone Bought Fake Followers on Instagram

In my decade-plus career in social media marketing, I‘ve seen the fake follower industry explode into a massive underground market. As consumer demand grows for perceived influence and popularity, so too does the temptation for users to boost follower counts through artificial means.

But fake followers undermine the integrity of influencer marketing and create misleading social proof. As more users buy into illusion, it becomes important to detect signs of inauthentic activity.

Equipped with insider expertise on bots, growth hacking, and platform algorithms, I can accurately audit accounts and reveal purchased reach. In this comprehensive guide, you‘ll learn four research-backed methods for spotting fake followers on Instagram so you can separate artificial growth from the real deal.

What are Fake Followers?

Before diving into detection strategies, let‘s level-set: what constitutes a fake follower?

At a high-level, fake followers refer to accounts that do not represent real people actively using Instagram. They exist solely for the purpose of being sold, distributed, and inflating follower counts.

These mass-created accounts are not operated by real humans, but rather bots and spam software. Their only purpose is bolting on top of legitimate users‘ followers lists.

![Stock photo emphasizing mass automation and bots]

In the influencer marketing sphere, buying follower bots has become known as a shortcut tactic for feigning popularity. But everyday users also purchase fakes to seem more well-connected on social media.

11% of everyday Instagram users admit to buying  
fake followers at some point.

Source: HypeAuditor

Growing an audience from scratch takes time. Yet we perceive high follower counts as social capital on Instagram. This reality convinces users to artificially inflate their margins rather than doing the work to connect with real humans.

4 Tell-Tale Signs of Fake Followers

So how can the average Instagram user actually detect when someone has boosted their numbers using counterfeit accounts?

Drawing from extensive background auditing influencer follower lists, here are the four most reliable indicators:

1. No Profile Pictures

This first sign requires manually scanning through a user‘s followers list:

Simply navigate to their profile > followers > scrutinize for those without profile pictures. Blank silhouettes tend to signal fake accounts:

![Example screenshot of Instagram profile‘s followers list with many blank silhouettes]

Most real users have some kind of identifying profile photo—even just their initials or a placeholder icon. Thus, seeing a swarm of gray blanks strongly suggests dormant fake accounts.

Profiles with no photo make up ~83% of removed spam accounts, per Facebook‘s Ad Observatory.

Follower Audit Shortcut: Rather than tapping through individually, utilize a follower analysis tool like HypeAuditor. This scans a user‘s entire following list at once and serves up key data like percentage with no photo.

2. Randomized Usernames

Beyond profile pictures, also examine the actual handles of suspicious followers.

Ask yourself:

Does this username make logical sense for a real person‘s name or brand?
Or is it just a random assortment of letters, numbers, and keyboard symbols?

For example:

![Good example of a real username vs. bad example of a fake, nonsensical username]

Fakers often randomly generate usernames by stringing together odd combinations that real users would avoid. Seeing multiple nonsense follower names indicates purchased accounts.

3. Minimal Account Activity

The next step for validating followers is clicking into those questionable profiles and reviewing account history.

Overwhelmingly, you‘ll notice fake profiles have little or no posting history. These are empty shell accounts rather than active users.

And even if they have affirmatively posted content, engagement metrics tend to completely lack:

![Example screenshot calling out a fake account‘s lack of engagement]

This all affirmatively signals an inorganic account designed for follower count inflation.

4. Irregular Engagement Rates

Analyzing the previous signs requires tapping through individual profiles, which grows tedious. An efficient alternative is taking a top-down view by studying overall engagement rates.

You can calculate a user‘s engagement rate by dividing their average post likes or comments by their follower count.

A fake-packed following leads to suppressed engagement ratios:

Average Instagram Engagement Rate: 4.7%
Engagement Rate w/ Fake Followers: 1-2%

Conversely, inorganically-spiking engagement can also reveal purchased reach. For example, notice how this user averages under 100 likes per post, but suddenly has a single photo with over 5,000 likes:

![Example screenshot showing suspicious inconsistency in someone‘s account engagement]

These irrational peaks and valleys imply fake likes/followers are bolstering certain posts.

Why Buying Followers is a Terrible Idea

Given the suspicious signs above, you might wonder why anyone would bother purchasing fake followers. But behind the shadow market lies very real psychological motivations.

The drive for popularity stemming from vanity metrics like followers and likes is extremely tempting. These counts can determine perceived influence and hierarchy on Instagram.

However, what appears as a shortcut to social clout will only sabotage your brand and presence. Before considering paying for fakes, weigh these outcomes:

![Weighing scales visual emphasizing the pros and cons of buying fake Instagram followers]

No Engagement from Inauthentic Followers

This bears repeating: fake followers are invalid as a marketing investment because they will never actually engage your content.

They click "Follow", yet remain entirely inactive beyond inflating your statistics. You receive none of the measurable business value driven by actual humans viewing, liking, and commenting on posts.

Per anecdotes like this Trustpilot review, fakes can even reduce your content visibility to real followers.

["Review emphasizing how fake followers failed to engage, barely grew follower count temporarily, and seemed to reduce reach"]

While tempting to pursue shortcuts, engagement fuelled by authentic connection cannot be synthesized. There are no hacks; just real relationship-building over the long run.

Account Bans & Follower Purges

Further, directly paying for engagement or followers represents a clear violation of Instagram‘s Terms of Service. This puts your entire account at risk of deletion:

In 2021, Instagram removed about 9.5M instances of fake engagement
including followers and likes from profiles engaging in policy evasion.  

Source: Facebook Ad Observatory

Beyond official bans, Instagram routinely scrubs fake accounts on their own. Any followers gained through cheap social signals will eventually disappear when flagged as spam. You end up right back where you started, having wasted money and jeopardized your account without achieving measurable awareness or engagement through real humans.

Follower Services Are Scams!

Another critical risk with buying followers is getting scammed by shady social signal sellers. Their business model relies on quickly amassing fakes that drop off after short periods.

Yet follow counts seem temporarily bolstered, luring unsuspecting users into paying recurring monthly fees. Then the seller ghosts, taking payment but ceasing delivery of services:

![Reviews emphasizing terrible customer service and dishonest business practices of Instagram follower sellers]

By becoming a customer, you directly enable—and fall victim to—these exploitative operations. Any success metrics are imagined; any costs are real.

Learn from those who regretted deals that seemed too good to be true.

Healthy Alternative: Follow for Follow

Rather than purchasing artificial followers, I recommend connect with real human accounts genuinely interested in your niche and content through Follow for Follow.

Follow for Follow refers to community groups where respective members voluntarily agree to follow each other‘s profiles, in hopes of raising awareness through heightened visibility and word-of-mouth.

![Conceptual illustration conveying how follow for follow works on Instagram]

Reputable services for orchestrating these mutual alignments include:

Benefits include:

Real, Targeted Followers. Those opting-in are actual humans interested in your account‘s theme and content style. This means higher quality engagement rates.
Community Development. Connect with fellow creators, engage each other‘s brands, exchange feedback, and spark collaborations.
Account Visibility. More eyes attracting more actions. Follow begets follow. A larger web of visibility nurtures organic growth.

The main limitation is manually finding and approving each request. But in an authenticity-obsessed era, fostering genuine connections that convert passive eyeballs into engaged advocates remains the foremost driver of influencer marketing success.

Recap: How to Spot Fake Followers

Let‘s review the key signals indicating someone‘s boosted their follower count through artificial means:

👥 Many followers lack profile photos
This results from mass-created accounts that are inactive on the platform.

🤔 Usernames are nonsensical
Random combinations of letters/numbers signal automatically-generated handles.

📝 Minimal account posting history
Fakers rarely post content or accumulate engagement.

❌ Irregular distribution of likes
Suspicious peaks and valleys in post engagement rates reveal fake inflation.