As the world turns towards social media, fake followers, bots and misleading engagement have become a serious problem that can quickly ruin a brand’s reputation and waste valuable marketing budget.
In this post, we will discuss fake followers, why they are detrimental to your brand and how you can go about spotting fake engagement.
What are Fake Followers?
As their name states, fake followers are fake social media profiles created with the attention to mass follow social media accounts for profit. Unlike traditional social media profiles, these accounts are inactive and do not interact with content in any way.
While this may seem odd, this is a typical practice for many brands and influencers. This is done because many brands believe that a large following makes them more reliable, trust worth and popular. While a large following may look impressive, they run the risk of:
- Wasting your budget
- Decreasing your engagement
- Ruining your brand’s reputation
- Flooding your news feed with scams and unwanted content
With a number of factors to consider, here is how to spot fake followers and engagement:
Keep An Eye On Follower Spikes
For most social media profiles, it is natural to see gradual growth, with the outliers being profiles that gain a massive following after going viral and account those purchase followers. This can generally be seen when an account’s following is jumping drastically then plateauing.
Track Engagement Rates
Many brands and influencers will stop at purchasing followers, making it all the more obvious when their engagement rates do not match up with their follower count. This is because these purchased accounts do not interact or engage with content.
Is There Consistency?
In addition to followers, many brands are purchasing likes and comments to falsely bolster their engagement rates. For typical social media profiles, it is normal for some posts to do better than others.
As such, coming across a profile that receives the same amount of engagement every post, is a sign that they are receiving inauthentic engagement.
Spam Comments
On the back of consistent engagement, comes generic comments. Today, technology has advanced to where bots are able to recognise images and create relevant comments.
To the unsuspecting viewer, these comments may look like true engagement, but when looked at closely, these comments are generic and consist of only a few words. These may include: “Wow!”, “Amazing Post!” etc.
How To Build A Healthy Social Media Following?
While it is natural for brands to want to see large numbers on social media, buying followers and engagement will lead to an inactive following that does not interact with the content you share. Instead focus on authentic engagement, making sure that you spend your budget wisely and grow your social media presence over time.
- Important practices include:
- Understand your followers
- Publish relevant content
- Publish consistently
- Amplify your reach through influencers
- Create shareable posts
Helping You Grow Your Brand
With the prevalence of large following and influencer account, it may be tempting to buy followers and accounts yourself. However, these have proven to be detrimental to both brand and business on social media. At Digital Nomads HQ, a team of social media experts are ready to help you naturally grow and boost your brand presence. They specialise in creating sustainable marketing plans that focus on growing your engagement organically. Get in touch to find out how DNHQ can help you today!