Influencer marketing is one of the best ways you can boost your brand awareness and build a customer base. It’s not just that. With someone endorsing your product or service, you can build trust among your target audience.

It is sure enough that influencer marketing can add a lot to the success of a brand.

Marketers welcome influencers with open arms and invest more in influencer marketing. Brands increase their budget for influencer marketing year after year to market their products. However, the impact of influencer marketing will positively result in the success of the brand only if they choose the right and genuine influencer.

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. Fake ones. 

It’s your responsibility to find who is who and ensure that you partner with the right one for your business. 

And in this blog, we will help you in identifying the fake influencers from the rest. We discuss the tips to follow and the tools you can use for the purpose. 

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.   

Difference Between a Fake Influencer and a Genuine Influencer  

Fake Influencer: 

• Followers: They have lots of followers suddenly, but not many of them talk or engage with them. 

• Engagement: Very few comments or likes compared to the number of followers. 

• Content: Might not share helpful or interesting things often.  

Genuine Influencer Building Audience:  

• Followers: They might not have many followers yet, but they are real people who are interested. 

• Engagement: These real followers talk, share, and engage with the influencer's posts. 

• Content: They regularly share helpful or fun things and try to connect with their audience.  

The specific number for a "low engagement rate" can vary based on the platform, the influencer's niche, and other factors.   

For instance, if someone has 100,000 followers on Instagram and only gets 100 likes (0.1%) on their posts, that's a strong indication of very low engagement. It might suggest many of those followers are fake or inactive.   

However, it's also essential to look at other engagement metrics like comments and shares and to consider the overall engagement across multiple posts. A single post with low engagement doesn't necessarily indicate fake followers. But a consistent low engagement across many posts is a clearer sign.

Read on to learn the tips to spot these fake influencers.

How to Spot Fake Influencers?

Here are some ways to spot fake followers by keeping their characteristics in mind.

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.  

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.

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.  

So, What are Genuine Engagement Metrics? 

 "Engagement" in social media means how people interact with a post or account. Here are some simple ways people can engage:  

• Likes: It's like giving a thumbs up to a post. 

• Comments: When someone writes something under your post. 

• Shares: When someone shows your post to their friends.  

Real engagement means the followers are real and they like the content. 

Again, 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. 

Try our software for free.

How to Use impulze.ai for Spoting 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 “hash_tags” 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 free and see how it can help you track down authentic influencers that best fit your campaign.