5 Ways to Filter Out Fake influencers

We’ve already discussed the topic of fake influencers a while ago, but it’s a good time to review it. Recently, Unilever’s CMO Keith Weed declared a crack down on fake influencers who buy fake followers and use bots.

We know it’s becoming harder to spot those dark knights, but we prepared 5 recommendations that help you to do that.

We discuss it here or read the summary below.

1. A Suspiciously High Follower Number Count

The first tip is to look for a suspiciously high following number. A real influencer would hardly follow the same amount of people that follow them.

For example, Influencer A has 10,000 followers but she/he is following 9,500 people. Most likely a fake influencer.

2. Engagement Rate

A healthy influencer has an engagement rate between 1–5% and of course the efficacy of their engagement also depends on the number of their followers. Micro influencers tend to have a higher engagement rate than middle tier or larger influencers.

If an influencer has an inconsistent and a low engagement rate, it’s probably a fake influencer.

3.Growth

Another way is to check how organic is the growth of the influencer. For real influencers, the growth is a very consistent line. If the influencer bought bots or followers — you’ll definitely see unnatural growth spikes.

4. Location

It’s hard to check, but this might be a critical indicator. If the influencer is from the USA, but most of the followers are from a country that’s an 18 hour plane ride away, it’s a red flag.

However, there are influencers with ‘overseas’ followers. So I would look at this metric in combination with the other tips mentioned above.

5. Stories Statistics

Last, but not the least —when already working with an influencer, you can check ask for the influencers to send over screenshots of their Instastory statistics. If the engagement in stories differs a lot from the posts (as in, is significantly less)— red flag again.

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