In the digital air, it is difficult to do without social networks. Facebook, Snapchat, Tik Tok, and Instagram are part of our lives. Instagram is currently one of the most followed networks by young people.
Allowing you to share photos and stories with your “followers”, Instagram also allows you to communicate with almost anyone via private messages. Unfortunately, some malicious people have understood that Instagram was becoming an important communication and advertising platform and no longer shy away from highlighting more or less well-crafted scams through fake accounts.
As a drop shipper, you’re not interested in paying an influencer who isn’t an influencer anyway.
So how do you recognize them? What are the signs that should be on the alert to avoid getting tricked?
What is Instagram?
To put it simply, it is an application available on all types of smartphones, as well as on all tablets and computers. This application allows sharing photos and videos with an increasing number of subscribers. The majority of young people use it to capture special moments, but also to follow “conversations” or otherwise called stories using photos, filters, comments, hashtags, and links allowing them to find products. or other websites. Today with more than 400 million users and some 80 million photos that are shared every day, Instagram is the social network for young people.
Why are there fake accounts?
False accounts are more and more numerous on the application. Moreover, a recent study reports that almost half of the accounts are fake. But why create a fake account? There are several reasons. Malicious people want to impersonate, others just want to pretend they are popular, but also for phishing and sending spam via private messages. People who create fake accounts and have fake followers try to impersonate influencers so that brands can partner with them. As a dropshipper, these are exactly the accounts you want to avoid.
How to spot fake accounts?
Instagram has launched a huge hunt for fake accounts since the start of the year. This automatic method of Instagram is not infallible, however. It is therefore good to know how to recognize the accounts of fake influencers yourself. Once you have the right tips in your hands, it’s pretty easy to spot them.
The seniority date of the profile
If the account was created a short time ago and already has hundreds/thousands of subscribers, there is a very good chance that this account is a fake.
Watch his subscribers
Take a tour of his followers. The purpose of an account is to be able to share very specifically and personal content and of course, this sharing is done most of the time with other subscribers who are themselves interested in the same subjects. So if you spot an account with a bunch of random followers without consistent people commenting on their photos, chances are you’ve stumbled upon a fake account.
The subscriber/subscription ratio
Check the subscribers/subscriptions ratio. Indeed, very often real Instagram accounts have as many or even a little more subscribers than the account they follow. So if you see an account with more subscribers than subscribers, it’s probably wrong. However, be careful! Make sure that isn’t the only problematic thing about the account. Some people bulk subscribe to other people hoping to have a reciprocal subscription. However, it goes badly, it is often the micro-influencers who do this technique.
View publications
Observe the publications. If the account publishes mainly advertising content, it is probably false, or it is already monetized elsewhere, and partnering with it will probably not get you anything.
The number of publications
The account has very few posts. Be careful here too, some people publish very little or nothing on Instagram without being a fake account. It can also just be people who follow other accounts without particularly wanting to post. However, this person may be active, and may not be the best influencer for your marketing campaign. An active person often has little commitment and visibility.
Why has Instagram started hunting fake accounts?
Although influencers very often use this process to increase their number of subscribers and their notoriety, Instagram has recently decided to reset the counters to zero and trigger a real hunt for fake accounts. The marketing teams of all the big brands don’t just look at these numbers to select the influencers who will represent them tomorrow.
From now on, they are more and more interested in the engagement rate. Even today, it is not easy to know the exact proportion of fake accounts. However, studies have been carried out since 2017 and humans generate only 48% of the Web, leaving more than half to bots. What does that mean? This actually means that half of the online advertisements would not be seen by humans and thus distort market results.
Influspy easily find your influencers
Another good reason, real people who use Instagram, find themselves more and more faced with more or less well-crafted scam attempts.
Instagram, therefore, has every interest in deleting these accounts. Although Instagram seeks to protect its reputation, this hunt also makes it possible to give credibility and legitimize the job of an influencer which is far from consisting of the simple fact of posting a few photos. This job requires time, work, and a lot of organization.
Tools to find your influencers quickly and easily
As drop shippers, it is not always easy to find good influencers whether they are big or small. In order to help you find the best influencers, there is solutions/software such as Influspy talk and Hypeauditor. These products are paid but they will save you time to find the right influencer.
