In today’s market of social media marketing, it is CRUCIAL to target the correct influencers while trying to sell a specific product. While some influencers are easy to expose, a good fake influencer knows how to mask their account to make it look like the real deal.

Follow the Tips on How to Spot a Fake Influencer

Tip 1: Following/Followers

You can tell a lot about an influencer by how many people they follower vs. how many people they are following. This is called a follower/following ratio. With most big influences, the amount of followers significantly outweighs how many they follow (usually by thousands).  A good rule of thumb to follow is that influencers usually follow about 1 to 6 percent of the number of followers that they have.

Tip 2: Look at who they follow and who their followers are.

Typically, an influencer follows who they are associated with. For example, if looking at Kim Kardashian’s Instagram account, her following list would consist of close family members and friends. Diving into their followers can also settle some suspicions that you may be having. If many of an influencer’s followers do not have many followers or posts, these accounts were made and paid to seem more real. These fake accounts are called bots. Make sure you be on the lookout for these pesky accounts that make an influencer seem real.

Pro tip: If they’re famous and on Instagram, Instagram verifies celebrity accounts with a blue certificate as shown above.

Tip 3: Look at their engagement rate

Many companies and individuals now dig deep into the statistics behind influencers, consequently, the term engagement rate often gets thrown around. An engagement rate is a percentage of how many of their followers like and/or comment on one of their pictures. The average engagement rate is anywhere between 1%-3% percent [depending on the size of following]. Rule of thumb: The larger the following, the lower the engagement rate tends to trend. Micro-influencers [followers within the low thousands] tend to trend in higher engagement rates. 

Read here on Micro-Influencers – advantages and differences, how to implement them into your campaign 

Tip 4: What is an “influencer” posting?

While investigating an influencer to see their credibility and see if they’re a fake influencer, it is important to see evaluate their posts. Making sure that what they post match up with their brand. If a travel influencer is posting pictures from all of the same locations, it may raise some red flags.

Tip 5: Click away + DM

A professional influencer ought to have a website or other social media profiles they operate on. Or You can DM [directly message] them and ask for a portfolio or their Linkedin profile. To find other social media profiles, search their handle or username in Google or a platform you would like to market on. It’s easy to populate a bunch of fake pictures on Instagram, it is harder to fake a business profile.

Reach out us if you’re having trouble finding the right influencer for you!