It’s been on Instagram two years since on Instagram Instagram announced it was launching a on Instagram crackdown on the purchase of fake followers and would be removing access to apps that offer automatic likes and followers . In fact, the social network expressly prohibits users from artificially increasing their likes, followers, comments, or shared content in exchange for money, gifts, or any other means. Thus, the war to detect fake followers on Instagram was on .
Thousands of accounts then saw their follower counts suddenly drop.
Many of them were accounts of influencers (or rather, pseudo-influencers) who had phone number list fraudulently inflated their profiles to increase their appeal to brands.
Against the business of fake followers
Shortly on Instagram after, the on Instagram first ruling against the fake social media follower business came : in January 2019, a New York court convicted the company Devumi of selling millions of followers , retweets, and likes on social media platforms such in the debate about influencers’ advertising activity as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. “Anyone who profits from deception and impersonation is breaking the law and will be held accountable,” warned Attorney General Letitia James.
That same year, a study published by Business of Fashion revealed that advertisers had lost €1.3 billion in one year on commercial deals with influencers with a high percentage of fake followers. It predicted that the figure would grow in 2020.
The influencer fraud
In fact, the proliferation of fraud among influencers is one of the main causes of concern for companies that work with them. According to the ” Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2020 ,” 68% of brands report having experienced some form of deception europe email in previous campaigns with influencers. If this percentage is already high, the trend is even more striking: the figure is five points higher than that recorded the previous year, when an (also large) 63% of brands acknowledged this issue.
Interestingly, fraud seems to increase the more followers an influencer has. The report ” The State of Influencer Marketing 2020: Influencer Fraud Dynamics ” reveals that only 30% of influencers with more than one million followers are free of fraud . On the other hand, for profiles with a follower count between 1,000 and 5,000, the percentage of “honest influencers” rises to 51%.
Fraudulent actions among influencers
The on Instagram scam goes beyond the purchase of fake followers and encompasses a wide range of actions. Among them
Automated follow/unfollow. In June 2019, Instagram also decided to block apps that facilitated this type of practice. The mechanism is as follows: the influencer selects the type of profiles they’re interested in (by hashtags, geolocation, etc.); the app begins following accounts, and occasionally some follow back; a few days later, the influencer unfollows the new followers through the app.