It’s crazy… we live in a world where you can make a living off of being famous on social media.

Seriously though, if you have an audience you can literally make a living off of brand deals, sponsored posts, and giveaways on Instagram. But the craziest thing about this is that we also live in a world where you can instantly increase your followers on social media from zero to 1 million in the click of a button.

My friends, we are living in the age of fake social media influencers.

Fake Followers Are BOMBARDING Social Media

Nowadays, you can easily buy followers on social media and this black market of fake followers has become extremely popular on platforms like Instagram.

But what’s the point in buying Instagram followers?

People want to give the perception that they are actually famous and have influence online even if it’s not true. It’s crazy, I know but we live in a world where people put “social status” and “cutting corners” before morales and hard work. So when you think of it, it really isn’t that crazy to think that some people will actually stoop so low and buy followers to make it seem like they are famous…

But to be honest, what annoys me the most is how that these “fake influencer accounts” still take money and products from brands that are looking to advertise with influencer marketing! This is a truly ridiculous occurrence that is happening right now because people are willing to lie to brands in order to get money and free products but in return, brands are unknowingly promoting to an audience of fake followers!

The social media space is insane…









Identifying A Fake Influencer

You’d be surprised how many influencers and brands out there have bought fake followers. But don’t worry, if you don’t know how to identify these individuals, Detective Bradley is here to help you out.

When Followers Become More Important Thing…

Before we get into this, I just want to get this off my chest. It’s super disappointing to see that we live in a world where a person’s follower count is more important than what they do or say. There are so many people out there that ONLY care about the number of followers, likes and engagement they have on social media even though their content truly sucks (no offense). But seriously though, if your whole goal behind social media is to have a lot of followers then at least don’t try to say that you are a creator, influencer or expert.

On a side note: Hootsuite actually did a very cool case study about Hootsuite actually did a very cool case study about buying Instagram followers and they proved that it has NO REAL BENEFIT as it only gives the perception that you have followers.

Social media is not just about followers; it is about creating awesome content, telling stories, building a community around your brand, connecting with likeminded people and sharing your content across the world.





How To Find Out Someone Bought Social Media Followers

One way to tell if someone bought fake followers is by looking at their social media statistics. There are many different metrics you should look at but I will show you two specific examples in regards to spotting growth through fake followers.

Example 1 (Buying Followers):

The following example gives a real look at what happens when someone buys social media followers. This account clearly bought followers because in a few days their follower count shot up by over 3000 followers. Furthermore, a random straight vertical line in any accounts growth is always an easy way to see that the account has purchased followers.

Example 2 ( A Drastic Drop In Followers):

This second example is interesting because although this chart doesn’t show the user bought followers, it actually shows that they lost many followers in a day. But upon further inspection, you can see that in one day this individual lost over 15,000 followers which could definitely be a result of Instagram shutting down robot (also known as bot) accounts. This drastic drop clearly shows that the account bought followers in the past and it finally caught up with them.

The Problem With The Fake Social Media Culture

One of the problems with social media is that it is full of B.S.

People buy followers to fake Klout, people have highly curated feeds to fake luxury lifestyles and many people will do ANYTHING to grow their fake influence.

My advice to you is if you want to get famous and increase your following on social media then actually put in the work. Put out great content, engage with people in your industry and create a REAL community around your brand. Although it will take a lot longer to grow your following and influence on social media, with this approach it will actually be LEGIT.

So when it comes to social media growth, do it the right way because that’s the only way to be authentic and true to your brand and audience. If you aren’t on board with all that jazz, then at least keep in mind that this spree of fake followers is only going to be temporary. Why? Well, once Instagram gets a real hold on fake follower schemes then they are simply going to remove all of those followers on their platforms ( as Twitter has done in the past ) and they could even penalize you if they found out you were scamming the system.









The end is near (If You Buy Fake Followers)

So in conclusion to my rant, I just want to say that if you buy followers on social media you should be concerned about the future.

Why?

What goes around comes around.

Although you might be on top of the world with your fake followers right now, it is only a matter of time that the social network determines a protocol to identify and remove these fake followers. Trust me, this isn’t a sky is falling scenario, it has happened on other platforms before.

For example, in 2018 Twitter did a huge clean up of millions of fake Twitter accounts . This random removal of fake accounts caught some people by surprise because it did two things. One, it cleaned up the social network’s users (a bit) and two, it dropped the follower account drastically of people who had fake followers.

So don’t think you are in the clear because you haven’t been caught or called out yet. Also, don’t get me wrong, I wrote this post to educate people about the importance of authenticity and not “just” to bash people who fake it.

This is because I truly believe in being authentic especially when it comes to social media and I hope this article has helped you learn about the ongoing fake follower phenomenon. It is an ongoing occurrence that hasn’t let up at all but at the end of the day, the legit profiles always win.