With the increasing amount of significance and popularity of Instagram, many influencers and brands found a new way of establishing their careers. However, there are innumerable fake accounts over the platform and this is a matter of concern for us as well.
Cluttering your followers’ lists with such fake accounts may drop your account engagement rate.
There could be various reasons why such accounts are created. You can find out if an account is fake with some of the common signs. Let’s have a look at those.
How to Know If An Instagram Account Is Fake
There are no direct ways of figuring out the same, but there are several indirect ways to become aware of the red flags.
The number of followers has become a symbol of status and source of earning for many that lead to the creation of these fake accounts. With the help of the below-mentioned methods, you can easily spot these fake accounts.
No Profile Picture or Unrealistic Picture
Most of the time, these fake accounts don’t have a profile picture, and even if it happens to possess one, it looks pretty unrealistic. These pictures seem so unrealistic that no real user would like to use them. To make the account look appealing, these accounts even use pictures of good looking boy or a girl that does not even seem to be a real one.
Huge Following List As Compared to Followers
Almost all the users in Instagram want to maintain a balance in their followers and the following list, or even keep the following lower than the followers. But, the fake accounts follow random accounts and have a large following list than the followers.
Followers Look Unreal
On a thorough check on the followers’ list of the fake accounts, you will find out that even the followers seem to be unreal similar to these accounts. Often, the followers do not have any Profile Picture or similar aspects like the fake account. If the account has an array of such random followers, the account can be fake.
Less Number of Posts
It’s an obvious fact that not everyone likes posting on Instagram regularly, but the accounts that already seem suspicious do not have many posts or any posts at all. Several times, these accounts are bot accounts that are created for increasing the followers count rather than posting anything.
Low Engagement Rate On Their Posts
The shady accounts may have a good number of followers but the engagement on their posts is quite low. If you see an account with thousands of followers but only a few likes or comments on their posts, you can spot it out to be a fake account as real followers follow an account because they are genuinely interested in the content.
Make Spam Comments On Others’ Posts
The fake accounts apart from posting weird posts also leave spammy comments on others’ posts. These comments can be identified at a single glance, they are written by a bot account as these are very generic and often lack the substance. These comments generally follow a similar pattern and can hinder the reach.
Conclusion
Although there is no provision to directly indicate a fake account, these indications are helpful to show the similarities. These methods are simple and highly effective in figuring out a fake account. These accounts are created with various purposes like increasing someone’s followers, promoting a product, or similar others. These accounts often seem a headache while using the app, so spotting and getting rid of them is the best option.
