If we’ve learned anything from Millie Bobbie Brown’s fake skincare routine and the backlash that followed, it’s this: your followers might love you, but they won’t take balderdash from you. Anything that smells “fake” to them will be called out, and in the aftermath, you’ll find your brand, business, or future in jeopardy.

Knowing this, are you sure you haven’t partnered with the wrong social media influencer? Are they fake news? Because people can always tell—and this is how they do it.

Robot Followers Are So Fake

If Google’s constant “Are You a Robot?” question hasn’t been warning enough, you need to hear this: bots are unattractive. And a great turnoff for people. We know it might sound like a great idea to somehow have 320975068955625690736903 followers without doing a lot, but it’s actually a really bad idea.

Because people will always be able to tell

Your engagement rate is the first clue. If you have a massive following and a poor engagement rate, that’s a sure sign of fake bot followers. Buying followers is easy, engaging with them, however, can often be impossible.

On the other hand, identical engagement also sends odd signals to people. Additionally, tools like Influencer Fee are available for users to check their average engagement rate. Simply put, your bot mission is better off as an abort mission.

Bogus Engagement

Sometimes, people think they can get around the engagement problem with fake followers. And true, there is a way to fake engagement, but it’s not like people can’t tell fake engagement from real engagement.

If your post is getting a considerable number of genuine-looking comments, people can rest assured that your followers are (a) real, (b) following you of their own accord, and (c) are genuinely interested in what you have to say.

On the other hand, if your post has comments that say “great pic”, “hi”, “call me”, or random emojis, then it’s pretty evident that something’s afoot. Fake engagement also incudes irrelevant comments—and people can always tell.

The biggest mistake a business or their influencer partner can make is thinking that their audience is naive.

Weird Followers

Another trick that people use to check if the “influencer” they’re looking at is genuine or not is to see who, and not how many follow this person.

Tools like IG Audit allow people to perform audits for Instagram accounts easily. In a jiffy, people can tell how much of your following is real and how much of it is bogus. A great number of fake followers should raise red flags as it means you may have a fake influencer on your hands.

Want to Avoid Partnerships with Fake Influencers?

We understand how important it is to partner with the right social media influencer. Not only are fake influencers useless in terms of increasing your following and promoting your brand, but they can also cause more harm than good. Since they perpetuate a general image of your business to your potential customers, they can make people think your business is just as shady.

While you can use the tools that we have quoted to check if the influencers that you have in mind are genuine or not, there are other ways. One way is to sign up for Afluencer, a platform that introduces serious businesses to some of the top social media influencers around.

You can also browse news about the influencer world here and surf more about social media marketing in general here.