What's up everyone.
Welcome back to my channel.
In today's video, I'm going to play a little bit of Sherlock Holmes and walk you through
how you can tell if someone has fake followers, fake comments, fake likes, using a bot, doing
unfollow/follow, everything like that.
So if you're interested in being Sherlock Holmes with me, then keep on watching.
Now my intuition is telling me that a handful of people are probably going to dislike this
video and the reason why I say that is because these strategies of using unfollow/follow,
buying engagement, all of that is just so common in the Instagram world nowadays that
I feel like people will just brush it off as normal.
However, the reason why I wanted to film this video is because one of my biggest pet peeves
is seeing people who have fake followers or who've bought their way to Instagram success
and suddenly calling themselves organic Instagram gurus when they're really not.
And also influencers who you know, really take advantage of brands and charge premium
pricing when really they've bought a lot of their engagement.
I think it's a huge disservice to the people who have actually grown organically, and that's
why I want it to create this video to make sure number one, you guys don't get taken
advantage of by these experts that claim that they know how to grow organically when they
themselves have not.
And also if you run a product based business or if you want to work with influencers, that
you're able to really tell what is real and what is fake.
Now before I spill the beans and expose all the fake tactics that people use, I do have
to mention next week, the first week of April, I'm hosting three master classes for free,
all about social media and Instagram.
So if you guys are interested in that, then make sure you don't miss out and check out
the link in my comments section and description box below to sign up to be notified so you
don't miss it because I'm only doing it the first week of April and I would hate for you
to miss out.
So if you're watching this video on the day that is uploaded, then make sure you sign
up so that you don't forget.
Now the first thing that's the easiest to spot just as a red flag.
I mean this isn't really determinant of whether or not they are doing unfollow/follow or not.
However, if their followers to following ratio is off, that is kind of a good indication
that they're probably using a bot.
Now, what I mean is that if they have a lot of people that they're following versus the
amount of followers that they actually have, it's kind of a signal that something is a
little bit off.
Or if they're following a lot of people and they have a lot of followers at the same time,
that is also a really good indication that they're probably using some sort of system
or method to do unfollow/follow.
Now, if you want to investigate further, you can do these following two things.
The first is actually check out their followers.
When you look at the followers, do they have sketchy profile names?
Are they private accounts or do these accounts seeing really inactive?
Most times if people have purchased followers, these followers are generally dead accounts.
They're probably super inactive.
There's probably no profile photo, very little posts.
However, they follow a bunch of people on the account.
This is a huge indication that it is a fake account.
Now if you want to validate if someone is actually using the follow/unfollow method,
what you can do then afterwards is go on socialblade.com.
Now keep in mind Social Blade only works for business accounts, so if you want to do some
investigation, make sure the account that you're searching for has a business profile.
But there's two indications within Social Blade that can really be a good indicator
of whether or not that person is using unfollow/follow.
For example, when you go on Social Blade and you notice that their account is losing a
lot of followers, so it's like in the double digits.
That's a really good indication that Instagram is actually deleting and removing a lot of
spam accounts from their profile because they've probably either bought followers that were
spam accounts or they were using unfollow/follow and naturally with unfollow/follow depending
on the agency that you use or whatever software that you use, they're most likely also following
spam accounts as well.
And then on the flip side, if you see that they're unfollowing a lot of people, meaning
that their following count is you know, having a lot of fluctuations.
One day they're following hundreds of people and then the next day or a couple of days
later they're unfollowing double that.
That's basically the indication that they're using unfollow/follow because basically the
idea of doing unfollow/follow is that you're following someone in hopes that they're going
to follow you back and once they follow you back or regardless if they take action or
not, a couple of days later you just unfollow them.
So that's why I get really upset when some of my clients or just people that I know get
so sad that they're losing followers when in reality you're probably losing followers
because someone used a bot and is now unfollowing you, not because they hate you or hate your
content.
It's literally because they're botting and they have set in the system that three days
from now after I follow this person, I'm going to unfollow them just because I want to grow
my account.
So don't get so stressed about the vanity metrics.
There's so many people that use the unfollow/follow up method so when you gain followers and when
you lose followers, don't take it so personally.
Another quick way to see if someone has bought their followers, is just check their engagement.
Most times if you see an influencer or just a content creator or someone that's on Instagram
and they have like 20,000 followers or 30,000 followers, yet they have like 20 likes or
50 likes.
It doesn't really make sense.
Generally if you have an authentic following, the engagement on your posts should somewhat
correlate and somewhat have a decent ratio.
Another thing too is that a lot of influencers and a lot of people who want to grow on Instagram
aren't that dumb.
So they will buy likes in order to make sure that holistically it looks even.
However, what they fail to remember is also the comments section.
So if you see that an account has a lot of followers and a lot of likes, but they only
have like three comments or like five comments or even 10 comments, it kind of doesn't make
sense.
Because if you think about it, if your account was able to generate that many followers and
that many likes, the comments should really match that or be on par in some way to reflect
the quality of people that are in your community.
It does not make sense if no one is engaging with your photo through the comments, but
they're liking it.
It just doesn't really click.
Now what you also want to remember is earlier on in this video I mentioned that the way
you can tell if accounts are fake is just check the account.
If it's a sketchy account that has a sketchy username, doesn't have a profile picture,
you know, is just sketchy looking.
I think I've said sketchy so many times, but I think you guys get the point.
Then most likely those are spam accounts and that's kind of how it works.
When people buy likes, they're also basically buying spam accounts to like their photos
so it's not real.
Now the next thing that I want to mention and it's kind of a gray area, is DM groups,
engagement groups, or engagement pods or however you'd like to call it.
Now the reason why I call it a gray area is because it is real people that are commenting
on your photo and interacting with your account.
And to be honest, when I used to be in the makeup niche, I actually used engagement groups
myself as well.
So if you guys want a video all about engagement groups, whether I think it's worth it or not,
make sure you thumbs up this video so I know to make it next time because I think that
that deserves a whole video on its own.
However, the way that you can tell if someone is using a DM group, is just check their comments
section and if you see the same few people commenting every single time, usually that's
probably a DM group that's happening there.
If you see it consistently happening in all of the posts that are going on in that profile.
Now keep in mind, like I said before, DM groups aren't that bad in a sense because they are
real people.
But in my opinion if you're trying to start a business, for me personally, if your vanity
metrics aren't converting to sales then I don't know.
However, again, like I said, it is a very gray area when it comes to DM groups.
I'm not hating on them, but I'm also not like supporting them.
I'm kind of in the middle and again I will do another video on it if you guys want, but
what I'm trying to say is that yes there are DM groups but people can also buy comments
as well.
So really look in the comments section.
If it's just people dropping emojis and saying nothing else and it's also coming from a sketchy
account, like I've been mentioning multiple times, that person has probably bought comments
as well.
Next up, another way that you can tell if someone has a fake account, like I don't want
to use the word fake account, but what I mean by fake account is just basically anyone who
is like using a bot.
You know they don't have an authentic organic following and it's like it's paid or some
sort of sketchy thing like that black cat stuff, whatever is if you actually look at
the views on their videos.
Now some people are actually quite smart and they buy views for videos now.
I think that's available.
I think anything on Instagram nowadays you can buy but some people actually forget to
buy views.
So if everything looks kosher, you know the followings match the likes and it matches
the comments but you still aren't sure, then check out the video and see how many views
that video is generating.
Usually that's a huge indicator that someone has probably bought likes, followers, comments,
so on and so forth.
Because if they have thousands upon thousands of engagement and supporters yet they only
have like 10 views on their videos, then I would probably be wary of that as well.
Now last but not least, another thing that's kind of harder to tell unless you're the actual
person with the account is that when you have fake followers or spam accounts or inactive
followers, generally these followers come from India or they have populated in India.
I don't really know why, and this video is not meant to be like racist, so don't pull
that shit on me if you're going to go in the comments section and say that, but it's just
the truth.
So if you actually look at your geography analytics in Instagram and you see that majority
of your population is from an area like India, then most likely those people are probably
spam accounts or fake accounts or inactive accounts or however you want to call it.
So that's a really great indication for you as the account owner to really understand,
okay, you know, how many people are fake and how many are real.
That's not to say that every single person that's from India is like fake.
That's ridiculous.
But what I'm trying to say is that if you have an abnormal amount of people that are
populated in India, especially if you're from the US and you're from Canada and your demographic
is not from there, it just doesn't add up.
And the reason why I'm also mentioning this tip is because I want you guys to be conscious
consumers.
There are so many agencies out there that promise you real followers.
Well, I urge you to actually check your geography or geographic settings or analytics on your
account and really understand where the populations are.
Because if a company is telling you that these accounts are real and authentic, then they
probably shouldn't be majority from India.
That's when you know that you're getting freaking scammed.
So I just want you to be wary of that as well.
And I think a really good rule of thumb is that nothing worth it, comes easy.
Organic growth does not come easy.
It's something that you have to work for and if a company is promising you real followers
and real engagement and real whatever overnight or within a small amount of time, I would
literally run the other way because that just doesn't exist.
And I think that this video is really important for me to make because I think that a lot
of people are misled in this industry and they look at experts or agencies and pay them
top dollar to grow organically and for real when in reality it's still all fake.
And also a lot of you guys are interested in starting businesses and like I said, if
you're vanity metrics aren't actually creating sales in your business, then you need to really
reevaluate your strategy.
Vanity metrics is not the all and be all.
What matters is delivering great content, having quality people who know you, like you
and trust you and buy from you.
Know, like, trust, buy.
That's a really important thing that's really going to generate success into your business.
So please, please, please guys, don't get so caught up in the vanity metrics, especially
in a world where everyone buys them anyways.
So if you are interested in Instagram and you want to learn how to grow on social media
organically and build an authentic tribe and following, then I highly recommend again to
check out the link that's in my description box below and also in the comments section
below, because I am hosting three master classes in my Facebook page.
So you don't want to miss out on that.
It's only happening in the first week of April.
There's only three of them, so you'll get all the details when you click that link below.
I look forward to seeing you.
And also if you want more tips and tricks on how to grow on Instagram, social media,
building your business and all of that, then make sure you check out these two videos right
here.
Anyways, guys, I hope you guys have a great day, a great week, and a great life and I
hope to see you next week at my master classes.
Bye everyone.