‘Free Instagram followers!’ May sound like music in the ears. But you may have to pay price later. Your account will get a lot of Instagram fake followers (a.k.a. IG Ghost Followers) cost you a dime affecting your engagement (less likes, favorites, comments, etc.) How will you identify these little monsters and get rid of them.
How to Identify Instagram Fake Followers?
Instagram Ghost and fake followers are users who continue to exist as inactive or do not involve inactivity. They do not take part in liking, commenting, posting and messaging.
The people or social bots are responsible for the making of these accounts.
People shouldn’t blame themselves for the Instagram fake/ghost followers unless they bought them
Some of these accounts are real followers who got sick of using Instagram and taken a break from using it readily. Some of them are only operational through Instagram bots and never through an actual human.
To verify, the Instagram fake followers of an account, you'll need to scan their followers and see if they have complete information or are they active on IG
Fake followers are easy to point out through below mechanisms:
- Accounts with 0 followers, 0 posts or no profile picture
- More followings than followers
- No posts in the last month or two
- Abnormal profile name
What are the Negative Effects of Instagram Ghost Followers?
Only high numbers of follower are not enough for serious marketers. For instance, the influencers on Instagram need to drive engagement to attract advertisers.
Engagement is foremost, and the celebrities with high follower count trends, so that create their brand value.
The clients pay in bulk to the agencies and consultants for more than just an increase in follower counts
The ghost followers are a major hindrance to social media and content marketing professionals who measure the metrics rates(such as engagement or engagement rate). For them, the ghost followers are the major restriction to success.
Should We Ditch the Ghost Followers?
The main issue is not ghosting followers for some users. Though the ghost followers don’t engage with users,
Instagram still mentions them in a user’s follower count. Some of the users just want their follower count to be as massive as possible.
Instagram Ghost followers are perfectly aliright with this case and even desired by the users.
How to Get Rid of Instagram Fake Followers in Instagram?
As per the norms from 2014, removal of fake followers in Instagram needs accessing the account and directly blocking it. In this way, Instagram removes the connection between the ghost follower and the following account.
Pro tip: You can make your Instagram account private and avoid ghost and fake followers. Every account will seek your permission and you can permit the true followers.
There are two scenarios to remove the ghost followers. One is to removing the fake users by yourself (useful for small number of followers). Two is to use a Instagram cleaner app which is handy and easy to use. Below mentioned are some of the examples of app-based removal of ghost followers-:
How to Remove Instagram Ghost Followers?
You can use some applications to detect inactive/fake followers on user Instagram profile unfollow them instantly. This is a user-friendly process to remove fake followers. The user can only get crude information about those and can do all the work themselves.
However, there are tools like InstaCaptain which can help you get rid of unwanted followers in a single tap. You can check out the tool by signing up for a 3-day trial from their homepage.
To remove ghost followers, Instagram has recently added a feature that enables the user to direct the ghost users from their account without blocking them. Instagram has taken this innovative measure which is quite appreciable. Moreover keeping the procedure simple is the added benefit given to the user by Instagram.
Steps you Need to Follow to Use these Features
- Go to your profile page
- Click on your follower’s tab
- find the ghost ones by checking your follower’s list
- Click on the tab where there are three vertical dots on the right end of the ghost follower name.
- Then a prompt to remove him/her from your followers will pop up
- Tap on yes – its done
- Those ghost followers will not be present there any longer.
Instagram’s Approach to Deal with Fake Followers
Instagram keeps on their efforts to hunt down the ghost followers, though they are not using that term directly.
As that will also affect the number of followers which is the crude engagement rate of Instagram.
That rate defines a lot of the popularity of the social site. It shows the level of branding and attachment Instagram wants to generate among their users.
Ultimately buying of ghost followers is then totally off the grid, because they may be hunted by Instagram anyway.
However, it is on the sole decision of the user to remove ghost followers from their user handle.
Instagram also removes user to deliberately because it affects their credibility and causes hindrance.
As their popularity and engagement rate totally depends on the ease of use and the real-time experience of the users.
Final Word
As social platform is becoming vulnerable in recent times, users should give great importance to transparency and truthfulness. So beware to enter in this maze of pseudo popularity and short interval fame as it doesn’t last long.
