Yes, removing fake followers (bots, spam, inactive accounts) helps by improving your engagement rate, making your analytics more accurate, boosting brand credibility, and showing the platform's algorithm your account is authentic, leading to better reach with real users, though some caution that sudden drops can temporarily affect algorithms. It's about quality over quantity for genuine community growth and valuable marketing insights.
Yes, best to remove them. Fake followers hurt your engagement rate, which affects how the algorithm shows your content. They also skew your insights and can make your account look less credible especially if you're running a business.
Removing fake followers boosts engagement rates by ensuring interactions with a genuine audience. It enhances brand credibility by aligning follower count with authentic engagement. Eliminating fake followers provides more accurate metrics and insights for marketing strategies.
Should you remove “ghost followers” AKA people who follow you but don't engage? NO! You never know who will start seeing your content again or become a customer even without engaging. But when it comes to deactivated accounts, yes, you're safe to remove them and I recommend doing it.
Cleaning out the fakes from your follower count will increase the trust the platform has in your account, making your marketing life much easier.
However, they're often social bots with no actual users behind them. These accounts exist because people are willing to pay for followers, which has created a market for fake follower accounts. All those fake followers must be created though, and this process is often automated.
And rather than hearing it from me here's the answer from the head of Instagram himself. You're welcome to remove followers for who seem to be suspicious or problematic in some way but it's not going to affect your reach.
You can spot fake followers by looking for suspicious profiles (no photos, no posts, odd usernames) and by checking the quality of engagement on the account's posts. If likes and comments seem low compared to follower numbers, or if comments are generic and spammy, that's a red flag.
Soft blocking on Instagram is a discreet way to remove someone as a follower by briefly blocking and then unblocking them, forcing them to unfollow you without sending a notification, so they stop seeing your posts in their feed but can still view your profile if they search for it directly. It's a "no-drama" alternative to a full block or unfollow, letting you reset the connection by making your content less visible to them.
Having fake followers will lower the credibility of your account and your engagement rate. As these accounts do not engage with your posts, they will appear to be more popular than they are, thus, discouraging those followers who may find value in your posts from discovering your profile.
I think it's good courtesy to remove them because regardless of your views and opinions, you also need to consider how the other person will feel if you keep them and there's a high possibility they will think you're treating them like a fan which is a lot more offensive for a number of people.
Fake followers can disappear tomorrow
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are well aware of the issue of fake followers. In 2015, Instagram held a purge and many celebrities and bloggers lost thousands of followers overnight, as fake and inactive accounts were deleted.
In fact, Instagram can penalize you for buying fake followers. Buying Instagram followers breaks Instagram's terms of service, which you sign when creating an account. If you buy fake followers, you're running the risk of your account getting suspended.
Automate engagement – Follows, likes, comments One of the primary uses of bots on Instagram is to auto-follow and unfollow accounts. This strategy aims to increase a profile's follower count by banking on the principle that some users will reciprocate a follow.
You want active followers who are interacting with your content. They can't do this if they have deactivated their account or if they are a bot. Removing them increases the changes of real accounts seeing your content.
Tap Profile or your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile. Tap your follower list, then tap Potential spam. Tap Remove all spam followers, then tap Remove.
How to Spot Fake Influencers
Instagram's algorithm determines the reach and visibility of your posts based on engagement, relevance, and other considerations. There's no inherent disadvantage to having a professional account in terms of views; however, several factors can affect the visibility of your content.
What happens when you remove a follower on Instagram? Instagram won't tell your followers that you've removed them. They will simply stop seeing your posts and Stories in their feed.
Deleting your posts DOES NOT help your algorithm.
Instagram doesn't allow you to see exactly who views your profile, but you can identify potential stalkers by checking profile interactions, story viewers, and followers. Stalking on Instagram can be dangerous because it may involve invasion of privacy, identity theft, and harassment.
With 10k followers, you're considered a micro-influencer, potentially earning $100 to $500+ per sponsored post, but earnings vary greatly from $10 for nano-influencers (under 10k) to potentially hundreds or even thousands monthly through affiliate links, long-term deals, or product sales, depending heavily on your niche, engagement rate, audience demographics, and platform.
Brands have gotten better at spotting fake followers, usually by calculating a celebrity's engagement rates. So some celebrities have adjusted: not only are they buying followers, they're also buying likes to make sure their engagement rate looks high at first glance.