Paris Hilton is the celebrity with allegedly the highest number of fake followers on Instagram. She has 15.5m followers, but 28.6% of these are estimated to be bots. Although the model, businesswoman and media personality may not be aware of this, it means that almost 4.5m of her followers could be bots.
By using Modash which analyses Instagram accounts' follower rates, PostBeyond found Kourtney Kardashian has the most with over 53.5 million million fake followers.
Instagram has an estimated 95 million fake accounts. With a total user base of around 1 billion, that means roughly 1 in 10 Instagram accounts are fake.
What is a fake follower? A fake follower is any account created for a reason other than normal Instagram use. This can be to inflate likes or followers, spam other users or collect data on other Instagram accounts. They are not your target customers.
Are fake followers illegal? No, fake followers are not illegal. You can buy fake Instagram followers legally and many people buy fake followers to look more popular. They look the same as real followers and help boost your follower count.
Is it illegal to buy Instagram followers? It's completely legal to buy Instagram followers; there are no laws that say you aren't allowed to buy Instagram followers. However, buying followers is against Instagram's community guidelines, and it's generally not recommended as a marketing strategy.
Instagram accounts with 1,000 followers make $1,420/month on average and up to $100 per sponsored post. However, Instagram does not pay influencers directly, so you can begin making money whenever you land your first sponsorship deal or join an affiliate program, even if you don't have 1,000 followers yet.
6. How can you spot fake followers? Spam users and fake followers can usually be identified by their username and profile. If they have a username with a scramble of numbers and letters, a default profile picture, and no posts on their profile – then these are tell-tale signs!
Look for these red flags: Followers with No Photos or Posts: If an influencer is followed by users that have not posted and/or lack a profile picture, you can typically assume that these followers are fake. Brands should also look out for influencers with followings of tons of private accounts and “spammy” usernames.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo - @cristiano.
That means that of her 373 million followers, around 150 million of her followers aren't real people. Jenner's sister Kendall doesn't fare much better. Of her 157.6m followers, around 37% are fake.
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. A good way to see if a celebrity's engagement is legit is to compare the number of likes to comments.
Olivia Rodrigo has the lowest percentage of fake followers, with just 11%. Nicki Minaj, on the other hand, has 160.3 million followers, with 28% of them being suspicious accounts.
Besides sharing critical accolades and being recognized as voices of many generations, Beyonce, Oprah, Rupi Kaur, and Adele share a similar social media strategy: they follow zero people on Instagram.
Instagram Recognizes and Purges Fake Followers
They have considerable experience of finding fake accounts and know all the signs to look out for. You may not think that you have paid much for your followers, but it will still be too much if these followers disappear soon after you buy them.
Since these fakes are so obvious, they tend to get deleted by Instagram pretty quickly. While they last, they won't like or comment on any of your posts.
There is also the argument that buying fake followers doesn't differ much from buying, say a promoted hashtag on Twitter, to attract real fans. The two “marketing” tactics are simply used to raise awareness. And as shady as buying fake followers may sound, the tactic remains trivial and very affordable.
The good news is, there's no strict minimum. Many Instagram influencers get paid with less than 10,000 followers. Five influencers Insider previously interviewed, all with under that amount, said they got made money from brands to post to their small audiences.
There is no required number of followers that you need to get verified on Instagram. Having said that, one of the core requirements for getting approved is having a notable account. This means that your account must represent a well-known and highly searched-for person, brand, or business.
Most micro-influencers who have 5-10k followers make an average of ₹6,531 per post. Creators with 50,000 to 80,000 followers usually charge around ₹14,843 per post and as you move higher up the ladder creators with 250,000 to 500,000 followers charge around ₹49,725 per post.
We want to create the best possible experience for everyone on Instagram. That means spam, fake accounts and other people and posts that don't follow our Community Guidelines may be removed from Instagram. Was this helpful?
So, the main reasons you should delete fake followers with no regrets: They decrease your engagement rate. Brands don't like to work with influencers with high percent of bots. Bots are deleted by Instagram, so you'll have negative trend in your followers count history.
No, you cannot get caught for buying followers on Instagram. The fake followers or bot followers made with bot accounts looks like real users, so the Instagram algorithm cannot catch you.