Ghost followers are inactive or fake Instagram accounts that may follow you, contributing to your overall follower count. However, they never interact with your content. Sometimes these accounts are created by real people who simply don't use their account.
Remove Ghost Followers Manually
Go through your own account and see who follows you. If the account has limited followers of its own and limited content, it is highly likely that the account is a ghost follower. Instagram allows you to go through your photos and search who liked them.
Deleting ghost followers will help improve engagement on your Instagram page. Instagram cares more about engagement and active followers rather than your number of followers. Instagram will flag your account as uninteresting, therefore decreasing your ranking.
Go to the profile of the inactive ghost follower that you want to force unfollow you. Tap on the three dots in the top right corner. Tap Remove Follower. Tap Remove.
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.
The first and most obvious tactic is to visit the follower's page. Many fake followers have just a couple of posts (often none at all) and don't appear to be very active. Fake followers usually don't use pictures of real people in their profile pic or posts.
The Instagram ghost followers that are easiest to spot have no profile picture, no posts, and a high ratio of people-they-follow to followers. They may also have a username that looks like gibberish or is composed of random numbers.
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.
Ghost followers, also referred to as ghosts and ghost accounts or lurkers, are users on social media platforms who remain inactive or do not engage in activity. They register on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. These users follow active members, but do not partake in liking, commenting, messaging, and posting.
The app includes an option to see your “secret admirers,” which are people “who are not following you but are active on your profile.” And for the price of $4.99, we attempted to see who our secret admirers were and a list of over 150 Instagram users popped up.
When you follow someone on social media and let them follow you, you automatically become involved in their life. If you no longer want to be involved in theirs or give them access to yours, it's okay to remove them and unfollow them.
Ghost accounts are inactive or unused online accounts that have not been deleted by the user. They shapeshift–from a neglected, forgotten or no longer accessible social media profile to an abandoned email account. Most people have an account they no longer use.
Spotting fake followers on Instagram can be challenging, but by looking out for sudden spikes in followers, inactive or low engagement followers, generic or irrelevant comments, accounts with no profile picture or bio, and accounts with numerous people following, you can identify potential fake followers.
Fake followers could hurt your credibility.
Remember the risks: these followers will probably never like or comment on a post, and if you're caught with a ton of fake followers, that could ruin your credibility with your real audience.
“Why Am I Getting Spammed by Fake Followers, Anyway?” In the case of some Instagram bots, there isn't much rhyme or reason in terms of who they target. These bots are built to get people to click on links. Making that happen is often a numbers game.
Influencers and companies often buy followers to boost their credibility, thinking that users are more likely to follow an account with 20,000 followers than 200. But you're not fooling anyone, and the users you are hoping to attract will run the other way.
Ghosting usually has a build-up, a predictable pattern. First, response times lag — a couple of hours, then half-days, then full days followed by fake excuses. You know, the “Sorry, I totally didn't see this text” or the “Sorry, I was um, at my grandmother's funeral.” Then come the delays: “Not this weekend.
When you remove a follower, they aren't notified that you've removed them. You can also block someone to get them to stop following you. People aren't notified when you block them. Learn more about blocking people.
Unfollowing accounts and removing followers are both good due to the number of accounts that can disrupt engagement with audiences. For instance, spam accounts tend to follow many people. They won't engage with your content and only take up space. Inactive accounts, too, are unnecessary.
An account with fake followers will generally display a noticeably different engagement average than usual as fake followers will generally not engage in any way, bringing down the engagement rate.
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.
From TikTok to LinkedIn, fake followers are rampant on social media, where fake influencers (and even high-profile celebrities and public figures) use them to inflate their follower lists. Marketers often go to Instagram and Twitter first to find influencers, experts, and leaders to partner with for various campaigns.