To steal from one of my favorite campaigns out on the market today, “Wouldn’t it be great if everyone meant what they said?” But thanks to the Citi Double Cash Card TV spot we laugh at the blatant realization that we can’t trust that everyone will do just that. I’m in my early 30’s which means I’m learning that true friends are highly valuable and there is a fickle level to any friendship, even the best of them. If that’s the case for friendship what can be said about social followers? For the most popular visual platform, gaining true quality followers is more difficult than you think. My belief is if you like my feed wonderful thank you for your follow! But if you are just here to be another fake Instagram follower please waste your time somewhere else.
Why do I attract fake Instagram followers? Is it my content?
Maybe maybe not. I have on rare occasion purposely unfollowed a user because the account bombarded me with annoying terrible content but for the purposes of this post I lean on the side of no it’s not you, it’s them. My personal content philosophy follows quality over quantity which is why this post is not just another P.O.S. out there to get you clicking over to my site. That said, Instagram is a visual platform, and there are millions of photographers out there with better skills and better lenses and their followership is by far superior to my own. Keep in mind no matter how high the resolution is on an image it doesn’t matter much as the system will automatically resize it down to 1350px high and 1080px wide. I admit this and I’m good with it, but I don’t think that my content is crap nor am I trying to be biased. Since I’ve re-focused my efforts I’ve gained far more true followers than I had in the past simply because I’m delivering consistent content that is relevant to the users interested in my product. Plus its worth saying that part of Instagram’s vision is to elevate the average user, not the power photographer. In fact Instagram states this by explaining, “Mobile photos always come out looking mediocre. Our awesome looking filters transform your photos into professional-looking snapshots.”
There are so many ways to get Instagram followers nowadays that are screaming facade such as buying already established accounts, falling into one of those “Want F0llower$ Now” profile scams (which I always report as such), or one of the many others. Lucrative or not – I prefer to do it the old fashioned way – by earning my followers. Maybe I am a traditionalist, or maybe I don’t have the capital to invest in such strategies, either way if you’re like me or a budding business with no budget, hopefully this article helps you out a little.
I’ll follow you! But only for a second…
Ever wonder why your followership fluctuates so much? Think Field of Dreams, or Wayne’s World II, whatever fits into your world best (I love both) “If you build it they will come,” or in Instagram’s case “If I follow they will come.” And that is exactly what the modern day fake marketer on Instagram is assuming, and once they get your attention and your follow tap, they release you right back by unfollowing days later hoping you won’t notice.
There’s even automated technology for this and everyone’s favorite digital trolls – bots. Some even dedicate time to following as many users as they can in an hour and let those unfollow bots do the rest of the work. Instagram does have hourly quotas that threat deactivation but as long as they stay under these numbers they generally can keep practicing this tactic. This is exactly why I say for the purposes of this post, no its not necessarily your content.
If you’re a casual user you likely won’t notice or care if someone unfollows you, but isn’t it annoying that your followers can be so fake? It irritated me so much I caved and got the App InstaReport to see who would put this much effort into the whole process and what I learned was that its far harder to gain true loyal followers than you may think.
Tracking Fake Instagram Followers
InstaReport Dashboard
My public profile is relatively humble at this point since I recently switched from being a primarily casual user, assuming a base of friends and family, to focusing more on my travel adventures, but the screenshot gives you an idea of InstaReport features. It shows:
- Followers Gained
- Followers Lost
- Profile Stalkers
- Users Blocking You
- Followers You Don’t Follow Back
- Followers Not Following You Back and more
Like many services out there its on a freemium basis so you can download the app then see basic information like followers gained and lost, but then pay up for advanced features like profile stalkers and engagement metrics. It depends on how irritating this whole phenomenon is to you. The one thing I’d caution is that it does advertise price on a monthly basis at first $1.99 a month for a year’s subscription I believe with higher prices for shorter periods of times, however when you do purchase they actually charge you all at once. In other words its not a pay as you go, cancel anytime deal.
What types of accounts do this follow/unfollow method?
All kinds really but there are some patterns I noticed like accounts that promote a local business from the geotag or location that you select to show where you were when you took the picture. They probably found you from one of the million hashtags you embedded at the bottom of your post then targeted you as a potential local customer. For example I often post at least one picture per day from a new destination, whether domestic or international, sometimes promoting a new travelblog, and on one instance I marked that I was in Seattle, the kickoff destination for my next trip. Shortly after @SeattlePulse started following me saying “Hi! Look at me!,” I checked it out, it looked cool so I followed back. But then thanks to my trusty app, I find out days later they are no longer interested in me and unfollowed hoping I wouldn’t notice. Well then fine I’ll breakup with you via tap too, you did not earn my followership.
If you do decide to download it and use it for its full potential, you’ll probably have many moments of “well that’s interesting” because you can also see when people unlike or delete comments from your posts. Most of the time its profiles being deactivated but every now and then the activity is intriguing. It did help in one instance when I notified a member of my family that her account had been hacked before she even knew. In any case, what this tool really helped me do is play the game right back to those fake followers.
As i said, I wish everyone would just say what they mean, like the dang credit card commercial, so I don’t give into the tactic by toying with other users, I simply give the sass right back to the fake Instagram followers by giving them the same courtesy they give me. It provides a small nudge of satisfaction that their little scam doesn’t work on me – whether they care or not. Try it. You’ll see.
