How to Identify Fake Social Media Accounts
The deceptions of fake social media accounts are getting high day by day and the issue is the primary concern for social influencers and famous personalities, as the false accounts are shown on the global mainstream media. Adweek and The New York Times have both completed several articles about social media fake and false accounts and here is a keen look at them.
The fake account issues have caused several further problems such as businesses getting lower results and deceiving followers on social media. Many marketers spent dozens of hours creating more online presence on social media, but their efforts are not getting 100% outcomes since fake accounts are there to interfere with their target audiences.
This article will help you to connect to the right person instead of the fake one. Moreover, when more people are aware about recognizing fake social media accounts, it helps social media platforms become more transparent and secure from deception.
Low Engagement and High Followers Count
It is the most apparent indication of a deception on social media or the account that enhances its followers by buying followers. Assume if an account has 1000 followers, but an old post has only 3 or 6 likes and nil comments. If the followers are organic, then the engagement will be much higher, but barely 3 or 4 likes and zero comment shows that the account has only 10 or 12 real followers. The paid followers never show engagement with the account content since they are meant only to show off.
Too Rapid Engagement Rate
Several fake account users are becoming smarter, and they can even trick you in the above indication. You might even see high engagement rates even on some fake accounts, such as the high number of likes on posts. They actually purchase even likes for their posts to make the fake account appear even more authentic.
Still, you can recognize them if you observe the account activity and engagement carefully. If the fake account posts content and within 10 to 20 seconds it receives 2000-3000 likes, then it is generally an indication of purchased likes. If the post that received rapid 2000 likes has zero comments, then it is a 100% fake account. The natural or genuine user engagement occurs a bit gradually and has a mixed ratio of both comments and likes.
Too Fewer Posts
The genuine accounts have higher counts of followers because they work hard to earn it naturally. Contrastingly, when a user buys followers, it is likely to publish fewer content since the followers were not earned. Fake accounts publish posts rarely, so if you see thousands or millions of followers but only 10-20 posts, then it is an obvious sign of a fake account.
Paused Following Count
Instagram allows you to follow a maximum of 7500 users, and the same applies to all users. The genuine accounts never reach that amount of followings, but the fake ones do. The fake accounts are likely to follow back others to create authenticity. Most of the fake accounts have higher followers due to following other fake accounts and getting followed back from them in return. This is a trick which helps accounts reach high counts of followers.
So if you see a duplicate account having close to 7500 followings, then block it, report it and carry on.
Suspicious Content Duplicate or deception accounts often possess shady content. If the account content is a mix of creativeness and dumbness, then it is a sign of a suspicious account on social media. The great content is generally stolen from websites or other social accounts. So if you see sub par quality content on the same account, then block it and move on.