How to Determine if an Influencer’s Following is Authentic

If you watch my Instastories you’ll know about a week ago I posted some graphs of different influencers’ followings and then went on to explain how you can spot authentic from inauthentic (fake) followings. In case you missed it, a. don’t let it happen again and b. authentic followings have a steady increase (or decrease) and inauthentic followings have a huge spike or loss in followers in a short period of time. Some of you may be thinking, ‘But what does that even mean?!’ Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

what is an authentic following?

An authentic following is a following that has grown organically over time and is mainly made up of real people. You know, Sally who goes to Ohio State University and works at Forever 21 part-time and Billy, an aspiring celebrity chef who works at Trader Joe’s. Real people with real jobs and real lives. This may come as a surprise to some of you but there are influencers out there who have bought their way to the top of the “food chain” if you will and who now have hundreds of thousands of followers all of whom are fake.

Thanks to the Instagram algorithm today it is extremely hard, but not impossible, to grow at an incredibly fast rate like you could, say, a few years ago. At one point I was gaining 1,000+ followers a month and now that number seems so out of reach without some kind of assistance like giveaways or collaborations (both of which are incredible for organic growth).

I digress…

So, I kind of put authentic followings into two buckets: 1. those who did little to nothing other than providing killer quality content who gained followers through word of mouth and discovery techniques like features, viral images, and collabs with other bloggers and 2. those who tried every trick in the book without actually buying fake followers (i.e. giveaways, follow for follows, hashtags, paid features on inspiration accounts, etc.). < If you’re totally lost here, don’t worry I’m working on a HUGE Instagram growth guide for the NAB resources library.

The point is an authentic following is achieved through… authenticity – no tricks, no gimmicks, just pure, organic growth from people who found your account naturally.

what is an inauthentic following?

If you haven’t guessed by now, an inauthentic following is the opposite of an authentic following, the end.

In all seriousness, an inauthentic following is one where the majority of the person’s followers are fake. Now, let me be clear in saying there is no account that is free and clear of fake followers. For some reason we all have at least a few. I remember when Instagram did a “clean” a few years ago and wiped everyone’s accounts of fake followers and I lost about 500-1,000 followers, which was pretty upsetting because of course you want to think your account has the best, most authentic followers in the world but that’s just not the case.

Usually people who have inauthentic followings have done so intentionally (aka they bought followers). When you buy followers you usually have some deep insecurity within yourself and you’re desperately seeking approval from others. You put your worth on your social media following which is scary because what will these people do if Instagram suddenly disappears? What will they do when the next big thing comes along and there is no way to cheat the system?

Part of me pities these people because, like, how sad, right? And the other part of me is pissed because these inauthentic influencers are ruining it for the rest of us, like come on guys, we’re supposed to be in this together! #ugh

Anyway, this is a hot topic, so hot that brands are slowly but surely catching on, doing their due diligence, and running “background checks” on the influencers they choose to work with so there is no disconnect when the stats don’t match up.

So while I do love all the tools coming out that help determine whether an influencer’s following is authentic, some are more accurate than others and you really just have to keep your eyes open and watch what’s going on.

fohr card

Fohr Card is all the rage lately and for good reason: James Nord has developed a system that helps bloggers authenticate their following based on their secret “Follower Health algorithm”, which any other time I would be skeptical of, but James Nord is super credible and works with some of the biggest names in the industry and not to toot my own horn but I’m verified so I know it’s legit.

Not only does Fohr Card tell you if you’re authentic or not but it goes so far as to break down just how many ghost (inactive, lurking, or dead accounts), bots, and active followers you have, which is pretty cool and more accurate than any of the other platforms I’ve seen. Two thumbs up for Fohr.

alexa rank

Alexa Rank is focussed more on the ranking of blogs/websites. It measures how your blog is ranked across the web and things can get pretty tricky here. Some (most, if we’re being honest) influencers who have hundreds of thousands of followers have a super low ranking or no ranking at all. Yikes!

This means they don’t invest too much time in their actual blog and these bloggers are usually strictly Insta-influencers and kind of just have a blog to call themselves bloggers. On the other hand, some of the OG bloggers have traded the whole blog thing for seemingly bigger and better things like becoming designers or business owners, which is fine, but my whole thing is, don’t neglect the hand that feeds you, ya know?

So anyway, someone who has a high (which turns out to be a low number) ranking, you can probably assume has an authentic following because your blog traffic and social media following go hand in hand unless of course you neglect your blog like some of the influencers we just talked about.

I always include my Alex Rank in my media kit because I think there is something to be said for bloggers who can actually drive traffic to their blogs while maintaining a social media presence. Trust me, this whole blogging thing ain’t easy, honey! So I think showing you have that little extra something to offer goes a long way.

people map

People Map is a less talked about API (tech savvy term for application program interface) influencer marketing tool mainly meant for brands, versus Fohr Card which caters to both brands and influencers.

People Map also doesn’t verify you like Fohr Card or Alexa Rank does but you can really wow brands by suggesting they track your campaign performance using People Map. Sharing you know the technologies out there lets brands know you know your stuff and knowledge is power my friends.

People not only analyzes campaign data, but it analyzes influencers’ overall profiles and shows the average engagement of any account you search. However, the fact that you can still buy engagement (likes, comments, etc.) can throw brands off using People Map. I’m not quite sure how People Map handles situations like that but a saving grace is that some influencers who are buying followers aren’t buying likes or comments which raises, or should raise, a huge red flag for brands, so there’s that.

One thing People Map does do for influencers though, is allowing you to send over your collaboration contracts to make sure everything is kosher. Unless you’re a huge blogger raking in thousands of dollars a month, I’m not sure this feature is worth it since they charge $150 per contract, but it’s nice to know there is someone who can look it over for you.

socialblade

SocialBlade is my ultimate secret weapon. It’s easy and free to use. However, I have to admit that it can be a bit misleading. Let me explain…

Back in December, my #womancrushwednesday Arielle from Something Navy gave me a shout out on her Instastories and in turn I gained 5,000+ followers overnight. Crazy, I know. Well this doesn’t sit well with SocialBlade because, I’m assuming they think I bought followers since I gained so many in such a short period of time (a key indicator of having an inauthentic following), even though I didn’t.

In addition, I participated in a loop giveaway which had a similar effect: my following increased rapidly in a few days. Both of these scenarios are not ideal for tools like SocialBlade because my rating, which should be an A+, is actually a C+ which I compared to an influencer who I know has bought followers and we rank the same, which is v disappointing because there’s no comparison.

So while I always defer to SocialBlade for a quick, easy reference to determine an authentic following, I take the platform with a grain of salt and consider possibilities of giveaways and things of that nature but for the most part they are pretty accurate.

social blue book

Social Blue Book is not related to SocialBlade despite how it sounds. Social Blue Book was one of the first tools I found to determine my social media’s value and worth. It’s basically the Kelley Blue Book for influencers and tells you how much a collaboration with you is worth based on your following, engagement, views, etc. And it’s price points are something I stick to today.

It’s way easier to give a brand your rates based on an outside source versus your own opinion of yourself, like “Hi my rate for 1 Instagram post is $1,000 and I have 200 followers. Thanks!” Sorry, no that’s not going to work.

And guess what? If your followers are fake, Social Blue Book will point that out, too by showing a disconnect between your followers and engagement rate.

Have you used any of these tools?! Tell me in the comments!

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