Fake followers: which celebrities are top of the list?

Fake followers: which celebrities are top of the list?

It happens to the best of families: it is not only the small, niche influencers that are suspected of having fake Instagram followers, but also some of the most famous, established ones have actually significantly smaller audience than one thinks! 

Fasthosts, a big web hosting company based in the UK, ran social audits using Hype Auditor and weighted the results against the number of biggest celebrities’ Instagram accounts, to reveal the percentage of fake followers.

Top of the list is Kylie Jenner with 40% of her Instagram followers being fake: that is almost 90 million fake followers!

Rank Influencer & Instagram Handle Category No Instagram Followers Engagement rate % % of suspicious accounts % of fake followers
1 Kylie Jenner@kyliejenner Fashion, Beauty, Modeling 223.5M 3.5% 28.50% 40%
2 Kendall Jenner@kendalljenner Modelling, Fashion, Lifestyle 157.6M 3.58% 27.20% 37%
3 Blake Lively@blakelively Film 28.3M 7.55% 27% 37%
4 Justin Bieber@justinbieber Music 168.7M 0.37% 26.90% 37%
5 Rihanna@badgirlriri Music, Beauty 92.8M 1.75% 26.20% 36%
6 Zayn Malik@zayn Music 39.8M 6.56% 26.10% 35%
7 Kim Kardashian West@kimkardashian Family, Fashion, Lifestyle 212.3M 1.32% 25.60% 34%
8 LeBron James@kingjames Sport 81.7M 1.70% 25.20% 34%
9 Kourtney Kardashian@kourtneykardash Lifestyle 115M 1.14% 25.10% 34%
10 Bad Bunny@badbunnypr Music 31.7M 8.90% 25% 33%
11 Champagne Papi@champagnepapi Music 77.6M 1.77% 24.80% 33%
12 Addison Rae@addisonraee Beauty, Lifestyle 37.1M 7.28% 24.50% 32%
13 Gigi Hadid@gigihadid Modelling, Lifestyle 65M 5.53% 23.90% 31%
14 Tom Holland@tomholland2013 Film 43M 13.64% 23.90% 31%
15 Ursula Corbero@ursololita Film, Modelling 20.9M 13.21% 23.50% 31%
16 Neymar Jr@neymarjr Sport 148.1M 1.19% 23.40% 31%
17 Kylian [email protected] Sport 48.9M 3.92% 23.40% 31%
18 Travis Scott@travisscott Music 38.4M 6.97% 23.30% 30%
19 Zlatan Ibrahimovic@iamzlatanibrahimovic Sport 47M 1.99% 22.60% 29%
20 Paulo Dybala@paulodybala Sport 41.3M 3.36% 22.50% 29%
21 Cardi B@iamcardib Music 86.8M 1.95% 21.60% 28%
22 Madelaine Petsch@madelame Film 23.8M 11.27% 21.40% 27%
23 Beyonce@beyonce Music, Fashion 170.5M 1.50% 21.30% 27%
24 Conor McGregor@thenotoriousmma Fitness 39.6M 2.50% 21.20% 27%
25 Ariana Grande@arianagrande Music 228.9M 2.47% 21% 27%

 

Instagram, and for that matter all other social networks, claim that the scammers are always one step ahead in circumventing the system, and that they will never be able to completely eliminate the fake followers, thus leaving the job to brands and the professional influencers to trace and eliminate the fake ones in their account.

It is important to remember that it is not just people wanting to inflate their follower lists who have fake followers. Virtually everybody on Instagram has some. This includes genuine influencers (and probably your own account).

This is why most other influencer marketing businesses rely on online tools to detect fraudulent accounts—and influencers who profit from them. All of these tools (like for instance Social Audit Pro, IG Audit, Hypr, HypeAuditor, and Famoid) differ slightly in the way they operate, but the basic idea is the same: they’re all looking for deviations from the norm.

Another metric that marketing companies are looking at is a potential influencer’s engagement rate: a quality influencer will have engagement (likes and comments) of about 1.5-3% of their followers, e.g., if an influencer has 100,000 followers, you should see 1,500 – 3,000 likes and comments (combined) on an average post. An engagement rate of 1 percent is okay for many influencers, depending on their niche. Engagement rates well above this range though are suspicious, as it can be due to artificial engagement techniques, such as being part of an engagement group (influencers work together, commenting and liking each other’s posts to boost their statistics).

Moonshot News is an independent European news website for all IT, Media and Advertising professionals, powered by women and with a focus on driving the narrative for diversity, inclusion and gender equality in the industry.

Our mission is to provide top and unbiased information for all professionals and to make sure that women get their fair share of voice in the news and in the spotlight!

We produce original content, news articles, a curated calendar of industry events and a database of women IT, Media and Advertising associations.

Moonshot.news

Moonshot.news

[email protected]

Follow
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

    Do you want an experienced opinion on a job issue?
    Moonshot Manager is here to answer!

      Moonshot community sharing thoughts and ideas, in a anonymous, safe environment.