Social networks have created a popularity hysteria among the masses and this has led to widespread competitions among the common folks who are looking for cheat sheets to increase their Twitter followers count. Richard Roeper, a film critic for Chicago-based Sun-Times, was suspended for buying 25,000 fake Twitter followers, following an investigation by the New York times that concluded that this practice is widespread.
Anyone, I repeat, ANYONE can purchase the popularity for themselves at just 1 cent per follower. Companies like DEVUMI provide package deals for increasing the follower counts of brands, marketing agencies, and even individual users. This trend has created a toxic environment on Social Media and has put a strain on the information credibility of platforms.
Twitter is aware of this issue, however, taking milestone steps in an issue such as this has its own repercussions. In 2018, Twitter started a massive fake follower purge that spans across continents. Millions of fake accounts were wiped out. Twitter’s own handle lost about 7.7 Million followers.
Why do fake followers even exist?
A higher follower count gives you the illusion of popularity. An account with a huge number of followers is always poised to receive the highest attention as their audience thinks that they are genuine and send out popular and resonating content. Although it is highly unethical, brands are constantly working to project an image of popularity and pretend that they are more popular, than they really are.
The sale or purchase of any number of followers on Twitter is against the terms of service of the platform and can directly lead to an account suspension. Whether a business purchases followers to make it seem more genuine than it really is or a journalist purchasing followers for meeting the targets set by their employer, both are categorized as potential fraud.
How to Identify fake followers?
The quickest way to identify fake followers by just looking over their profiles. Many fake accounts regularly post out spammy links and use hashtags excessively. Fake accounts also have a messed up followers to following ratio. Suppose an account is following more than 1,000 accounts and is followed only by 15 accounts, it is very likely that the account is fake.
These fake follower identifying metrics may seem accurate, however, applying these steps to, say, a couple thousand followers is impractical and there are excellent platforms available over the web to serve this purpose. One such platform is FollowerAudit.
Identifying fake followers using FollowerAudit
FollowerAudit can help you in identifying fake followers from your own account or any public Twitter account. Its advanced AI driven algorithms can analyze millions of Twitter accounts and provide you with a list of fake followers. This can prove to be extremely beneficial and convenient when you suspect the presence of fake followers in your account or any Twitter account.
Let’s have a look at the metrics provided by FollowerAudit.
- Classify inactive, active and fake followers
FollowerAudit can classify entire followers list into fake, inactive and active account categories.
A person may have created their account just to keep up with the latest trends and follow up with the latest trends. Is that account fake? Absolutely not.
FollowerAudit AI driven algorithms intelligently classifies those accounts in the inactive category and lists potentially fake accounts separately. This makes the auditing extremely targeted and precise.
2. Followers Quality Graph
FollowerAudit generates a followers quality graph by analyzing each and every follower in the targeted account. Each follower is awarded a score that is rated out of 10 and users with similar score are grouped together in the graph.
Just a single glance on the graph can provide you with insights related to the follower quality of any targeted Twitter account.
3. FA Score
FA score may be considered as an assessment report of the targeted Twitter account. This score is calculated on the basis of various proprietary parameters and displays the authenticity of the Twitter account.
4. Detailed Follower Audit
A detailed follower audit provides a host of information related to the targeted Twitter account.
- Followers inactive for more than 1 year: Followers that haven’t exhibited any activity since the past 1 year.
- Followers with less than 5 tweets: Followers that have sent out less than 5 tweets in their entire Twitter presence.
- Followers with less than 5 followers: Follower accounts that have less than 5 followers of their own.
- Followers with default profile image: Followers that have the default Twitter profile picture in their accounts.
- Followers with no bios: Followers that have not entered any bio details in their accounts.
- Followers with uneven followers following ratio: Followers that have a huge disparity between their followers and following ratio.
These details can prove to be extremely beneficial for you in analyzing the follower quality of any targeted public Twitter account.
Click here to audit any Twitter account using FollowerAudit.
Conclusion
The fake Twitter follower epidemic is real. There is no one questioning this fact. As the fake follower operators up their game, it is time for us to become self-aware of this widespread issue and take the mantle in our own hands. FollowerAudit can help you in curbing this menace and rebuilding Twitter as an authentic source of information.
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