As social networks like Twitter have exploded in popularity, so has the rise of fake accounts, bot accounts, fake followers, and spam accounts.
To grow your Twitter following, it is crucial to identify and remove fake followers for a clean and valuable account.
If you’re trying to build a strong presence on social media, having a large number of followers can seem like a good thing. However, not all followers are created equal, and some may even be fake or fraudulent. In order to determine if your Twitter followers are genuine, there are a few key things you can do.
This article will show you how to find these accounts and zap them out of existence faster than you can say “fake followers!”
Let’s begin.
It’s a bot time!
Why the Twitter bots exist
The rise in fake accounts, bot accounts, and spam accounts on social media platforms like Twitter is influenced by various factors.
Among these are:
- The desire to gain more visibility, followers, and monetization opportunities by manipulating a system that rewards popularity.
- An attempt to spread misinformation or propaganda, influence public opinion and advance a political agenda.
- The need to artificially inflate engagement metrics, such as likes and retweets, so that social media content appears more popular or engaging than it is.
Although hard to quantify their impact, fake followers and bot accounts pose difficulties and threaten the integrity of Twitter.
Not the droids you’re looking for!
How much of a problem are bot followers?
Check your follower count against your engagement levels; if you have many followers but little engagement, it indicates potential fake followers.
SimilarWeb partially confirmed this concern in a survey, in which they estimated that 20%-29% of US Twitter content was generated by bots mimicking human interactions. They were careful to add that this traffic came from only 5% of monetizable accounts, a claim hotly disputed by Musk.
Another way to check for fake followers is to use a tool like Twitter Audit. This tool analyzes your followers and assigns each account a score based on its likelihood of being genuine. You can use this information to get a better sense of how many of your followers are real.
Of course, not all bots are bad, and Twitter even provides an API for bot programming, acknowledging that bots have legitimate uses.
Fake followers deteriorate the overall Twitter experience, so it is recommended to delete them if found on your account.
How to spot fake followers
Inflated follower counts
The first thing to consider is how many people are following the account. Fake followers tend to inflate their follower numbers instead of gaining real followers.
If you have a profile with thousands of followers but few retweets or likes, it’s likely to be a fake account.
A poor-quality Twitter profile
Bot accounts often lack a proper profile picture, sometimes borrowing one from another social media platform.
Manually reviewing your followers can help identify fake accounts with no profile pictures, few followers, little activity, or random and nonsensical tweets.
Duplicate Tweets
Repetitive comments or generic remarks over an extended period are common signs of fake or spam accounts.
No engagement
Fake followers don’t engage with you as a regular Twitter user would. They’re automatically following and unfollowing users to increase their follower count. Of course, there’s a small chance this could be an account that’s rarely used, but if that’s the case, you have nothing to lose by unfollowing it.
Inactive Accounts
Another potential sign of fake followers is a sudden spike in your follower count. This could indicate that someone has purchased fake followers for your account, rather than you gaining followers organically.
If you do find that you have a significant number of fake followers, it’s important to take action to address the situation. You can start by blocking and reporting any obvious fake accounts, and then focus on building genuine engagement with your remaining followers.
Fortunately, that’s the subject of our next section!
The best way to spot fake Twitter accounts, bots, and bot followers
Trying to figure out which accounts are real and which are fake on your crowded Twitter timeline can be a chore. Thankfully, there are a few tools that can help.
Here are two of the best:
TwitterAudit
TwitterAudit is the perfect tool to scan your Twitter account, analyze your follower list, find fake, inactive, or bot followers, and provide a quality score for each of them.
Pros
- Easily find inactive followers, fake followers & bot followers.
- Excellent Twitter account analytics, follower & friend insights.
- RSS, article finder, and scheduling features for auto-posting tweets.
- Comprehensive search functions.
Cons
- Only one free audit is available.
Available: iOS, Desktop.
TwitterAudit: TwitterAudit
Circleboom Twitter
For real-time insights and account management.
Regularly engaging with your followers, responding to comments and messages, sharing content, and joining industry conversations are important tactics.
Utilize the built-in tools to delete tweets, likes, retweets, or even your entire Twitter archive.
It’s also a good idea to periodically revisit your follower count and engagement levels to ensure that you are continuing to attract genuine followers and weed out any fake accounts that may have slipped through the cracks.
Pros
- Delete tweets, retweets, and likes.
- Find fake Twitter followers, bot followers, and spam accounts.
- Filter your followers and active followers using search filters.
- Search tool to view follower stats, inactive followers,
- Schedule and auto-post tweets.
Cons
- The free tier is limited to one account. Pro access is $17.99 a month.
- No ability to mass remove followers.
Available: iOS, Desktop.
Link: Circleboom Twitter
FAQ
Why do I get fake followers on Twitter?
One final note: it’s important to remember that not all fake followers are created equal. Some fake accounts are harmless bots or spam accounts that won’t do any harm to your brand, while others may be malicious actors trying to damage your reputation. It’s important to stay vigilant and take action as needed to protect your brand and your online presence.
Ultimately, the key to building a successful Twitter following is to focus on quality over quantity. By attracting genuine followers who are interested in your content and engaging with them in a meaningful way, you can build a strong and loyal audience that will help you achieve your goals on the platform.
Should I delete fake followers?
If you are trying to build a large audience quickly, then deleting fake followers can be a good way to boost your engagement metrics and demonstrate social proof to potential new followers.
Can I stop fake Twitter followers from following me?
So if you’re concerned about fake followers on Twitter, don’t worry – there are plenty of tools and strategies you can use to ensure that your followers are real and engaged. With a little effort and attention, you can build a strong presence on this popular social media platform and connect with your target audience in a meaningful way.