Instagram cracks down on fake engagement

Say goodbye to wannabe influencers, fake likes and spammy comments

Getting likes and comments have become more important than ever, due to the rise of social media influencers. Without large followings or the substantial amount of likes per post, they are no longer influential to their followers or brands.

Instagram has been shutting down third-party sites and apps like Instagress, InstaPlus, and PeerBoost. Apps such as these have been violating Instagram’s Community Guidelines and Terms of Use.

Hundreds of apps are still out there for you to download and increase your following by paying for likes. Often they function by charging for likes or for every post you like you gain coins to spend on more likes.

Although likes can be a good indicator of whether or not a user is popular, don't be fooled. These apps help wannabe influencers to get thousands of spammy comments and likes to give the illusion they have influence. All they need to do is pay for the number of likes or comments they want, and a bot takes care of the rest. Therefore Instagram is on a mission to ensure their platform has genuine and real engagement.

Taking the investigation further, it has been reported that Instagram is “shadow banning” accounts. This means profiles will be banned without the user knowing. From their perspective, everything seems normal, but nobody can see the photos, comments or videos they’re posting. These changes include accounts using spammy hashtags such as #like4like or #follow4follow, will not be visible in search or on the explore tab.

What can we learn from this?

Before working with or following influencers look for the key indicators that their account might not be genuine:

• How many followers do they have? Compare this to the number of posts. If an account had less than 100 posts and has thousands of followers, this could be an indicator they have bought followers. Unless the content is amazing, this would otherwise be difficult to achieve.
• If an account with thousands of followers is getting barely any comments, this is a sign that the followers could be fake.
• Look at the people who are liking their photos. Do they look fake or spammy? Fake accounts often don't have a profile photo or a real name.
• Do the comments on their photos look spammy? Often these comments will have nothing to do with the photo or just comment asking for a follow

Have you noticed the number of fake influencers increasing? Do you think Instagram shutting down these apps will have an impact? Let us know your thoughts by tweeting us.