How to tell if an instagram account is a bot

How Can You Tell if an Instagram Account Is Fake?

A favorite among influencers and brands, Instagram brought together nearly 1.3 billion monthly active users in 2021. With a predominantly young target audience, the social network created by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systromn—and later acquired by Facebook—now tends to be rife with online scams. Find out how to spot these scams and protect yourself with our guide to fake Instagram accounts and other social media scams.

What kinds of scams are out there on Instagram?

81% of account holders say they use Instagram to find new products and services. For cybercriminals, Instagram is simply another online space where they can propagate scams. The most common scams found on the platform tend to be:

Phishing. This often comes in the form of a private message from an account you’ve never interacted with before, prompting you to click on a link. The aim here is to obtain your private data (such as your login details) via a virus attached to the link—and then hack your account.
False offers for brand collaborations. So-called “brands” will sometimes send influencers fake collaboration offers with the goal of getting ahold of their bank details. Sometimes this type of scam will also look like an offer to take part in a survey or competition, to trick users into clicking on an external link.
Fake competitions, fake loan offers at competitive rates and other “miracle” investments, too-good-to-be-true job offers, and attempted credit card fraud. These scams follow the same principle as fake collaborations—tricking victims into believing that they’ve won some kind of prize or perk. Once again, the scammers are actually trying to get hold of people’s money or personal data.
Emotional scams. This type of online scam is extremely common, and exists well beyond Instagram. The tactic involves getting in touch with someone, and building a sense of trust and closeness. The cybercriminal then requests money to help with an emergency—like getting a visa, paying for their trip to join a loved one, or helping out their family.

In most of these cases, users are contacted through a fake Instagram account. This is why it’s so important to know how to spot a fake account—so you can protect yourself against them.

How can you tell if an Instagram account is fake?

Are you having doubts as to whether that Instagram profile is real or not? Here are a few clues to help you recognize a fake Instagram account:

The account follows substantially more accounts than it has followers—or it has no followers and isn’t following anyone
Their profile description seems too vague
The account has no profile picture
The account has only published a few posts, or none at all
Posts are mainly about promotions or “competitions”
The account claims to be a celebrity, but there’s no blue tick next to their profile
The account name looks like other existing accounts, but a few characters or letters have been changed
The account name seems odd

Many cybercriminals use fake Instagram account generators. As their goal is to create hundreds of accounts in a short amount of time, they don’t have time to fine tune or curate them. Given this, it’s usually easy to spot fake accounts if you look closely.

Identity theft on Instagram

Thanks to phishing, it’s all too easy for scammers to collect enough information about you—including your name, surname, photos, date of birth, password, or e-mail address—in order to steal your identity and create an account that passes as yours. This is called identity theft.

The main purpose of identity theft on Instagram is to scam the followers of the person whose identity the cybercriminal has stolen. This is why it’s so important to report these fake accounts, so that the platform can remove them quickly.

If you receive a private message from someone posing as a person or a brand, asking you to click on a link—whatever you do, don’t click. Instead, check the profile for any signs of a scam, and try contacting your friend, or the brand, by another means to make sure it’s really their account.

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How to report and delete a fake Instagram account

Here are the steps you can take to report a fake Instagram account:

Click on the profile
Click the three dots on the right
Select Report, and then follow the instructions

You can also email Instagram at [email protected]. Don’t worry, reports are always anonymous, so your identity won’t be revealed to the owner of the fake Instagram account.

Be aware, however, that to get an Instagram account deleted or content deemed inappropriate, the account must be in violation of community rules. These include:

Sharing unwanted content
Posting images of a sexual nature
Spreading hateful/racist/violent ideas or symbols
Practicing bullying or harassment
Selling illegal goods
Violating intellectual property rights
Sharing content relating to suicide or self-harm

Instagram’s teams will then check to see if the reported account is in violation of its terms of service. They can take different actions, ranging from a “shadowban” (restricting the account’s visibility), to deleting a post, or the account itself.

How to report identity theft on Instagram

Only the victim of identity theft can report it to Instagram. To do this, you’ll need to fill out this form. You’ll be asked to fill in your name, email address, the name of the fake account, and provide a photo of your ID along with a description of the situation. You’ll then receive a confirmation email. After that, the Instagram team will then verify the identity—which can take several days or weeks—before deleting the account.

In addition, just like on Facebook, you can also file an identity theft complaint on Instagram. Identity theft is an offense (article 226-4-1 of the Criminal Code) and is punishable by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of €15,000. The law specifies: “This offense is punishable by the same penalties when it is committed on a public online communication network. ” The punishment for identity theft on Instagram is thus the same as for “conventional” identity theft.

How to recognize N26’s Instagram account

With online scams on the rise again, N26 is keeping an eye on social networks, especially Instagram. As is the case with many brands, malicious people can impersonate us and start following you if your Instagram account is public—and if your account is private, they can send you a follow request or a direct message.

First, be aware that N26 will never send you a private message on Instagram out of the blue, unless you have contacted us for support. As explained above, caution is key in all your interactions on social networks. We recommend staying vigilant and never clicking links sent by suspicious accounts.

N26 has an official Instagram account in France: @N26FR, blue-tick verified. The account has numerous followers, and all the content posted is in line with our brand design and identity. We’ve been posting regularly since June 2019, when we created our Instagram account.

Note that the only other accounts we have are our English and Italian accounts, @N26 and @N26IT.

So if a fake Instagram account masquerades as us, see if:

It has just been created
It has very few followers
It publishes posts that receive only a few likes or comments
It posts content that doesn’t meet our design standards
The posts are full of errors and/or are infrequent
It’s advertising too-good-to-be-true offers for loans or financial investments

If you’ve seen such an account, be wary. And if in doubt, report the account to Instagram.

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Tips & Tools for Detecting Fake Followers on Instagram

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Caroline Forsey

Updated: October 10, 2022

Published: August 23, 2018

In 2017, businesses acquired an average $7.65 ROI for every dollar spent on influencer marketing. Nowadays, influencer marketing is an indisputably viable marketing method.

However, it can be tricky to know who to trust when you're choosing an Instagram influencer for your next marketing campaign. You don't want to use an influencer who doesn't have real followers or a fully engaged audience. This would be a detriment to your marketing budget, but even worse, it could put your brand's integrity at risk.

Fortunately, there are some quick and easy methods to determine whether an account has fake followers on Instagram. Once you've collected a list of potential influencers for your next Instagram marketing campaign, take a look at some of our tips and tools for detecting fake followers or bots, so you can ensure you're only working with the best.

Rise of the Instagram Bot

In the last few years, it has become popular practice for some people to buy bots to increase their followers on social media accounts -- in January 2018, The New York Times published "The Follower Factory," to highlight this shady tactic. Essentially, someone will buy a bot, and the bot will like and comment on posts with a specific hashtag, or follow people with the hope that those people will then follow them back.

You don't want to pay an influencer if she uses a bot to collect followers. A bot might increase her follower count, but her audience probably isn't truly engaged or authentic. Plus, using an insincere influencer could throw your business's integrity into question.

To figure out if an Instagram account uses a bot, consider these five tips:

Take a look at the account's comments on other people's posts. If the comments are repeatedly generic, i.e. "Pretty pic," its a sign there's a bot behind the profile.
Check if the account has tons of followers, but terrible content. Trust your judgment -- if your influencer has 10,000 followers but only uploads below-average posts, her followers might not be legitimate.
See if after you follow the account, they unfollow you. If you follow your influencer but then she unfollows you, it could be a bot, cleaning up her follow-to-follower ratio.
Be wary if they follow you again after you don't follow them back. A bot is programmed to repeatedly follow and unfollow you, until you return the favor.
Consider them a bot if they follow thousands of accounts, but only have a few followers in return. If the ratio seems way off, its likely a bot.

Ultimately, using your judgment is the best way to determine whether an account uses a bot. If the account takes actions you can't necessarily justify, its likely because it's not a human behind the screen.

How to Conduct an Instagram Audit to Detect Fake Followers

There are a few different Instagram auditing tools out there to quickly scan your influencer's account, and provide statistics regarding their authenticity and engagement score (i.e. how often their audience actually comments or likes a post). Let's take a look at three now.

1. IG Audit

Price: Free

IG Audit has a nondescript user interface, but it does the trick -- for public accounts, that is. Most influencers already have a public account, in which case, you simply enter their username into IG Audit's search box and they'll provide you with an estimated real to fake follower ratio. Built by a former NASA Scientist, the tool randomly scans 200 followers -- based on those followers, it gives the Instagram account a score out of 100. For instance, I scanned Rebecca Kufrin, America's newest Bachelorette, and she received a real follower score of 93%.

2. FakeCheck.co

Price: $1 per credit to unlock information

FakeCheck.co analyzes Instagram accounts by collecting data regarding the account followers' engagement level. As they rationalize, "If the resulting ratio for likes and comments based on the number of follower is outside the industry standard, it is likely that the account has paid Instagram followers". The site is user-friendly, and offers additional information, such as the top ten Instagram social engagement accounts from the past 30 days. However, unlike IG Audit, you'll need to pay to unlock information. Fortunately, the cost is low, starting at only one dollar. For instance, I scanned Taylor Swift's Instagram account, but I'm unable to see average likes or comments without paying for it.

3. Social Audit Pro

Price: $5 for 5,000 followers, $20 for 20,000 followers

Social Audit Pro is a paid service, but you get your money's worth. They offer useful analytics about other public accounts on Instagram, and also provide a cleanup tool to remove any of your followers that might've been flagged as fake or dormant. The cost is reasonable, and you can use the tool to compare your Instagram influencers and fairly determine how many people they're truly reaching and engaging.

Remember, fake followers can't become real customers, so it's critical you find influencers who can connect your business with the right people. Take the time to collect data and thoroughly examine Instagram accounts before choosing an influencer, so you know you're not inadvertently getting involved in disreputable social media tactics.

Topics: Instagram Marketing

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How to recognize bots in your Instagram account and remove them - Travelpayouts Blog

Why is it important to regularly clean your profile from bots and spammers among subscribers?

Many novice Instagram users do not pay attention to bots in their followers, or even promote their account by attracting bots.
It would seem, but what is it? After all, with a large number of subscribers, the account looks more solid. And who would guess that most of them are bots and spammers, no one will rummage through thousands of subscribers, checking everyone. nine0006

This is an erroneous opinion, which very often ruins accounts that begin their lives.

With the current Instagram algorithms, the number of followers is not directly proportional to how actively the account will be promoted by the platform. Only the percentage of active people from the total is important. That is, if you have 1,000 followers, and only 50-60 of them are active, Instagram will rarely recommend you to people, and your posts will be at the bottom of the feed.

The activity indicator on Instagram is called ER (Engagement Rate), or engagement rate. It is considered very simple - the sum of likes and comments on the last publication is divided by the number of subscribers and multiplied by 100%. If you want a more extensive analysis, then take the arithmetic average of the last 10-15 posts. nine0006

The more inactive subscribers you have, the worse the ER. And bots are definitely not active subscribers.

Look at the screenshots below: after cleaning from bots, the percentage of accounts that saw publications increases.

Also, cleaning from bots has a positive effect on actions with posts. The more live audience sees your post, the more actions are performed in relation to it.

How to detect the presence of bots

You need to carefully monitor your statistics. You can do this using special services, or you can switch to business account mode and open statistics on Instagram itself. nine0006

Pay special attention to reach and subscription growth. If it happens in sharp jerks, then most likely someone winds up bots on your account. This is what some unscrupulous competitors do when they want to lower someone's ER and thereby lower him in the top.

If you actively use mass following as a means of promotion, then keep track of which subscribers come to you. It is better to sort out all suspicious ones in a timely manner so that they do not accumulate and do not have time to seriously affect the statistics. It is better to use not mass following, but mass liking and mass looking. The result will not be so noticeable, but there will be more live subscribers. nine0006

How can you recognize a bot?

No avatar, non-original nickname, empty or closed profile. Individually, this may not mean anything, but if the three points match, then you probably have a bot.
Comments with advertising. If someone writes newsletters under your posts, then you can be sure that this is done by a spam bot. The stories of such commentators about how they started earning millions by clicking on the link are nonsense. Clean these up as soon as possible. nine0031
Some business accounts use mass following to build an audience. These are not bots, but they bring no more benefits. The best solution would be to unsubscribe them from yourself, ridding the profile of the "dead weight".

Below is an example of a suspicious account. So many subscribers and subscriptions, but the profile is empty. Isn't it strange?

Analysis and purification

Analysis can be carried out manually or using services that clean the account automatically. Let's consider both options. nine0006

Manual account cleaning

If there are few subscribers and the activity is not bad, then you can analyze the account yourself. Based on the criteria above, you can check each account. This is a very tedious process that takes a lot of time.

Services for cleaning Instagram account from bots

There are services that automate all the shenanigans that you do.

SpamGuard

It will check and clean up your account in a few minutes:

Analyze the audience.
Adjusts the list of accounts based on your preferences.
Will clear the account.

It also provides protection against bot attacks and spam comments. Test analysis can be done for 1 ruble. Verification must be made within three days after payment. After three days, the full price subscription will be automatically activated. The subscription can be canceled at any time.

Try SpamGuard →

Nofak.es

An English-language service, also focused exclusively on clearing an account. You can try for free. For regular use, you can buy a monthly subscription or pay once and use the service for an unlimited time.

Try nofak.es →

Zeus

This is a service for comprehensive account promotion. It can collect and filter the audience, provide detailed analytics and account reporting, and block bots. nine0006

You can use only the whole range of services, you can not pay separately and use only cleaning bots. You can try the Zeus service for free.

Try Zeus →

How to avoid bot and spam attacks

It's not enough just to clean the bots, because they will come again if certain worlds are not taken. How to avoid it?

Mass following more carefully. After each call, check the newly arrived subscribers. If you don’t have the opportunity to look at Instagram so often or if you just don’t want to take risks, then use mass liking and mass looking instead of mass following. nine0031
Do not click on suspicious links. Even such a seemingly harmless action can turn into not only an invasion of bots and spam, but also an account hacking.
Do not use #followback, #like4like and similar hashtags : they are often used by commercial accounts, bots and spam. Also, do not use millionaire tags, as there will be no live subscribers from them.
Respond quickly. Others come for some bots. Spammers often duplicate comments, and if you simply delete them, new ones will appear. nine0031
Do not wind up bots yourself. Seriously, don't.

How to promote your Instagram account

After all the warnings, a logical question arises - how then to promote your Instagram account?

It all depends on how much free time you have. You can promote your account for free, but it will take a lot of time and effort.

A faster solution is to promote your account for a fee. Allocate a certain amount for a month, not necessarily a large amount, which you will definitely invest in promotion. Money can be spent on advertising (from other bloggers or on Instagram itself), on special services for promoting and cleaning your account, or on the work of an SMM specialist. nine0006

The main thing is to approach the matter with love. An Instagram account is not something that can be completely shifted to other people, and even more so services. Colorful photos, pleasant posts, communication with readers - all this is exclusively under your control.

Create an interesting image for yourself, enter your own unique rubric or other feature, interact with other bloggers. Be interesting, and subscribers will find you!

How to check Instagram for bots? Purge bots on Instagram

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Bots are a headache for Instagram users, a weed in the limitless field of online promotion opportunities. Existing as a “ticket to a better life” for unscrupulous bloggers, Instagram bots have become the main obstacle to natural account growth. In the article below, we will tell you how to check Instagram for the presence of bots and how to get rid of them.

It used to be easier

There was a time when one number was enough for success on Instagram: number of followers. In an attempt to accelerate the approach of their success, entrepreneurs and bloggers turned to the services of cheating subscribers, thereby increasing their popularity and rising to the top of the social network in the shortest possible time.

Since 2016, Instagram has forced you to play by its own rules.

The fateful year when Instagram introduced an algorithm according to which priority in the feed is given to those publications that, in the opinion of the service, are important and relevant to the user. Now the Instagram feed is not built in chronological order, but is based on the intensity of interactions with publications - the most popular rise to the top. nine0006

Thus, the value of an account is determined by the quality of content , and not by the number of subscribers.

What is an Instagram bot?

A bot is a technical Instagram account created for the purpose of mass following selected user accounts, commenting and “liking” publications.

3 reasons why bots are bad for your account:

Reduce engagement (ER). Such followers do not show any activity in the account. If you remove them and leave more live followers, then the ratio of the total number of followers and likes will give a higher ER. What will make your profile better. nine0031

Repels advertisers. A self-respecting advertiser always checks a potential site for "honesty" - it is obvious that an account boosted with the help of bots will not be attractive.

Make the account unpresentable. A large number of "junk" accounts among subscribers is, at least, unaesthetic. It's a matter of taste here.

In addition, the use of bots is against the rules of Instagram. Their contribution to the development of the social network tends to zero. nine0006

We find out and correct the situation with subscribers in practice:

Services for analytics of Instagram accounts help to solve the problem.

We got a client who wanted to promote their business on Instagram. Previously, he applied for services to grow an account audience in another agency and, although the number of his subscribers grew, the client did not notice an increase in the conversion of subscribers into customers. With all this, subscribers were reluctant to interact with publications and the client did not see the audience continue to grow: new subscribers simply stopped coming. The client contacted us for an audit of their Instagram account. nine0006

First, we had to find out the current position of the account. We decided to audit the account using the Picalytics deep analytics service. Metrics we paid attention to:

Account growth dynamics. After adding an account for analysis, we traced the change in the number of subscribers: sharp jumps and a slow drop indicate the cheating of subscribers with the help of bots, since a sharp unreasonable jump contradicts the natural growth rate of the account's audience; nine0031

Ratio of bots to real subscribers. Picalytics uses its own bot recognition algorithm, which includes more than 10 criteria. The service identifies accounts with low marketing efficiency, such as: business accounts; accounts with external links in the profile; accounts showing suspicious activity and so on.

Analytics shows that the account was promoted with the help of bots. nine0006

Cleaning?

The easiest way to increase engagement in this case is to definitely purge your account of bots. There are two ways to do this:

Automatic - there are many services that provide a list of "possible bots" and offer to unsubscribe from them in one click;
Manual - despite the complexity of the bot detection algorithms, it is by no means perfect. There is always a chance that “live” accounts will flash in the resulting list, so manual cleaning remains the best option. nine0031

In order not to affect the "live" subscribers, we unload the list of bots and clean the account manually.

So, after cleaning, the percentage of bots has significantly decreased:

Some time after cleaning, we see an increase in engagement:

Thanks to a simple operation, the quality of the account grows, and the client will no longer have to spend money on empty subscribers.

Conclusion

As a result of updating the feed generation algorithms on Instagram, accounts with the best publications and, consequently, with a high engagement rate, become popular. Cheating followers with the help of bots will aggravate the development of the account rather than speed it up, since they do not provoke interaction with the content. Therefore, you should forget cheating and constantly keep the quality of subscribers under control by constantly analyzing your Instagram account.