A brand promotion that reaches the wrong audience is trouble enough. However, when your sponsored posts reach users who have zero interest in your business and products, it is a real nightmare. On top of that, you even paid for this failure. Although it may be tempting to work with influencers with huge follower bases, it all comes crashing down when it turns out that they have increased their audience with the Instagram mass following technique.
So, what can brands and agencies do to avoid working with celebrities who have mass followers on Instagram? Are there any ways for marketing professionals to screen out creators who have been involved in mass following in the past? In this blog post, we will address these questions as well as explain what mass followers are and why they pose a problem for businesses.
Who Exactly Is a Mass Follower?
The term mass follower refers to a person who follows more than 1,500 accounts on a social media platform, like Instagram. Mass followers either use third-party tools or follow-unfollow services to grow their audiences or - in rare cases - do it manually. This user type appears along with three others in HypeAuditor’s Audience Type chart: real people, influencers, and suspicious accounts.
23.3% of this influencer’s audience consists of mass followers
Mass followers indicate that a large percentage of the creator's audience consists of inactive accounts controlled by automated bots. For brands, a mass follower has no engagement or conversion value, which is why business owners should consider the quality of an influencer's audience along with quantitative metrics.
What Does Mass Following Mean?
Mass follow on Instagram (also known as follow for follow or follow/unfollow technique) occurs when a person follows over 1,500 accounts in the hope they will follow them back. It is still a common strategy for influencers to grow their follower count quickly within a short period of time because a certain percentage of these users will follow them back. Unfortunately, these accounts are mostly irrelevant, or spam accounts, but they help give the impression that the individual has a large audience, thus a big influence on social media.
HypeAuditor’s algorithms detected mass following dynamics
The following and followers charts reveal whether the influencer used unethical methods to increase their audience. In addition, the low follower-to-follower ratio is another indication that the person uses mass followings or other ambiguous procedures to grow.
Why Do Influencers Use Mass Following Methods?
At the beginning of influencer marketing, businesses focused primarily on influencers' size, which led to mass follow on Instagram. Those with a weak following outside social media used gray-hat strategies, such as automated mass followings or buying accounts.
Previously, companies assumed that influencers with a large audience were credible and influential. It was obvious that these individuals wanted to appear popular in order to pocket as many brand collaborations as possible. A large following gave them the confidence to ask for a higher price during a work collaboration. Their rapid growth could also provide them a competitive edge since they could position themselves as more attractive partners.
Today, far fewer influencers engage in mass following techniques, as companies have realized that quality is more important than quantity. Additionally, social media platforms have taken a variety of measures to detect third-party apps. They monitor follower dynamics and block users who engage in dubious practices.
Could Mass Followers Have a Negative Impact on Brands' Influencer Marketing Campaigns?
Yes, mass followers can impact brand campaigns negatively, and here’s why:
Mass followers on social media won’t engage with the creators’ posts, or if they do that’s irrelevant or inauthentic. They defeat the purpose of campaign messaging and inhibit real audience engagement. A lack of genuine engagement will cost brands a lot of money. In the end, they hire low-quality creators who can’t generate a high return on investment.
Customers will doubt the promotion's authenticity and reliability if they find out the content creator has many mass followers. An influencer like this is perceived by potential customers as someone who promotes anything for money. Creators engaged in mass follow on Instagram will erode customer trust and weaken the brand's reputation.
Targeting and delivering the message to the intended consumers will be challenging. It's unlikely that a campaign's message will reach the target audience if the creator has multiple mass followers.
Additional drawbacks of mass followers
Influencers’ inaccurate metrics lead to wrong estimates: As a result of mass following, companies are unable to derive accurate and true estimates. A large audience on itself gives brands the appearance of popularity and makes them believe that their reach will be widespread.
Bot followers won’t convert and generate poor ROI: It is unlikely that mass followers will become customers, or that they will sign up, subscribe, or download. Collaborations with a sales goal only work if the audience is interested in and ready to buy the product. The conversion rate will remain low, and you will incur too many expenses. It won't pay off to rely exclusively on vanity metrics, such as follower count.
Social media platforms’ algorithms consider engagement when recommending posts to users: Staying ahead of the content flood on social media is all about real interaction. In the event that engagement rates drop, the creator's post will be buried because the algorithms will deem it unimportant. The post won't appear on users' Discovery pages nor will it rank for hashtags. Instagram also tracks follower dynamics and blocks accounts that use deceptive methods to grow their audience.
Can Brands Identify Influencers’ Mass Following Tendencies?
Influencers can gain a short-term advantage through mass followers, but this will backfire in the long run. Nowadays, agencies, marketing specialists, and companies pay great attention to evaluating an influencer's performance. A proper analytics tool, like HypeAuditor creator reports, helps them quickly and easily filter out those individuals whose audience contains a large number of mass followers.
AQS, or Audience Quality Score, is a valuable starting point for performance analysis. As a result of combining 15 metrics including follower trends, engagement, and audience quality, AQS provides insight into the quality of an Instagram influencer’s account.
Marketers need to study the creators' Audience Type chart to find out who their audience is mostly made up of. If 80% of the follower base consists of real people and influencers, that is considered a good quality audience. If, however, the percentage of suspicious accounts and mass followers is conspicuous, the creator used the Instagram mass follow or other fraudulent strategies.
Aside from audience authenticity, businesses should examine influencers' following and follower growth charts to see if there are any significant drops and spikes. For example, a sudden increase followed by a noticeable drop in the following chart signals that the influencer followed many accounts at once and then unfollowed them after several weeks.
Brands should also consider how relevant the followers are to the influencer's niche. A mismatch between the audience's demographics and the topic might suggest mass followers.
Companies can also find creators with mass followers by analyzing engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and shares. If an influencer has a massive following, but their engagement rate is disproportionately low, this implies that a lot of these followers are passive or inactive.
As an alternative, businesses can manually analyze followers' authenticity. They can study users' profiles manually by searching for suspicious signs, such as no profile pics, no bio, and strange usernames. No activity on social media platforms can also be a big red flag.
Final Thoughts
Despite its declining popularity, Instagram mass following is still used by many influencers. For monetization, creators dilute their audiences with mass followings. By evaluating an influencer's audience type and follower growth, brands can discover creators who have cultivated genuine relationships with their community. Through collaboration with these individuals, they can enhance their reputation in the industry and ensure brand loyalty and engagement.
