Photographers - There is a fierce debate in the community of Influencer Marketing specialists about the use of the follow/unfollow trick. HypeAuditor considers this to be spam. But more importantly, this method is directly prohibited by Instagram.
According to the announcement on Instagram, they will artificially reduce the reach of influencers using third-party applications. In addition to numerous articles in the media denouncing such influencers, they can also have a negative impact on the reputation of brands.
If you see such big differences in the number of accounts tracked by the Influencer, it means that he is using mass tracking to gain new followers.
The study shows that the Follow / Unfollow method is most popular among influencers who have between 5k and 20k followers. More than 50.13% of them used this tactic.
Influencers who use this trick have the higher percentage of audiences who cannot be "reached", who do not see their posts, so they have a lower reach.
Photographers
On June 5, 2019, Instagram began to act massively in blocking accounts that use third-party applications for automatic tracking and non-compliance with the rules. The follow/Unfollow trick no longer works, but most of the users who used the trick "adapted" it and stayed only on the view and comments left in the mass.
Most influencers are gradually increasing their number of followers. Every month, increased Instagram users begin to follow them. Some methods of promotion, advertising, mentions in the media or a post by another influencer could accelerate this growth, but nevertheless, the overall pattern remains the same.
However, some influencers do not want to wait and use inauthentic methods to increase their number of users immediately. Unfortunately, most of these followers are inauthentic.
To detect growth anomalies, you should check the chart above with followers that shows the dynamics of growth of followers. The analysis of this chart provides a lot of information about account growth patterns and trends, and helps to detect if an influencer has bought followers.
Accounts that increase their number of followers artificially will show sudden increases in the graph.
Fastest way to find photographers
The easiest and fastest way to increase the number of followers is to buy them. Over 17.72% of influencers with 5k – 20k followers and over 18.89% of influencers with between 20k and 100k followers have anomalies in the follower chart. This serves as an indicator that these influencers regularly buy followers.
Comments for tagging prize contests, spam comments, and comments coming from Instagram Pods are considered inauthentic.
When verifying the authenticity of the comments, we consider several factors, including: the content of the person who commented and the quality of the account that left that comment.
Almost a third of influencers have inauthentic comments. The largest percentage of them is on celebrity accounts. We believe that this is not due to their inauthentic actions, but to the general level of spam on Instagram. Most spam messages come from users who use comment tools and bots. They target their comments based on hashtags, geolocation, followings of other accounts, targeting certain accounts.
Comment Pods (Engagement Pods or Boost Groups) are groups of bloggers who collaborate to carry out their work. They often gather on Facebook, Telegram or other chats. A blogger of such a bridge would make a post and send a link with a comment: "likes, comments (3 words or more), saved". And then he sees the last ten tasks from other bloggers to carry them out. This method is certainly difficult to detect because they are real people with real accounts and qualitative content and who write extensive comments.
Engagement increased with photographers
It is hard and time consuming to detect Engagement Pods manually. To do this, you need to check every comment, but also a follower who posted them. If you notice that all posts are commented on by the same group of users, it could be a bridge. To detect pods on HypeAuditor, the algorithm considers several factors, including behavioural patterns, the content of the commentator, and the quality of an account that left that comment.
Investing time in Comment Pods makes sense for small accounts. That is why this trick is commonly used by influencers who have less than 100,000 followers.
The report uses data from a wide variety of sources, including market research agencies, internet and social media companies, the media, and our internal analysis.
We have collected and aggregated data from a variety of sources: social platforms, catalogues, websites, crowdsourcing and more.
After that, we processed the data by anonymizing, sorting and structuring, cleaning and eliminating any irregularities, and enriching the data.
We then turned the data into smart estimates using best-in-class estimation algorithms and machine learning developed by our team of Influencer Marketing scientists and experts.
