Have you noticed an influx of followers recently that might not quite seem like your ideal market? You are not alone! 
 

Robot or ‘bot’ followers are spam or fake accounts that made and then often sold to boost an accounts’ following. Buying bot followers is not the best social media strategy, as while it may make your follower count look good, these accounts are not real and therefore will never be a client or buy from your business. Fake followers also harm your engagement rate since they do not interact or engage with your content - not to mention it is an extremely bad look for your business should your real followers notice! 

High follower rates and low engagement are obvious and will often make your real customers think one of two things - either your products and services are terrible, or you are buying followers. Neither of which is good, and puts your reputation at risk. 

So how do you spot a bot?

Usually, it’s pretty easy. On Instagram, they usually have a long username that’s often a jumble of numbers and letters. If you go into their profile, they often follow huge numbers of people, and have either posted very little or not at all. They also might have odd profile information. If it seems a bit off, it’s probably a bot. 
 

On Facebook, bot followers often have minimal or odd profile information, few posts and high numbers of likes or followers. Quite often the profile picture will also give it away - it’s usually a glamour shot rather than your average real person’s profile pic! Most businesses will occasionally get the odd fake follower, as there are so many of these accounts around. Bots often follow businesses to try and make their profiles look more legitimate (even though we see right through them!) 
 

So what can you do if suddenly you get an influx of them on your social accounts?

This is becoming more and more common, and there’s a few reasons why. First up don’t panic. It happens more often than you think, and while it can be annoying, it is simple to deal with. We recommend going in every day or two and removing and banning the fake followers from your accounts. This ensures there are no fake followers on your business profiles, and it’s much easier to keep on top of this on a regular basis. 
 

So why do bots attack certain pages?

There are a number of potential reasons. First up, competitor businesses could have bought bots on your behalf in order to try and undermine your business. This is really low behaviour, but it does happen.

Secondly, it could be due to your businesses name that means it gets unwanted attention. Basic names and words seem to get picked on the most. Thirdly, you could have run a recent ad that inadvertently targeted the scammers. We recommend going in and checking your ads targeting to ensure it all looks correct and this isn’t the case. 
 

Fake followers can be frustrating and staying on top of them is key. No matter how tempting it can be to buy followers, never ever use this as part of your growth strategy.

If you’d like help to grow your social media organically, then get in touch with the Sharpe Marketing team today.