In today’s article, you will learn what are ghost followers on Instagram.
Also, we will delve into how to find and remove these ghost followers on Instagram and uncover the truth behind these mysterious accounts.
Let’s get started then.
Table of Contents
What are Ghost followers on Instagram?
Ghost followers meaning refer to the Instagram accounts that follow you but don’t interact with your content. Yes, they surely increase your follower count but don’t boost your account presence, likes, comments, or shares.
In other words, you can say ghost followers are inactive users, fake profiles, or bots that are made only to increase your follower count.
Types of Ghost Followers
Ghost followers can be categorized into two categories which are inactive accounts and fake accounts. Inactive accounts are the accounts of real Instagram users who no longer use Instagram. While Instagram accounts that are created by bots or any third-party services are referred to as fake accounts.
However, both of these types of ghost followers simply increase your Instagram followers and lack interaction with your content.
How these Ghost Followers are created?
There are multiple ways how your IG account can accumulate a ghost follower that adds no value to your engagement including the following.
- Purchased followers: Many users opt to buy followers for quick growth and these purchased followers are mostly ghost accounts.
- Bot accounts: Bot accounts are programmed to perform specific tasks such as liking, following, and commenting on other’s posts. However, these interactions are very limited and contribute very little to your engagement.
- Inactive accounts: The accounts that belong to real users who now stopped using Instagram.
- Spam and multiple accounts: These types of accounts are majorly created for spamming purposes or for increasing other’s followers lists to promote spamming activities and fake giveaways.
- Misleading profiles and accounts with no posts.
- Follow-for-follow accounts: This is more like a looping game where they follow others with the expectation of getting followed back. And later, they don’t interact with your content and might unfollow you. Consequently, they become ghost followers.
- Accounts with suspicious activity: Some accounts on Instagram exhibit unusual behavior like continuously liking a large no. of posts and comments. These activities are mostly associated with bot accounts.
Why should you remove Ghost Followers?
As already mentioned, these ghost followers only add up to the follower count but do not improve your engagement rates and account metrics. Therefore, you should remove ghost followers from your insta account so that it does not impact the visibility and engagement rates of your content.
Here are the reasons why you should remove ghost followers:
Inaccurate Analytics
It will be difficult to analyze and make effective content with an account having ghost followers because they distort your Instagram analytics and insights. Hence, it’s important to remove these fake followers so that you can make informed decisions with accurate data and your marketing efforts are not wasted.
For example: If you are launching a new product with your small business and most of your followers are not real then it might seem like nobody is interested in buying and it leads to failure because of no engagement.
On the other hand, you are unaware of the fact that the problem is not your product but the presence of these fake followers. So, removing them will provide more accurate data about your content.
Decreased Credibility
It feels good to show off your followers but it’s best if they are the real ones. An Instagram account with a high follower count but low engagement is not trustworthy for brands and other collaborators.
Moreover, you should shift your attention from growing your follower list to building authentic connections on your Instagram account.
For example, if you are a content creator with 100k followers but receive only about 100-200 likes per post then it could be less appealing and questionable for a brand approaching you.
Despite someone having fewer followers than you with higher engagement rates will be more appealing to them.
Negative Impact on Engagement Rates
The fake followers do not interact with your content. As a result, it leads to lower engagement rates. Whereas the Instagram algorithm supports posts with genuine and higher engagement.
This is how ghost followers reduce the overall visibility of your content even with your genuine followers.
Spam and Security Risks
Ghost followers are either fake accounts or spam accounts that might pose security risks. These accounts can lead you to spam and pushing activities.
For example; You must have seen numerous phishing links and posts offering fake giveaways that can land you on an unrelated harmful page. If someone clicks on these malicious links, they might have to face security issues.
Losing Genuine Followers
Ghost followers lower the real engagement and interaction with your content. Therefore, it reduces the chances of growing genuine followers.
For example; Like if you have 1000 followers but only 40 of them interact regularly. So, a new user might not be able to trust the authenticity of your IG account and might choose not to follow you.
Hence, it’s always better to regularly monitor and remove the fake followers from your Instagram account.
How to find Ghost followers on Instagram?
After knowing what are these unwanted followers and the reasons for deleting them. It’s time to discover how you can find ghost followers on Instagram.
Common Signs of Ghost Followers
There are certain activities and common signs that can help you identify ghost followers so that you can delete them in no time. Without further ado, it’s time to list them for you.
- No profile picture: The profile of Ghost followers generally does not have any profile photo, indicating a fake or inactive account.
- No content: Another common sign that will help you detect fake followers is that these accounts do not have posts, stories, or other content visible on their profiles. An empty feed is a red flag indicating the account to be fake.
- Zero interactions: Fake followers don’t engage with your content including likes, comments, and shares rather they just exist as dead followers.
- Random username: Ghost followers usually have random usernames like strings of numbers and random letters that don’t make sense.
- Large following: It’s a strong sign of a fake account if you simply see an account with a larger following but limited followers.
- No response to messages: These types of accounts don’t engage with you via dm. So, if you are trying to connect them but no response is coming from them then there could be great chances of this being a ghost follower.
- The account is relatively new: The accounts of these followers are often newly created with no meaningful activity.
- Unusual account activity: If you see continuous unusual activities from specific insta accounts including following, unfollowing, and irrelevant comments on your Instagram account, it’s another sign of the account being fake or spam.
Methods to find Instagram ghost followers
You can find Instagram ghost followers with the help of ghost Instagram viewer tools and by reviewing them manually.
Manual Method: If you don’t want to use any third-party app to find fake followers, you can manually review your follower list. Check for the above-mentioned signs to find ghost followers. However, this method is time-consuming to review thoroughly.
Using Third-Party Tools: You can also find ghost followers on Instagram using third-party tools like Cleaner for IG, Ghost Hunter, etc. to help you filter out inactive followers.
How to Remove Ghost Followers on Instagram?
Once you have understood the potential harm, it’s vital to get rid of Instagram ghost followers. That’s why I am listing down the different ways to delete these followers from your Instagram.
Manual Removal
Following are the steps on how to delete ghost followers on Instagram manually:
- Step 1: Open your Instagram account.
- Step 2: Click on your followers count to open your followers list.
- Step 3: Go to the flagged for review option to review accounts that are likely to be spam. Alternatively, you can look for accounts with common signs of ghost followers.
- Step 4: Once reviewed, tap on the remove button to remove the follower.
Using Automated Tools
If you have a busy schedule and a long list of followers to review, you can consider the below apps to review and remove ghost followers and save time.
1. Followers – Tracker Insights
Follower- Tracker Insights is an application available for Android and iOS users that provides insights into who engages with your content and who all are inactive followers.
Not only this but it also provides additional features like missed connections, ghost followers, history, and popular content with its premium plan.
Furthermore, the pricing for the pro plan of this app is as follows:
- Monthly: $5.36
- Half-yearly: $20.27
- Annually: $28.61
How It Works:
- Go to the Play Store and download the Followers – Tracker Insight app.
- After completing the download, open the app on your device.
- Now, click on log in with Instagram.
- Enter your username and password.
- And it’s done. Also, note that you can access basic features like the following and followers list for free but additional features like ghost followers, a list of people who blocked you and others require pro subscriptions.
2. Inbeat Fake Follower Checker
Inbeat Fake Follower Checker is an online tool that detects fake followers for free. But it cannot be used for mass removals. It also provides insights into engagement rates, average likes, and the latest posts on user profiles.
How It Works:
- Visit the official link of the Inbeat fake follower checker.
- Enter the username of the Insta account and click on check followers.
- Now, scroll down to check audience score, engagement rate, likes, and inactive followers.
Note: You can only detect if your profile has inactive followers or not with this tool.
Tips for Preventing Ghost Followers in the Future
You should regularly monitor and review your follower list to prevent ghost followers in the future and retain genuine followers to improve the visibility of your content.
Furthermore, below are the tips on how you can prevent ghost followers.
Never Purchase
The best way to prevent unwanted ghost followers is not to buy fake followers, likes, and Instagram accounts. Yes, it helps you grow your Instagram follower list but it also harms engagement rates and visibility of your Instagram account.
Unique Strategies
You should build unique strategies for attracting and retaining genuine followers. For the same, you can try interacting with your followers using comments, live, Q&A sessions, and engaging polls stories.
Also, you can try posting high-quality content that is more likely to attract real followers.
Regular account monitoring
Another prevention measure for ghost followers on your IG account is to conduct regular audits of your follower lists. You can regularly track Instagram insights, follower growth, and engagement rates.
Avoid shortcuts
Lastly, you should always avoid shortcuts for quick growth. There are many quick growth services like buying instant Instagram followers and paid promotions that help in rapid growth in follower count. But, it is not beneficial in the long run. Hence, you should focus on organic growth and genuine community building.
FAQs
Q. What is a Ghost Follower?
The follower who exists in your following list but does not engage with your content is referred to as a ghost follower.
Q. How Do Ghost Followers Affect My Instagram Account?
Ghost followers negatively impact your IG account including lowering down engagement rate, reducing visibility, and more.
Q. What Are the Risks of Keeping Ghost Followers?
Keeping ghost followers includes several risks of decreased engagement rate, misleading analytics, spam, security risks, and reduced credibility.
Q. Will Removing Ghost Followers Improve My Account’s Performance?
Yes, removing ghost followers can improve the performance and overall health of your account.
Q. Are all inactive followers ghost followers?
No, not all inactive followers are ghost followers. Inactive followers could be real users who temporarily stopped using Instagram whereas ghost followers are mainly bots and fake accounts that will never interact with your content.
Conclusion
That’s it for the article. By understanding what ghost followers are, how to find them, and why you should remove them from your Instagram account, you can now take the necessary measures to maintain an engaged and genuine following.
Remember, the importance of quality over quantity? Well, your Instagram followers are no exception to that. You should always focus on good engagement and not only on a huge following.
Also, we have covered additional tips for preventing ghost followers in the future and a step-by-step guide on how you can remove them.
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