How To Delete Fake, Inactive, Or Ghost Followers On Instagram?
What Is Instagram?
A catchphrase of today’s youth, Instagram has quickly become a household name that delivers all that it promised. For personal accounts, you get social validations as well as common links with other people that you can use to interact with them. For professional accounts, your advertisement is pushed into the presence of others, so that you have a better commercial presence. People will remember the goods and services that you supply, and this will increase interactions with your followers as well as consumers.
What Are Ghost Followers?
Ghost followers are those who do not take any interest in your content, and consequentially, do not bother to engage with it. These are accounts that are not managed by people and are mostly created by Artificial Intelligence or Bots, to quench the need of those who are buying followers due to a dearth of people following their page.
The first sign of a ghost follower will be that they will not have any Posts or Stories or content on their Instagram page. They will be following an absurd number of people, maybe 15000 or 20000. They will have weird links in their bio, and their username consists of what suspiciously looks like serial numbers. You can argue saying that even human beings do not post content on Instagram, but you will soon realise that there are very few who do not do it. If you have a large number of followers who are generally not interactive and do not have any content on their Instagram page, chances are, that at least some of these followers are ghost followers.
It is understood that not everyone will interact with you or take an interest in your products and services, and if you doubt an account or two of actually being a bot, you do not need to take the trouble of figuring out if they are bots or not. The impact of two followers will not be great on your followers or your engagement with them. The issue will make itself known when a major chunk of your following is comprised of ghost followers.
Why Bother Removing Ghost Followers?
On Instagram, followers and likes are a way of getting social validation, approval, and acceptance of your goods and services. The follower count or the number of likes are often used to determine how many people like your product and want to go for it. If ghost followers are added to the list, you will get an inaccurate picture of how well your product is doing. For example, if 200 people are following your posts but only 100 are genuine, it means that your product has been approved only by 100 people, but you will be led to believe that 200 people liked it!
You will see the difference in interaction when you actually make a post. For example, a company with 40,000 followers might still be only averaging 30-40 likes per post, whereas a company with 20,000 followers might be averaging 1500 likes per post. At first glance, the former is better than the latter, but if you look at it practically, you will realise that the value of the former in any aspect is less than the value of the latter.
So, while a large number of followers might initially attract a number of potential investors, they will also soon realise that your engagement does not correspond with the number of followers you have on your page. If you have ghost followers, you build an image of unreliability, as well as untrustworthiness which will not persuade any potential investor to invest in you. If you do not create an image of transparency and trust, you will not be able to persuade investors to do business with you.
How Can You Remove Ghost Followers On Instagram?
- Identify the Ghost Followers
Now that we have given you an adequate description of what ghost followers are, you should be able to identify the telltale signs and successfully mark at least a few ghost followers on your account.
- Trust Score
Instagram gives each account a Trust Score to indicate the value of the account and shows you if it is a reliable and legitimate account. The trust score of ghost followers will below, and they will also lower your trust scores.
- Manually Identify The Accounts You Suspect
There is no easy way to do this. You will have to carefully inspect every follower on your account and see which one is indicative of being a ghost account, and unfollow those immediately.
- Remove The Followers Gradually
It is manually impossible to delete all ghost followers together. If you delete a lot of followers in one swipe, you will lose credibility in the eyes of the people. Doing it gradually will reduce the stress on you, as well as not harm your reputation because people tend to not notice gradual changes.
How Do You End Up With Ghost Followers?
- Buying Followers For Your Account
Many people attempt to boost their business by buying followers so that they have greater credibility in the eye of their audience. What they fail to realise is that followers who do not interact with the brand or the business will lower the business credibility in the long run.
- Do Not Take Over Existing Accounts
It is very easy to take over an established Instagram page, complete with its reputation and own set of followers, but if you have not followed them closely, you might not realise how many of those followers are fake, inactive, or ghost.
- Do Not Pay For Likes Or Comments
Do not try to increase the reliability of your page by buying likes and comments from people. Suffice it to say; this will be harmful to your business in the long run.
Finishing Thoughts
This article explains and summarises who ghost followers are, how to identify the accounts, and how to remove them as well. We have also elaborated on why they are bad for your audience. This is done with the intention of aiding you. There is no short cut to create engagement with your followers on Instagram; it takes hard work and is slow progress. Keep going, and you will receive authentic followers who raise your trust score and credibility.