20+ years working as media designer and in digital marketing, I have my share of experience on this game. If I check a social media account it is fairly easy to see who bought followers vs. the influencers that have a real following.
So how can I see that someone has bought followers? So when I look for an niche influencer who would fit into my brand profile I first check how many followers they have, how many people they follow, how many likes they get per post and how many comments. By looking at those metrics I can easily see which marketing game is at play.
Huge following but little likes: Someone who has 50000 followers but only 300 likes and 20 comments is most likely either followed by the wrong audience (can happen after a content/interest shift) or they are sleeping followers aka bought bot followers.
Someone who has a lot of followers but also follows a lot of people: The like for like section. Usually a too broad interest spread among the audience to be niche specific.
Little following but fair amount of engagement, likes and comments. This influencer most likely does a lot of community interaction and keeps close contact with her audience. This is a very active account and worth considering for a product placement as those followers are most likely to follow recommendations because the influencer builds trust.
Also to get a good feel of the audience is to cross-check their followers and see who actually is following them and who comments on their posts.
This assessment should give you a quick overview on how an account is actually doing.
I hope you enjoy this tip!
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