What is the best way to identify fake Twitter followers?

[Caitlyn_1]

Hey, is there any way to identify if someone has fake followers

[Reverend Jim]

So many possible highly sarcastic answers that my head may explode. The easiest answer is the number of fake followers is proportional to your political or financial advantage in having followers.

Or, if your name is Trump, you can just lie about it.

[Kate_10]

Use FollowerAudit, if you want to identify fake followers from your or any other public Twitter account, this tool will identify and list down all the fake accounts from the user's profile providing you with the most accurate results.

This is the easiest and best way to identify fake followers on Twitter.

[Reverend Jim]

Huh. You'd think if it was that easy to remove fake followers that Twitter would do it automatically. Or am I just being naive?

[Dani]

Identifying fake Twitter followers is definitely a real and potentially important thing.

There are quite a handful of companies that do it. FollowerAudit, Twitter Audit, etc.

[rproffitt]

"This just in...."

It appears this was a spam laden question on another forum. The question has been struck down and is no more. In that case they were insincere in their request.

Here I want to see some facts. Give me the study results.

[Dani]

Here I want to see some facts. Give me the study results.

What facts? What study results? This is a very simple question. It doesn't need any deep analyzing or referencing.

Fake twitter followers is a thing. There are numerous reasons why people may wish to know how many real followers they have. There are a plethora of legit sites that provide this service at all different price points and with all different features. One such company I can think of, Hootsuite, has over 1500 employees and has received over $200 million in funding from some very big industry names. Another company is SparkToro. They also have millions in funding. There are so many of them, and they each offer slightly different products and services at different price points, however the similarity they all have is that a fake followers audit is a part of their offering.

[digixpert]

Spammers do not spare any space, just get through the comments, and bio details, you will definitly find some giberish stuff.

[ET]

Fake followers, often known as bots, are automated Twitter accounts created with the sole intention of increasing a user's following count. These accounts offer no interaction or assistance in raising conversion rates. These accounts are unconcerned about the type of material you provide or how engaged your followers are. Let's take a look at some of the ways you may spot bogus followers.

1. Take a look at your profile picture.
2. Examine the bios on Twitter.
3. There will be no engagement.
4. Handle on Twitter
5. Tweets that are identical to each other.
6. Low number of followers.
7. Users who have been inactive for a long time.

[Dani]

That's fine to investigate a single twitter account to see if it shows signs of being legitimate or not, but it doesn't offer an easy way to tell if a minority or majority of an account's overall followers are legitimate or fake.

[ramasmith]

You can analyze with these points:

1. Check their profile picture
2. Analyze biography
3. Inactive user

[bessieexum]

Fake followers often have an uneven follower-following ratio. They have low follower counts but they themselves follow multiple accounts. Look for followers with follower growth statistics. Inactive users are accounts that haven't posted a tweet in a really long while.

[pradeepmadgaonk]

You can identify fake Twitter followers with a bit of due diligence on your part. By knowing some of the red flags that fake Twitter profiles typically raise, you can spot fakers and block them. Following are some red flags you should be on the lookout for as you use Twitter:

1. Thousands of Followers but Very Few Tweets

It’s highly unlikely that someone who rarely publishes any content on Twitter would have a huge list of followers. Use common sense when you evaluate Twitter profiles to identify fakers. If there are a disproportionate number of followers to tweets, than the account is probably fake.

1. No Profile Picture or a Generic Picture

Few people want to interact with nameless and faceless strangers on Twitter. A big part of the Twitter experience is building relationships, so accounts that have fake profile pictures or no profile picture at all, along with few or useless tweets, are probably fake.

1. No Profile Description

Few Twitter users write nothing in their profile descriptions. Most people want to give some indication of who they are and why they’re using Twitter. If a profile description is blank, that profile could very well be fake. Be sure to review the account’s tweets, followers, and who the account follows to determine whether it’s real or fake.

1. Huge Numbers of Tweets Each Day

Does the Twitter account publish a massive number of tweets each day that no one could possibly post unless they never left their computer? If the volume of tweets seems inhuman, it probably is.

1. Nothing but Automated Tweets

Twitter streams that are filled with nothing but automated tweets could be operated by a bot. Of course, these accounts could be operated by a legitimate person who simply doesn’t understand how to use Twitter effectively, but continuous automated tweeting is definitely a red flag that a Twitter account is fake.

1. Nothing but Promotional Tweets

Some Twitter users don’t understand that other users don’t like it when all they do is publish one self-promotional tweet after another. However, many fake Twitter followers publish nothing but promotional tweets and they make a lot money from it. A bit of marketing copy followed by a link is often the only type of tweet found in these fake accounts.

1. Tweets or Direct Messages that Warn You About Rumors Spreading About You (Or Similar Warnings) with a Link

Have you gotten one of those direct messages that says something like, “Have you seen this picture of you that’s going around?” or “There is a rumor going around about you,” along with a link that you need to click to see the horrifying details? It’s spam. Don’t click the link. Instead, delete or ignore the message and block that Twitter follower.

1. Instant Response to One of Your Tweets

Has this happened to you? You publish a tweet and almost immediately after it’s live, someone starts following you and responds to your tweet. It’s highly likely that instantaneous response was automated based on a specific keyword that you used in your tweet. There are many tools that make it easy for Twitter users to find and follow people based on keywords, but it’s also a common red flag for fake Twitter accounts when it happens too quickly.

1. Following Thousands but Few Followers

If a Twitter user is following thousands of people but has a disproportionately small number of followers, than it’s safe to assume that profile is fake.

1. The Same @Tweet Sent to Multiple People

When you see a Twitter user tweet the same message (or nearly the same message) directly to numerous people again and again, that account is both spam and fake.

[HelgaRaymond]

Fake followers often have an uneven follower-following ratio. They have low follower counts but they themselves follow multiple accounts. Look for followers with follower growth statistics. Inactive users are accounts that haven't posted a tweet in a really long while.