How To Avoid Bots On Instagram
Pestered by Instagram Bots? Here’s What You Can Do
You are here: Home / Instagram / Pestered by Instagram Bots? Here’s What You Can DoAnne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, company for Facebook ads
Phil Desforges
If you use your Instagram account for marketing purposes, you must avoid bots like the plague.
Although bots boost follower count, artificially giving you clout, they will bring more problems than it’s worth. Not only do they cheapen your brand, but they also signal to prospective partners that you are not trustworthy.
A bad image isn’t the only problem bots bring. Bots also inflate marketing costs. If you’re running an Instagram ad that targets your followers, most of which are bots, you are paying for ads shown to accounts that will never convert because they’re not real people.
Of course, you likely aren’t paying for a third-party to provide you with fake bot followers. Maybe, instead, you receive unwanted followers from bots. If that’s the case, here’s what you can do.
Agence Olloweb
Before you begin your crusade against bots, you must first learn how to identify them rather than blindly taking action against innocent accounts—this isn’t the Salem witch hunt. Search for the biggest red flag, the post to followers ratio. An account that has no posts but has thousands of followers is a bot. Why would thousands of users follow an account that doesn’t produce content? Very suspect indeed.
Example of a bot with no posts.
Beware, however, because some bots do post content to their feeds, but there’s a way to differentiate them from real accounts. Bot accounts post random, low-quality images while still having thousands of followers. If you see that, steer clear.
If you don’t want bots in your follower list (trust me, you don’t), remove them from your account. Find the bot from your list of followers. If the bot is a recent follower, it should appear first in the list. Click the three dots next to the bot’s profile then click “Remove” to expel it from your list of followers. Doing so, however, won’t stop the bot from finding your profile and following you again. If you want to prevent that, you must block the account.
To block a bot account, visit the bot’s profile then click the three dots on the upper-right corner of the screen. Click “block. ” This will block the account and consequently remove it from your followers list. When you block the account, it can’t find your profile, posts, or Stories, and it can’t follow you again. The account won’t be notified that you blocked it.
If you want to take an action that punishes the bot account, that prevents it from scamming other users like you, then you can take a more drastic action by reporting the account to Instagram. Instagram’s team will investigate, and if they determine the account to be a spam bot that violates its community guidelines, then they will take action and notify you. Instagram won’t notify the bot account that you reported it.
To report an account, click the three dots on the upper-right corner of its profile then choose “spam. ” Reporting the account won’t remove it from your followers list and won’t stop it from visiting your profile. If you want to sever all ties, you must either remove the bot or block it.
Bot accounts have pestered users for years, creating such an annoyance that Instagram is finally removing fake likes and follows generated by bots. But that great bot purge doesn’t occur overnight. If you want to take matters into your own hands, remember what I taught you: remove, block, or report.
Anne Felicitas, editor at AdvertiseMint, company for Facebook ads
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Removing Bots And Fake Followers On Instagram – MilesWeb web hosting
Approx. read time: 10 min
Every account on Instagram attracts some degree of bot followers, but removing them is crucial to improving your account. Whilst high numbers of followers are still important to influencers and bloggers, quality of content, engagement rates and interaction have become much more important over recent years. Large numbers of fake followers or bots can be detrimental to your brand and reputation. Luckily, there are steps you can take to remove them from your account.
The Rise Of Fake Followers
In the past, around the early 2010s, the number of followers that you had was considered essential to help you to grow. In order to make a blogger or influencer appear established or “credible”, they needed to have a high number of followers, ideally somewhere in the thousands. As such, many people at that time bought fake followers.
The rules and regulations surrounding social media weren’t quite as well established just a few years ago. Buying fake followers to help secure collaborations and brand sponsorships was something that many people saw as a necessary step to further their chances. Yet now, buying fake followers will do more damage to your account, reputation and job prospects than having a lower following. In short, it simply isn’t worth the risk.
On the other hand, some bloggers and influencers unwittingly gain fake followers when they sign up for Instagram Growth Services. Despite the service promising to deliver you a large number of real followers, the reality is that you end up with a load of bots littering your account.
Companies and real followers alike are much savvier about the issue of fake followers and bots. Rather than focusing on the number of followers, they are more interested in the quality of engagement, which will be considerably lower if you have high numbers of fake followers or bots. Simply put, in order to succeed on Instagram (or any other social media platform) to have to check through your social media following and get rid of any account following you that could be fake.
Related: Can Hashtags Get You More Instagram Followers?
How To Spot A Fake Follower?
The first step in removing fake followers and bots from your following is to identify them. This can sometimes be trickier to spot than you might have thought. After all, not all real followers have high numbers of posts or a big following themselves. Some people are more active than others. Yet, there are some simple warning signs to look out for when trying to decide whether or not an account is in fact real. It all comes down to the quality of the account. If an account is of particularly poor quality, be suspicious.
Account handle – If the handle contains numbers, it is more likely to be a bot or fake than a real follower.
The ‘following’ number – If they have a high number of people they are following, then the chances are that they are a ‘mass follower’. A mass follower account would be considered to be one that is following 5, 000 accounts or more.
Number of followers and posts – Combine their following number with their number of followers and posts. If they have low numbers of followers and very low numbers of posts or no posts at all, then there is a high probability that the account is fake.
Quality of content – Consider the quality of their content. If the content quality is poor and you can’t see yourself or your friends following them back, then you should be suspicious of the account.
Post engagement – The same applies to the quality of post engagement. If an account has lots of followers, but very low engagement, such as very few comments and likes, then there is a high probability that it is a bot.
Why You Should Remove Fake Followers?
Tempting though it may seem to simply buy followers or to just leave any fake followers in your following to help boost your numbers, over time, it will actually do more harm than good. In reality, the only way to ensure that you increase your following, as well as your rate of engagement on Instagram, is to put in the hard work, time and effort and grow your following organically.
1. Damages Your Rates Of Engagement
Having an authentic account, even if that means having lower numbers of followers, will help to boost your engagement rates. This will mean that your content can reach more people and over time, creates the opportunity for your follower base to grow organically.
If you have fake followers and bots on your account, they will increase your following, but crucially will do nothing to increase your rate of engagement. Nowadays, brands and companies place more importance in your engagement rates than your number of followers because they want the content that you share to actually reach real people who will interact with it.
Fake followers and bots actually prevent you from building a community and real conversation and interaction with your followers and the content you are producing. In the long run, it will be more detrimental to your account to have a high number of (fake) followers, but a low rate of engagement.
2. Creates Spam
Another problematic feature of bots on your account is that they can use your Instagram account to spam your real followers. The bots infiltrate your community and then use you and your account as a platform to spam your genuine followers and target your customers.
Ultimately, this will lead to both you and your real followers potentially receiving lots of unwelcome and unwanted spam. If your account and your brand then become associated with spamming, this can significantly harm your reputation. If people think that your brand spams its followers with irrelevant content, then they are likely to stop following you. In the end, this will cause you to lose real followers who can actively engage with your content and will also harm the quality of your account.
3. Easy To Spot
Companies and brands have become much more tech-savvy. Marketers and PR reps have access to a range of tools that allow them to reveal the true amount of influence that a blogger or influencer actually yields. Crucially, this means that they will be able to tell if your account and following is genuine or fake. Approaching companies and brands when you’re unsure that your followers are authentic can lead to some embarrassing and costly situations.
It is also pretty clear to see when an account on Instagram has genuine, organic growth or not. For example, influencer accounts with real followers tend to have a fairly consistent line of follower growth, week on week.
Accounts who have bought fake followers will have inconsistent growth spikes from week to week, or even day to day. With free tools and software such as Social Blade, it has become extremely easy to check follower growth to see who has bought fake followers and who is actually working hard to cultivate a real and authentic audience.
4. Damages Your Reputation
Despite all the influencers out there, the influencer marketing world can actually be very small. News will travel fast when an influencer or blogger’s account has been revealed to have a fake or inauthentic following. This can be extremely damaging to you, your brand and your professional reputation.
As mentioned previously, companies and brands today are more interested in engagement and interaction. If you have a high following, but few likes or comments, this will be a red flag to most companies. Your followers to likes ratio is important. Most brands will be reluctant to work with a blogger or influencer with a poor audience. Ensuring that your Instagram account is free from fake followers and bots is crucial to maintaining your professional integrity and fostering an environment of genuine and authentic growth.
The effects of having your account exposed as inauthentic can be extremely damaging. Firstly, companies and big brands are unlikely to want to work with you. There have been cases where brands have even been known to blacklist influencers who have lied about their influence status. Secondly, it will make your real followers and any potential customers doubt you, your integrity and your brand, meaning they will be more likely to abandon you. Having fake followers to simply boost your numbers is not only dishonest, but is also a professional risk, simply not worth taking.
Related: 10 Smart Ways To Promote Your Business Through Instagram Stories
How To Remove Fake Followers?
However it is that you have accumulated fake followers, the good news is that there are ways to sort through your Instagram account and clear them out. The first thing to take into consideration is that this is a process which will take time. Depending on how many fake followers or bots you have on your account, it is a process that can take days or even weeks, so be patient and thorough. It will be worth it in the end.
1. Manually Block Followers
Manually removing or blocking followers is still one of the most effective ways to remove fake followers and bots from your account. However, this does take a long time and is likely to only work effectively if there are less than 10, 000 poor quality accounts following you.
The only way to remove bad quality followers and bots on an Instagram Business Account is to manually block them.
In order to do this, you need to find their profile. Tap on the (…) icon at the top-right corner and then tap on the ‘Block’ option. You might decide to switch your account to your Personal Account and then make it Private. This way, you can simply remove followers without needing to block them.
2. Use An App
There are a number of apps available that you can use to help you remove unwanted followers, be they fake or real. If you need to get rid of fake followers and bots on a large scale, then consider using one of the apps to help you. They allow you to block and unfollow a large number of accounts in a short period of time.
However, it is important to note that some of these apps may be considered third-party apps by Instagram. This is in fact technically against Instagram’s Terms of Service, so use them at your discretion.
The best cleaner app for removing bots and any unwanted followers from your Instagram account is Cleaner for IG. It is available on all app stores for iOS and Android and, better yet, it is free to download. Essentially, Cleaner for IG will scan your followers and identify which ones are fake and provide you with the option to remove them. The app basically allows you to block fake followers en masse, which is the only way to remove them from your profile.
Additionally, the app also provides you with the option to mass unfollow and unblock other accounts, as well as unlike posts en masse. It will also track all of your actions and activity in an activity log. It is a handy app that allows users to remove bots from their accounts easily and quickly, thereby improving the quality of your own account.
Conclusion
Ensuring that your account is free from fake followers and bots is crucial, if you want companies and brands to want to collaborate and work with you. Having an account which is authentic will promote trust in your brand and reputation and will allow you to grow your following and community in a way which is organic and genuine.
Increasingly, brands will distance themselves from working with bloggers and influencers who have poor audience engagement, so don’t be afraid to remove bad quality audience from your account.
Remember that it can take time to successfully remove all bots from your account. Look out for any suspicious accounts and remove them. Whether you are removing bots manually or using an app, remember to do this periodically to ensure that you keep on top of it and maintain an authentic Instagram account that people will want to follow.
How To Stop Instagram Spam: The Ultimate Guide – Social Pros
Being one of the popular social media accounts, Instagram has become a great place for businesses. Most business accounts on Instagram compete with each other to get more followers, which resulted in creating bots and fake accounts to grow on Instagram. According to BasicThinking, there are 95 million bot accounts. This will be really annoying, especially when you get tons of spam followers, likes, comments, taggings, and messages on Instagram. But don’t worry, in this article, I’m going to show you how to stop Instagram spam actions instantly. Stay tuned and solve the issue. You may also be interested in: Best Apps to Find Inactive Instagram Followers And Replace Them New Ways to Get Followers On Instagram Without Following How to Attract a Target Audience on Instagram? Tips & Tricks Here you are going to read about: How to Stop Instagram Spam Followers? #1 Set Your Account to Private#2 Turn off Instagram Follow Suggestions#3 Report and Block Instagram Spam FollowersHow to Stop Spam Likes on Instagram? How to Keep Spammers from Commenting on Instagram? How to Instantly Avoid Spam Tags and Mentions on Instagram? How to Stop Receiving Spam DMs on Instagram? Bottom Line How to Stop Instagram Spam Followers? One of the worst types of Instagram spam is the accounts that randomly follow you. These accounts usually post inappropriate and abusive content. Fortunately, you can stop receiving these spam followers by following these simple steps: #1 Set Your Account to Private First, stop getting too many Instagram spam followers, change your account privacy, and set it as a private account. This way, you will get spam requests, but you can choose them not to be your followers. #2 Turn off Instagram Follow Suggestions The Instagram algorithm works to suggest people similar Instagram accounts as they follow to help them grow naturally. To reduce the number of Instagram spam followers, you can prevent Instagram from suggesting a similar account to the spammers. For this, open the Instagram website on your phone or desktop, open your settings, and uncheck the related box. Turn off “Similar Accounts Suggestions” on Instagram #3 Report and Block Instagram Spam Followers Finally, stop Instagram spam followers from following or sending you requests repeatedly, report them to Instagram, and block their accounts. Report inappropriate or spam accounts By following these steps, you also help other people get spam followers because after reporting as spam accounts, Instagram checks the account. If there are other reports, the spam account will get deleted. How to Stop Spam Likes on Instagram? Now that you know how to stop Instagram spam followers getting rid of spam likes would be really easy. Actually, following the steps you have taken to stop spam followers on Instagram, you keep spammers from liking your posts. When you turn your account into a private one and don’t accept spammers’ follow requests, they cannot like your posts. However, if you need to set your account as a public one, you have to identify your spam likers on Instagram and report them one by one. Keep Reading: 4 Instagram Likes Apps to Get Real Likes: Free & Guaranteed How to Keep Spammers from Commenting on Instagram? Luckily, Instagram has the feature to help you stop unexpected and inappropriate comments. To know how to stop Instagram spam comments using the official app, take a look at the following image, and follow these steps: Open your Instagram Settings and go to the Privacy section. Then, tap on Comments. Here, you can choose to receive comments from specific followers or block receiving comments from some users. Additionally, you can filter comments containing some special words. Filter Instagram comments to avoid receiving spam comments If you are managing a business account on Instagram and don’t want other people to advertise their own services in your comments, we recommend you filter the following comments: Free followers, like for like, follow for following, follow me, check out, want followers, check my page, free, f0110w By filtering these words, you’ll reduce a great number of spam comments without blocking anyone. Read More: Best Way to Search Instagram Comments by Username How to Instantly Avoid Spam Tags and Mentions on Instagram? Just like comments, you can stop Instagram spam tags and also mentions by taking a few steps. This way, you’ll avoid tags in inappropriate posts, which helps you have a more professional account. To stop being tagged in spam posts on Instagram, follow these steps: On the Privacy section of your Instagram settings, tap on the Tags item. Now, you can choose to get tagged just by your followers, or even no one. Also, if you like, you can choose to approve tags manually, just like follow or DM requests. Stop being tagged in unwanted Instagram posts. Additionally, Instagram enables you to edit the existing tags. If there are posts that you don’t want to be tagged in or don’t like others to view, hide or remove them: Hide or remove posts you were tagged in For Instagram mentions, you have to follow similar steps. Just tap on the Mentions item from the Privacy settings and set your desired settings for it. Also Read: How to Find Your Mentions on Instagram? How to Stop Receiving Spam DMs on Instagram? Do you receive tons of messages asking you to become an Instagram brand ambassador? This is really annoying. Well, you can change your Instagram DM settings and stop receiving these spam messages. Open your Privacy settings just like the previous sections, and from the Messages section, choose to receive messages just from who you are following. Stop receiving spam Direct Messages on Instagram Read More: How to Manage Instagram Message Requests with Ease Bottom Line Due to the vast number of fake accounts and bots on Instagram, Instagram users wonder how to stop Instagram spam followers, likes, comments, tags, and DMs. In this article, we completely covered the in-app solutions to stop these spam activities. If you have any other questions regarding this issue, feel free to leave us a comment.
Frequently Asked Questions about how to avoid bots on instagram
How do you get rid of bots on Instagram?
The only way to remove bad quality followers and bots on an Instagram Business Account is to manually block them. In order to do this, you need to find their profile. Tap on the (…) icon at the top-right corner and then tap on the ‘Block’ option.Apr 27, 2020
How do I stop spam bots on Instagram?
Fortunately, you can stop receiving these spam followers by following these simple steps:#1 Set Your Account to Private.#2 Turn off Instagram Follow Suggestions.#3 Report and Block Instagram Spam Followers.Nov 20, 2020
How do I stop bot followers?
Here are the immediate steps to take:Disable your notifications. This is mostly to make your stream watchable, as hundreds of notifications going off is what your community is going to focus on.Ignore the fact you’ve been hit with follow bots. … Finish your stream before trying to address it.Jul 21, 2020
