An established figure on TikTok with an open account, large following, and wide social reach can sometimes come with an annoying snag; Having fake TikTok followers – oftentimes referred to as “bots” or “ghost followers” that can infest your profile.
For any influencer, having an authentic following is important for brands that want to work with you, and maintain a good online reputation and the overall quality of your influencing. Although we know that even if you did not buy fake TikTok followers, many times bots and ghost followers can infest your account and discredit your influencing status.
So, how do you spot the signs of fake TikTok followers?
It is not quite as easy to recognize fake TikTok followers as it is on platforms like Instagram or Facebook which have well-established third-party apps to better control user activity. TikTok is still a relatively new platform, which draws millions of people because of its extremely fast growth spurts and wide reach.
But with rapid growth and a platform that has not been around long enough to make it bulletproof and filter out all the bugs, it is easy for fake TikTok followers to reach any account that is set on public mode. However, we do have some general tips on what signs to look out for if you are starting to see strange activity on your account
An account that has strange numbers
Genuine accounts show similar patterns when it comes to follower numbers, people followed, and levels of engagement. Although every influencer operates their accounts differently, and some beginners don’t run their accounts like more experienced TikTok users, you can still easily spot outliers.
Fake TikTok followers may like and follow thousands of people, but don’t have many TikTok users following them in return. Perhaps they don’t share many if any, videos themselves. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a bot, but it does suggest that they will be of little value as a follower.
Short bursts of activity
When somebody creates a bot, they will often follow thousands of people at the beginning, and then leave the account alone. They may even share a few videos on the account creation day for the profile to better blend in initially but then quickly stops sharing fresh content and the account eventually becomes stagnant.
You may see similar patterns recurring when the bot creators bring the account back to life to snare another batch of accounts to follow misleadingly.
An empty bio
TikTok’s bios are generally short. You only have 80 characters with which to craft your message. Some users write what appears to be nonsense … just because they can. However, you will often find that fake accounts don’t even bother to do that. They leave their bio blank.
You should consider a lack of a profile picture to be a red flag of a potential fake TikTok follower, too, particularly on such a visual platform as TikTok.
Clueless comments
Some fake accounts create comments to make them appear genuine. The problem is that these comments are generic and lack substance. While most TikTok users write relatively brief comments, you want them to at least sound intelligent or relevant to the content posted.
Technically, these comments count as engagement, but they are of little value to a brand that is looking for useful influencers who match its target market. So keep in mind if someone regularly engages with your content, but their comments seem out of place, red flags should go off in your head.
Few to no original videos
The whole point of TikTok, of course, is to share short videos. Virtually every user shares some, even if the quality is poor. If you come across an account that has operated for more than a few days, you would expect it to have shared original videos, and you should treat the absence of these as a red flag.
Once you have carried out your diagnosis of the most important signs to look out for fake TikTok followers, we recommend immediately removing or blocking the users from your account individually. Once you start to block enough bots, eventually your profile will be flagged and bots will stop following your account. We know that it is a hassle and an annoyingly long process that might make you procrastinate and leave the bots on your account, but we highly suggest the faster and better you clean out your fake TikTok followers the better it will be for you as an influencer in the long term.
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