How can you tell if your followers are real people or just bots/fakes?

[ronswanson]

So, I recently noticed that my follower count jumped a lot after a small promo I ran, but engagement didn’t really change. Now I’m wondering if some of those new accounts are even real. A few have no profile pics, weird usernames, and zero posts. I’m not sure if they’re bots or just inactive users. Is there an easy way to tell the difference? I’d rather clean up my audience than have fake numbers.

[bettyvill]

Yeah, that’s actually a common issue. When I tried a budget boost from a site that offered instagram followers $1, I noticed some accounts looked suspiciously inactive too. What helped me was checking their activity — real followers usually have a few posts, stories, or at least some interaction with others. Also, if engagement stays consistent after adding followers, you’re probably fine. Bots don’t usually comment or like much over time.

[nadiafish]

Sometimes the mix of real and inactive followers just happens naturally when your page grows fast. I’ve seen big accounts go through the same thing — they get tons of new followers, but only a small group actually interacts. Keeping your content consistent and posting stories seems to help filter out who’s genuinely interested versus who just followed randomly or got added by some automated system.