What is a Ghost Follower and Are They Hurting Your Instagram Reach

Seriously, is it just me or does this happen to you too?

From what I understand it happens to everyone.

The reason I’m writing this blog is to help you understand why people do this and how this could be hurting your reach.

One of the things that annoy me the most are people who follow me on Instagram and then unfollow me if I don’t follow them back. In many cases, they are Ghost Followers or Fake Followers.

So, why would someone follow you, and a day or two later they unfollow you?

There are two reasons people do this in my opinion.

#1: Sadly, they may be learning poor social media skills from a coach that is telling them that they need to have big numbers (Followers) on their platforms to making money in their business.

#2: They just want to win the popularity contest and brag about how many followers they have.

What I see a lot of people do is, they start following a bunch of people hoping they will follow them back and then go back in a few days later and unfollow them. It makes me so sad to see people doing this. If this is, you PLEASE STOP doing that. This is not a good way to build your platform.

Have you ever seen someone promote “Learn how to get your first 10000 followers” or “Get my proven formula to getting 10K followers fast”?

It’s kind of like the get rich quick scheme. Right!

Listen, it makes sense, the more followers you have the more opportunity you have to sell your products and services. I get it.

But having followers engage in your posts and interact with you is more and really like what you post is more important than having thousands of Ghost followers.

It all comes down to value! You need to figure out who your Avatar is and give them something of value. I’m not talking about a discount on your products or services. Give people what they really want, like your expertise, your guidance, something that will help them excel or learn from.

Let me explain.

If your followers are not liking, commenting, viewing or sharing your post it is hurting your algorithm. There have been tons of studies done that show that you need at least 4% of your followers engaging on your post for IG to show you post to more people.

That means if you have 1000 followers you should be getting an average of 40 engagements when your post; that would be a combination of likes, shares, and video views.

For instance, if you have 5,000 followers and only a handful of people are engaging in your posts, chances are they don’t really care about your content and they are probably fake followers.

It’s better to have fewer followers and a lot of engagement.

Here’s are a few quick tips on how you can find your true tribe on Instagram without having to trick people into following you.

DO

Grow your followers organically: This means finding your true tribe, people that are interested in what you have to SAY & Sell.

TIP:

Use Hashtags. You can have up to 30 #s on your IG posts. Use searchable hashtags that are relevant to your post.
Give them something of value. Something that they can learn from, something that will help them. GREAT content!
Like and comment on your followers’ posts. It can’t just be one-sided. If you want people to engage in your posts, you need to do the same for them.
Respond to all your comments with a comment and a gif
Start a conversation: ask a question
Be yourself, be authentic!

DON’T

Don’t do business like a slimy used car salesman. Y’all know what I’m talking about.

TIP:

Don’t pay for followers: BAD-BAD-BAD idea. These people will never like, comment, share, or buy your products. You’re wasting your money.

DON’T follow people and then unfollow them because they aren’t following you back. That’s just bad business behavior. STOP DOING THAT!

How to remove a Ghost/Fake follower:

Here’s how you can spot them. They have little to no followers on their page, they have only 2-3 post and they have few pictures on their feed.

Look at their feed before you follow them: There are a lot of Fake/Ghost followers on IG. BEWARE!

When someone follows you check their page and make sure they are not a ghost/fake follower. If you think they are then remove them.

DON’T follow them back. In fact, you can go in and remove them as a follower.

Go to the top of your page. Click on Followers, look for their name, click remover.

I hope this was helpful.

If you want to learn how to start making money with your hobby get the details HERE.

If you want more tricks and Tips get my weekly blog HERE.

See Ya on the inside!

Blessings

Cheryl