The number of “followers” or subscribers in social networks is very important. Indeed, influencers and public figures rely on this figure to show their significance. For example, influencers market their marketing campaigns (product placement, sponsorship, etc.) more expensive because their audience is potentially large. Like the ratings of a television channel or the number of page views of a site.
Imagine if this indicator was false. Shaken is the entire system of influencers. It is common knowledge that this indicator can be “manipulated”.. Some influencers “buy” followers to inflate this indicator. Two goals: better sell the audience and attract followers. Because it gives confidence to real users. You’re more likely to follow a highly followed person than a complete stranger. That’s the logic. Obviously, he also says “fake follower” who says “buying followers”.
Research says nearly 20 percent of Twitter accounts are fake
That’s why there are fake accounts on social networks. They are not just robots for marketing purposes. There may also be bots whose purpose is to send spam to my users (all this spam can include scams and information or money theft). During the final presentation of its results, Twitter declared that this phenomenon was marginal and covers less than 5% of accounts. This angered Elon Musk, who suspended the Twitter takeover.
After that, SparkToro and FollowerWonk, two experts in Twitter account analysis, published a study on the percentage of fake accounts. And the figure is much higher than Twitter. In the effect, reaches 19.42%. The study is based on various indicators such as the age of the account, whether there is a profile photo, the presence and length of the biography, the number of messages sent, the freshness of the last message, the number. The number of followed accounts or the location of the account.
More than 7 out of 10 subscribers of Elon Musk’s account would be fake!
Thus, more than a dozen indicators are crossed and analyzed. And according to two experts, the number of fake accounts will therefore be four times higher than Twitter’s statements. In addition, the percentage of fake followers of Elon Musk will be quite high: over 70%. Experts explain that symbolic accounts like those of the Tesla boss are the main targets. Of course, there may be false positives in this calculation. The authors of the study acknowledge that they only count the visible activity of an account, not the simple link. And that’s what we hope for Twitter.