Being famous for being famous is the new fame, and nothing signifies it more than influencer culture. People with large followings on social networks command big endorsements and thus big paychecks, but a lot of that hinges on how many followers an influencer or celebrity has. We won’t even go into the fact that a lot of these people may actually be buying followers to increase their numbers, because according to research from All Home Connections (an AT&T reseller), millions of celeb followers don’t exist.
It figured this out by 1) picking the most-followed, non-politically-associated people on Instagram and Twitter, and then 2) using tools that perform estimates on fake followers: SparkToro for Twitter and GRIN for Instagram. (You can use them to audit your own social-media presence, if you really want to know.) It divided the number of fakes by the overall follower count for each account to determine a percentage. The numbers are staggering, especially if your family has a Jenner in it.
Of the two services, Instagram’s fake-follower numbers are slightly lower. The top 10 all have from 25% to 28% fakes. Kourtney Kardashian tops the list with 28% fakes among her 116 million “followers.” That includes celebs with even more followers—like that another Kardashian, Kim, with 214 million followers but only 26% fake ones. Sister Khloe is also at 26%. Other big names are entertainers, including Taylor Swift, JLo, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, and Nicki Minaj—plus one Brazilian footballer, Neymar. Here’s the full list:
Twitter isn’t all models, as evidenced by the number-two slot going to the decidedly un-modely Bill Gates. He’s got 54% fake followers among his 54.6 million followers. But even that is low compared to the 58% of fakes following Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan. Among the rest, half are musicians.
There’s some overlap in the fakes list: Katy Perry and Taylor Swift appear in both, with a lot more fake followers on Twitter for each star. But that appears par for the course on Twitter; it has had more time to attract bots and spammers, as well as plenty of time for people to use it, follow a celeb, and quit without canceling the account.
The report also included a survey of 1,000 people, asking what they think of the influence of these celebs. For example, would they no longer buy the products being shilled by a celeb if they knew the person had purchased followers? Only 25% said they’d stop purchasing products from them, and 50% said it was fine if celebs got free product kickbacks even with inauthentic audience members. What a jaded society we are.
Read the full report at All Home Connections.
