The straightforward approach is to go and check each suspect's fake follower profile. Most of the bots acting as fake followers have very few posts and/or activity on their page. Also, many bots don't have a profile picture on their account or are using a photo taken on Google image.

Unfortunately, bought followers are a reality. But fortunately for us marketers, there are ways to spot these fake followers. Despite what sites that sell followers, say, they're most often not real accounts.

Instagram spam bots come in many forms, but they all share one common goal – to benefit their owner in some way. Some of the most common are: Follow bots. These bots will automatically follow other accounts in an attempt to inflate their follower count artificially.

Generating fake followers for your Instagram account gives other users the impression that your account is popular and you have a large online following. To attract fake followers on Instagram, you must work with a third-party service that develops fake Instagram accounts.