Why Twitter removing Fake Accounts is so Important

Noticed your Twitter followers slowly decreasing over the last month or so? Twitter has taken it under their belt to rid the platform of fake followers and accounts that haven’t been active for a long period of time. The reason? To make engagement, conversation and metrics more realistic and “improve the health’ of brand analytics.

If you work in social media, it is no shock that Twitter has been home to millions of fake accounts for a long time. We can always tell when someone has paid for their followers, their engagement is low and doesn’t match the follower number. This mass number of fake accounts was created due to the fact that buying fake followers is so cheap and accessible for everyone

With influencer marketing becoming so much more important within digital marketing, understanding someone’s ‘true’ influence is one of the main priorities for brands. Twitter has reacted to the shift in digital marketing towards influencer marketing and wants to make sure they can give true metrics to companies.

Twitter has said that around 6% off all total Twitter accounts will be deleted in the huge cull.

The most noticeable changes so far have been on celebrities accounts. Katy Perry has famously been the ‘most followed person on Twitter’ with 110 million followers. However, after running a Twitter audit we can see that over 12,000,000 of those are fake which will bring her below some of her celebrity friends. We have been tracking Katy Perry’s account for some time and noticed a giant increase in followers prior to the launch of her new album. This wasn’t a spike that could have been created over a period of paid adverts, as the increase happened over a period of 1-2 days.

This change in Twitter’s policies is massive for influencers and brands and will allow them to understand how much an influencer should really be charging based on more their follower count but rather their engagement rate on the platform.

We think that Twitter cracking down on fake accounts or ‘dead’ accounts as some marketing publications are calling them, is a great step forward in being more transparent with the end consumer and will benefit brands more in the long run. Taking the focus away from follower counts and concentrating more on the quality of content and targeting of posts.

If you’re seeking help with your social media marketing and want to learn more about how influencers could help boost your brand, contact our team today.

Written by Zara Bennett
Head of Social