Here’s how to tell if someone has fake followers on TikTok

We’ve all seen a dubiously high follower count on TikTok and thought, that’s too good to be true. Well, in many cases it is. Some TikTok users buy fake followers, usually bots, to bypass the faff it takes to build up an impressive presence on the app.

The aim is to artificially boost their engagement which will in turn get the app to show their content to more REAL users. It’s basically cheating the system.

But there is a way of telling the difference between genuine and phoney followers. Here’s how you can work out if someone has fake followers on TikTok:

Use a website to conduct a fake follower audit

You can’t conduct a follower audit on TikTok itself, but websites like Hype Editor will do the job for you.

Open the site and click “get started” before creating an account using your email address. After activating your account, log into Hype Auditor and key in the username of the TikTok account you want to check for fake followers.

The website will then generate a report showing all the information on the key stats relating to that TikTok user.

Click “Audience” then scroll down to “Audience Type.” The website will try and get you to pay, but you can just use the “show example” option to avoid doing this.

Now you should get a breakdown of the types of accounts that follow the TikTok user in question.

In the case of iconic train-spotting TikToker Francis Bourgeois, around two per cent of his followers appear to be fake. That’s roughly 36,000 accounts.

The breakdown of Francis Bourgeois’s audience

You can also use this auditing programme for other social media platforms like Instagram, Twitch, Twitter and YouTube.

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