Skate brands and pros buying FAKE FOLLOWERS???

[Alex4rmNYC]

I’m just trying to get things clear here, I’m not trying call anyone out (although I can call out numerous accounts) but I’m noticing so many accounts that have fake followers. Big name brands that we would’ve never guessed, with a butt load of followers, but not the amount of likes or comments to back it up. I know it’s just the internet and why do I care...I don’t, but it’s kind of embarrassing when a brand that we grew up on has 100k followers and then like 400 likes. Idk. Just weird to me and was hoping someone could justify this for me or maybe I have the wrong idea of it all.

[leftjab13]

There is a 100% chance that brands and individuals buy followers.  All wrapped up in the marketing.  Happens in all industries.  Just sayin. 

[Reese]

You may be onto something

[daniel]

Name names!

[FS-OverKOOK]

this is SLAP...names should always be named. Who are you protecting?

[Alex4rmNYC]

this is SLAP...names should always be named. Who are you protecting?

I didn’t want to name any names honestly because there’s too many to name. Slap won’t let me post a screenshot but CHOCOLATE for example. Almost 700k followers. I clicked on one picture from
June 20. 1028 likes and 2 comments. It’s sad. Lol

[Rick_Kane]

[doublesteveburger]

[Sidewalk Funk.]

I know of a few companies that have bought followers for their riders' Instagram accounts as well as the company's own Instagram account. First time I heard of a skateboard company doing this was in 2014. Seems to be a fairly common practice.

[Trickflip]

I opened this thread expecting to see screenshots from Links, Pics, and Quotes, of proof that certain pro skaters and brands buying followers. I'm disappointed

[Glurmpz]

As an older skater I find it amusing that anyone would care about that sort of information... how many likes and followers people/brands have and such.

But, you do know that you can follow someone and not be obligated to 'like' all, or any, or their posts... right? I barely 'like' anything. I just keep scrolling.

[Roisto]

I opened this thread expecting to see screenshots from Links, Pics, and Quotes, of proof that certain pro skaters and brands buying followers. I'm disappointed

Exactly the same!

[Gray Imp Sausage Metal]

Expand Quote

I opened this thread expecting to see screenshots from Links, Pics, and Quotes, of proof that certain pro skaters and brands buying followers. I'm disappointed

[close]

Exactly the same!

[tkp]

Quick google search led me to https://igaudit.io/ . I've never used it before, but seems like a fun experiment. Note, it doesn't prove or disprove if followers were bought, it just compares the data of 200 random accounts that follow the instagram account being tested.

Ran it on myself. I've never bought followers, but I've definitely had some obvious bot accounts follow me after hash tagging a city or a keyword. That happens to pretty much every Instagram account out there.



Since you brought up Chocolate



Kook Of the Day has a similar follower amount for comparison, but it also gets a lot more people commenting due to the nature of it.



Then I just got curious (not trying to pick on any brand, just went for what came to my head):























Anyways, you can dig deeper on that site and see more stats and how they determine whether an account is legit or not.

"IG Audit works by examining up to 200 random followers for the input user to estimate the user's follower authenticity. For each follower, our algorithm looks at the statistics above and more, and outputs a score between 0 and 1 (1 being real). We then average those probability scores across all 200 accounts examined to produce the final estimate.  Follower reachability is one of the things our algorithm emphasizes - if a follower appears to be inactive or follow a high number of people, they tend to score proportionally lower, because your posts + stories have a much lower chance of actually reaching them. After auditing millions of users, we've also modeled the distributions for each of these statistics for different following sizes, and compare the input user's statistics to the expected values given their follower count."

[Szechuan]

Quick google search led me to https://igaudit.io/ . I've never used it before, but seems like a fun experiment. Note, it doesn't prove or disprove if followers were bought, it just compares the data of 200 of the account's followers.

Ran it on myself. I've never bought followers, but I've definitely had some obvious bot accounts follow me after hash tagging a city or a keyword. That happens to pretty much every Instagram account out there.



Since you brought up Chocolate



Kook Of the Day has a similar follower amount for comparison, but it also gets a lot more people commenting due to the nature of it.



Then I just got curious (not trying to pick on any brand, just went for what came to my head):

















Anyways, you can dig deeper on that site and see more things.

"IG Audit works by examining up to 200 random followers for the input user to estimate the user's follower authenticity. For each follower, our algorithm looks at the statistics above and more, and outputs a score between 0 and 1 (1 being real). We then average those probability scores across all 200 accounts examined to produce the final estimate.  Follower reachability is one of the things our algorithm emphasizes - if a follower appears to be inactive or follow a high number of people, they tend to score proportionally lower, because your posts + stories have a much lower chance of actually reaching them. After auditing millions of users, we've also modeled the distributions for each of these statistics for different following sizes, and compare the input user's statistics to the expected values given their follower count."

This is a terrific start! Gnar if I could but I need LPQ rooting into the companies marketing managers phones and screenshotting all the juice. My lizard brain craves it! We need a batsignal for that dude.

[euro tm]

hahahahahaha most of skateboarding is a lie, statistically proven.

a lot of skateboarders figured out early on in instagram to just like every photo with the the hashtag skateboarding to get followers. do it to a photo now and i guarantee greg lutzka and mike mo will like it. this is how irrelevant skateboarders have followers right now. shits a joke.

[WastedHippy]

hahahahahaha most of skateboarding is a lie, statistically proven.

a lot of skateboarders figured out early on in instagram to just like every photo with the the hashtag skateboarding to get followers. do it to a photo now and i guarantee greg lutzka and mike mo will like it. this is how unrelivent skateboarders have followers right now. shit a joke.

haha I'm going to give this a try next time I post

[Cuban_Lynx]

Just because everyone is probably wondering

[KoRnholio8]

^^ Honestly, that is a pretty good percentage for our favorite equestrian. must be his face

[iKobrakai]

Russian bots, dude...

[TwisT]

So, most accounts on the internet are fake. I remember seeing a statistic  saying like 70%?of internet activity is robots. Like if you go to any small town newspaper with the comment section open, you’ll see most if not all is just bots.

Also earlier this year there was post about pros with fake followers. The border use to have social media data. You could see spikes in followers. Somebody showed that some pros would get spikes of 5 or 10k followers without any justification (like a trending clip) the border has removed that feature

[leftjab13]

This isnt just skateboarding, its every industry that gives social media any relevancy.
Youtube videos are the same way.  You can purchase thousands of views for a post no problem.

[versacekid420]

Russian bots, dude...

true. I’ve been hacked before by someone in Russia and I get added to fake porn group chats on Instagram by a fake Russian bot account. It happens to everyone I bring it up to as well

[SquintinTarantino]

I opened this thread expecting to see screenshots from Links, Pics, and Quotes, of proof that certain pro skaters and brands buying followers. I'm disappointed

Me too! More thought and effort was put into the Nora/Lizzie beef post.

[slapshakle]

Davey Boy of Monster/ Punisher Skateboards fame has 25k followers but is lucky to get 1 comment per post. 

[Bitter]

Instagram is about to stop showing likes anyway.

[FLstrange]

real skateboards, fake instagram followers

[tension]

darkstar def has a real online following

[theotherguy]

Low engagement on Instagram doesn't necessarily mean that the account has fake followers. Facebook (they own Instagram) rolled out their "boost" strategy to Instagram a long time ago.

Basically, you take a page/account with a good amount of followers and stop showing posts to all their followers. Then you tell the page/account that to get better engagement, they must boost/sponsor the post. The brand has to pay to reach their "own" audience.

[Murge]

Since that’s kinda based on followers and averaging comments and likes on a post. Could content help it skew numbers. Like maybe real has more real followers it’s just no one cares to comment on kwalks saying let’s go and their weirdly jock team.