How to spot a fake influencer before you pay

Why it is harder now

Followers, views and comments can be bought, and AI can now make a whole creator, face and all. In August 2024 the US Federal Trade Commission adopted a rule that bans selling or buying fake indicators of influence, such as bot followers or views, to misrepresent influence for business. A rule does not tell you which account in front of you is real. These checks do.

Eight checks

1. Look at follower growth over time. Real accounts grow in steps around posts that did well; a jump of thousands in a day with no reason is a warning.
2. Compare engagement with audience size. Very high followers with very few likes or comments, or the reverse, needs an explanation.
3. Read the comments. Generic praise, emoji-only replies and the same few accounts on every post suggest engagement pods or bots.
4. Ask where the audience is. Ask for the platform’s own insights showing countries and age, and compare them with the market you sell in.
5. Ask for a screen recording, not a screenshot. A recording of the creator opening their own insights is much harder to fake.
6. Check past brand work. Find the posts, check they were labelled as ads, and ask one of those brands how it went.
7. Match the person to the account. The face, name and links should be the same across their channels and their media kit.
8. Start small. A single post with a clear brief tells you more than any media kit.

The request a real creator never minds

Ask: “Could you send a short screen recording of your audience insights, and the name of one brand we can ask about working with you?” Real creators usually say yes. Excuses are an answer too.

Check them on Few Found

• Paste a creator’s name, @handle or profile link at fewfound.co/check to see whether a person at Few Found has checked them.
• Every creator on Few Found was checked by a person before they appeared. Few Found Verified creators had their audience numbers checked too.
• Few Found Verified means a person reviewed the evidence. It is not a promise of how a campaign will perform.