Influencers in Singapore resort to fakery to boost their numbers.

They buy followers, use cheap tricks such as following and then unfollowing other users, and utilise meaningless comment pods to inflate engagement with their posts.

This is according to a new report conducted by HypeAuditor that surveyed 7,107 Singaporean influencers claiming to have between 1,000 and one million followers.

HypeAuditor is an online Instagram and YouTube audit tool that uses artificial intelligence to detect social media fraud such as artificial followers, likes, comments and other types of engagement.

As of August 2019, there were 1.97 Instagram million users in Singapore.

How Singaporean influencers fake it till they make it or never will

Some 47 percent of influencers in Singapore artificially increase their Instagram statistics using various means by sometimes employing more than one technique.

Breakdown of fakery:

• 27 percent of influencers in Singapore buy followers.

• 10 percent of influencers use the follow/ unfollow trick, which involves following a massive number of other Instagram users just so they will be followed back -- and then unfollowing those users after being followed.

• 27 percent boost comments artificially.

• 17 percent of influencers here artificially inflate their comments
• 10 percent of influencers use "comment pods" to do so

How influencers are classified

HypeAuditor classifies influencers according to the size of their followers:

• Over 1 million followers: Mega-influencers and celebrities
• 100,000 to 1 million followers: Macro-influencers
• 20,000 to 100,000 followers: Mid-tier influencers
• 5,000 to 20,000 followers: Micro-influencers
• 1,000 and 5,000: Nano-influencers

The majority of the 7,107 social media influencers surveyed in Singapore were:

Micro-influencers (5,000 to 20,000 followers): 4,138

Macro-influencers (100,000 to 1 million followers): 96

Mid-tier influencers (20,000 to 100,000 followers): 999

Nano-influencers (1,000 and 5,000): 1,874

Notable survey findings

Some 56 percent of macro-influencers (100,000 to 1 million followers) cheat on their numbers -- the highest level of Instagram fraud in Singapore.

Nano-influencers (1,000 and 5,000) were found to have the lowest level of Instagram fraud -- but it still came in at 38 percent.

More than 15 percent of mid-tier influencers (20,000 to 100,000 followers) use the “follow/ unfollow” strategy.

34 percent of micro-influencers (5,000 to 20,000 followers) bought Instagram followers.

34 percent of macro-influencers (20,000 to 100,000 followers) inflated their comments by buying comments or using comment pods

HypeAuditor said Singapore had a few mega-influencers (over 1 million followers), but they were under 1 percent and were excluded from the report.

Four ways to cheat on Instagram

1. Buying followers

2. Buying likes and comments

3. Using comment pods.

This is also known as engagement pods or boost groups.

Influencers set up groups on Facebook or on messaging platforms for the sole purpose of collaboratively enhancing engagement on their social media pages.

4. Using a strategy called “follow/ unfollow”.

Influencers follow other users on Instagram on a massive scale to get those users to follow them back.

A few days later, they unfollow the users.