How to check an influencer before a paid post: a real account, past sponsored posts and engagement

Disclosure rules for influencer posts

This check takes five minutes and filters out some candidates at once. In the United States, paid endorsements fall under the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Its guide Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers, published in November 2019, sets the basic rule. Creators disclose any financial, employment, personal or family relationship with a brand. Free or discounted products count too.

The rule also reaches creators abroad. Per the same guide, U.S. law applies when it is reasonably foreseeable that a post will affect U.S. consumers.

What a proper disclosure looks like

• It sits with the endorsement itself. A profile page, the end of a video or a “more” link is too easy to miss.
• Plain words work: ad, advertisement, sponsored. Vague tags such as sp, spon or collab do not.
• In a video, the disclosure belongs inside the video, not just in the description.
• In a live stream, it is repeated from time to time, so viewers who join late still see it.

The guide also warns against relying on a platform's disclosure tool alone. For a brand, this gives a quick test: open earlier sponsored posts and see how clearly the creator marked them. A creator who hid earlier deals will likely treat yours the same way. Pricing and the wider legal frame are covered in our guide to what influencer posts cost on Instagram.

Is the account real: impersonators and fakes

An impersonator copies the name, photo and recent posts of a known creator. Then it writes to brands in that creator's name and asks for a deposit. Two ten-minute checks tell the copy from the original.

Links point both ways

Start with the bio. It links to the creator's channel, website or pages on other platforms. Open each one and look for a link back to the same Instagram account. Compare the handle character by character: impersonators swap one letter or add an extra dot.

Warning sign: the links point only one way. Another one: the offer came from an account or email that the creator's official pages never mention. Reply through the contacts on the profile, not the address in the first message.

The verified badge

Per Instagram Help, the verified badge is a check mark that sits next to an account's name. A check drawn on the profile photo or typed into the name is a fake. The badge is about who owns the account, not about its audience. It says nothing about bought followers or real engagement.

If you find an impersonator, report it. The Help Center explains how to file an impersonation report about an account that pretends to be you or someone else. Warn the real creator too, through the contacts on their profile.

Past sponsored posts

Past ads show how an audience treats someone else's product. Scroll the feed, reels and highlights for the last six months. Look for three signs.

• A Paid partnership label with the brand's name.
• The word ad or sponsored in the caption or on screen.
• A promo code, a shop link or a brand tag in the caption.

A Help Center article explains these paid partnership labels. Creators do not always add them, so an unlabeled post may still be an ad. List the ads you find apart from regular content.

Compare ads with regular content

Take a made-up account with 20,000 followers. Regular posts get about 400 likes and 30 comments. Three sponsored ones got 150 likes and 3 comments each. So the ads got under 40 percent of the usual likes and a tenth of the comments.

This is how the audience treats this creator's ads, and your product will hardly fare better. The opposite picture deserves a closer look too. Ads outperform regular content, while the comments under them are short and generic.

Questions for past advertisers

Brands from those ads know things the profile does not show. Write to them through official contacts and ask three things.

• Whether the ad went live on time and as agreed.
• How many clicks, orders or promo code uses it brought.
• Whether they would work with the creator again.

Silence from a brand proves nothing. Two brands saying they would not work with the creator again is a warning sign.

Checking an influencer for fake followers with public numbers

A public profile shows likes, comments, reel views and the follower count. These numbers show how steadily the audience responds from one upload to the next. They cannot prove bought reach, but gaps show up at once. A creator can hide like and view counts on their posts, and then only a screen recording of insights will show them. Signs of bots among followers are covered in our guide to spotting bought followers.

Typical engagement and the spread

An average misleads when one upload pulls up the whole set. The median is fairer: the middle value once you line up uploads by likes. Take a made-up account with 20,000 followers and its eight latest uploads. Every number in the table is invented.

The average over these eight is 1,576 likes, and the median is 405. One reel with 9,800 likes pushed the average up nearly fourfold. A brand that pays by the average pays for engagement a typical upload never gets. Warning sign: the average is twice the median or more.

An outlier is not a flaw in itself, since a reel can land in recommendations. Then comments and views grow along with likes. Item five has only twice the usual comments, while its likes are 24 times higher. Ask the creator about such an outlier before you pay.

Comments against likes

The second number is comments per 100 likes. In the example, the median is 30.5 comments on 405 likes, about 7.5 per hundred. Compare the creator with their own past uploads and with similar accounts, not with an outside norm. Warning sign: thousands of likes and two or three comments under the same post.

Then read the comments. Real ones react to the content, argue and ask follow-up questions. Bought ones repeat one word or a row of emoji and come from empty accounts. The same lines under different posts give away a bought audience better than any number.

Engagement per follower and the last upload

The third number is engagement per follower. In the example, 405 likes on 20,000 followers comes to about 2 likes per 100 people. How to calculate an engagement rate is covered in our guide to follower activity. Warning sign: engagement per follower several times lower than at similar accounts.

The last step is the date of the latest upload. An account that has been silent for two months sells last season's audience. Old numbers do not tell you how many people will see a new post.

What the Sled report shows

The Sled report takes the recent posts of a public account and computes what you just did by hand. It works from the public profile only, with no login to your account. It covers four things.

• Typical response and the spread between posts.
• Comments measured against likes.
• Response per follower.
• When the account last published.

The report names the gaps it sees: likes without discussion, one post that carries the whole set, uneven response over time. It gives no proof of bought reach on purpose. The platform does not label such views and does not publish its criteria. So the report states facts, and the decision stays with you.

Disclosure history, account authenticity and past ads are outside the report. You check those by hand with the steps above.

What to ask the influencer and where the check stops

A screen recording of insights

Reach sits in the creator's insights, not on the public profile: the app now calls it Viewers, the number of accounts that saw the content at least once. Ask for a screen recording of insights for two or three posts that you pick yourself. A recording with scrolling is harder to fake than a screenshot. How to match it against public numbers is covered in our guide to an influencer's real reach.

What to put in the contract

The contract should set the posting date, the format, how long the content stays up and a screen recording of insights afterwards. A separate line covers a refund if it does not go live on time. Other terms and the brief are covered in our guide to working with influencers on Instagram.

Where the check stops

The check covers the working numbers of a public profile. The creator's address, family and private life have nothing to do with an ad, so leave them alone. Do not message the creator's followers either. Ask the creator and the brands they worked with.

Common questions before paying