A ghost follower is an Instagram account that follows you but never actively engages with you (i.e. never likes or comments on any of your Instagram content).
For serious marketers, social media and content marketing professionals, high follower numbers alone are not enough. Other metrics take center stage, such as engagement or engagement rate. In these cases, ghost followers are a major obstacle to success.
Ghost followers correspond to the following characteristics:
0 followers
0 posts
No profile picture
High ratio of people they follow-for-follow
0 posts in the last 30 days
Username is filled with random numbers
There is only one legal way to remove low-quality followers.
Manually Block Them
If you have an Instagram Business Account, the only way is to block ghost followers manually. To do that, find their profile by tapping the (…) in the top-right corner and hit 'Block'.
It's easier to complete this procedure by switching from a Business Account to a Personal one and set it to a Private mode. You are then capable of removing ghost followers instead of blocking them.
Remove followers gradually rather than all at once. If you remove a large number of followers in a short period of time, Instagram's systems may interpret this as automated behavior—especially if the actions are performed very quickly. Instead of trying to clean up your audience in a single day, set aside a small amount of time regularly and make it part of your routine. Depending on the number of followers you want to remove, the process may take several weeks or even months.
We strongly recommend against using third-party automation tools to identify or remove inactive or suspicious followers.
Some services claim they can automatically detect followers who have never liked or commented on your posts and remove them in bulk. There are two important reasons to avoid these tools:
They may put your account at risk. Automated actions can be detected by Instagram, potentially resulting in temporary action limits or, in more serious cases, restrictions on your account.
Visible interactions aren't the whole picture. A lack of likes or comments does not necessarily mean someone isn't engaging with your content. Many users watch Reels, view Stories, swipe through carousels, or read captions without leaving a visible interaction. These signals still contribute to how Instagram evaluates audience engagement, even though they aren't publicly visible.
According to the statement of the Unilever's CEO - Keith Weed, most of the big brands decided to step back from working with creators who have the inauthentic audience.
Don't be scared to get rid of the inauthentic audience. You have more value as a creator with 20K real followers and a good reputation, rather than having an account with some artificially boosted numbers.