Trump’s Twitter followers are half fake — how do other social media stars stack up?

AS it emerges that nearly half of Donald Trump’s 31 million followers are bots, we crunched the numbers to see who is truly popular, and who’s just faking it.

Nearly half of Donald Trump’s Twitter followers are fake. Picture: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

THEY say you should fake it ‘til you make it, and that has never been more true than in the age of social media, where just appearing popular can make it true.

When Donald Trump’s Twitter account gained three million followers in May, most of them without profile pictures, suspicions were raised.

And an online audit of his 31 million followers suggested that almost half of the accounts were fake.

Trump's Twitter acc has suddenly gained 3 mil followers and has been blocking lots of people. New followers look like this... pic.twitter.com/uzYkeNsjUC

— John Niven (@NivenJ1)

Trump's Twitter acc has suddenly gained 3 mil followers and has been blocking lots of people. New followers look like this... pic.twitter.com/uzYkeNsjUC

— John Niven (@NivenJ1) May 30, 2017

s://twitter.com/NivenJ1/status/869547606942371840">May 30, 2017

Of the 10 million followers the President has gained since January, about 8.3 million are fake, Newsweek reports, based on numbers from Twitter Audit.

Botomoter, a tool developed by The Observatory on Social Media, also estimated 50 per cent of Trump’s followers are fake. A random sample of 20 accounts from Trump’s last 300 followers were all flagged as having a high probability of being a bot.

Back in April 2016, when Mr Trump was still just an unlikely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, he had just 7.58 million followers, but only eight per cent were fake.

Today Hillary Clinton has significantly fewer fake followers, at 39 per cent, while Barack Obama has the most followers of any of them and fewest fakes, at just 21 per cent.

We crunched the numbers using the online tool, and found that many of our biggest celebrities have large numbers of fake Twitter followers.

The President doesn’t have as many genuine listeners as it might appear, according to Twitter Audit.

Katy Perry has more followers than anyone in the world, but a whopping 68 per cent are fake. Meanwhile, queen of artifice Kim Kardashian only has 16 per cent fake followers.

Malcolm Turnbull has a higher percentage of fake followers than Mr Trump at 56 per cent, while Bill Shorten sits around the same level as Ms Clinton’s level, with 37 per cent of his followers being fake.

Pauline Hanson is keeping it real with a far smaller number of followers, of whom just 11 per cent are bogus.

It is possible to buy Twitter followers, for $10 for 1000 followers, according to Forbes. But that doesn’t mean these people have done so.

Katy Perry has more followers than anyone in the world. Picture: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

Often, spam bots begin following popular accounts in the hope of a return follow so they can send adverts and links. While having fake followers may make your account look popular, it means you won’t get the engagement you would from authentic, active listeners.

You can get an estimate of your fake follower numbers using Twitter Audit, Status People’s Fake Follower Check, Status Bakers and other sites, which analyse whether accounts are real based on profile picture, tweets and who they follow.

Here’s how genuine the Twitter celebs you follow really are:

But a huge number of them are phony, according to Twitter Audit.

THE FAKE RANKING

Katy Perry (99.2 million followers): 68 per cent fake

Justin Bieber (95.7 million followers): 60 per cent fake

Malcolm Turnbull (844,109 followers): 56 per cent fake

Hillary Clinton (15.7 million followers): 39 per cent fake

Bill Shorten (181,772 followers): 37 per cent fake

Barack Obama (89.2 million followers): 21 per cent fake

Kim Kardashian West (53 million followers): 16 per cent fake

Taylor Swift (84.4 million followers): 12 per cent fake

Pauline Hanson (27,000 followers): 11 per cent fake