Impact of bots and inactive accounts on analytics — do they skew metrics and reports, and how does this affect planning?

I’ve faced the same issue. At one point, I experimented with a large-scale purchase just to see the effect, and it definitely skewed engagement ratios. Something like buy 1 million instagram followers might look impressive on paper, but your real engagement drops dramatically if those followers are inactive. I learned to focus on smaller, more targeted growth and measure likes, comments, and shares rather than just raw follower count. It makes analytics much more meaningful.

From my experience observing social accounts, even without buying followers, inactive users or lurkers can make numbers misleading. The real signal often comes from a small fraction of your audience that interacts consistently. Tracking engagement trends, comment quality, and shares over time gives a clearer picture than relying solely on follower totals or impressions, especially when planning content or campaigns for future growth.

When metrics become distorted, follower growth appears artificial, engagement drops, and reports don't reflect the real picture. This directly impacts planning—you can make the wrong decisions about content, advertising, or budget. I just found an interesting discussion at https://www.keepandshare.com/discuss3/27608/how-do-you-even-know-who-recently-followed-you where a similar question was raised about how to identify real followers and track their activity. I think without filtering out such "dead souls," a promotion strategy will always suffer.