Ever wonder why a scantily clad, busty little babe is following you on Twitter? No, no, this doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of being followed by such people, but chances are that the babe doesn’t exist – she’s a bot.

Bot, a term commonly used for web robot, is a software application that runs automated tasks over the internet. When it comes to bots on social media, predominantly on Facebook and Twitter, the latter has more chances of being associated with bots. For the Twitter microblogging service, a Twitter bot produces automated posts in the shape of tweets. For Facebook, it’s “empty” clicks.

But bots are nothing new; they have been around, in one shape or the other, since the early days of the Internet. In 2012, a study by a Cloud-based security service for the web, Incapsula, revealed that more than 51 per cent of the traffic on the web comes from automated software programs – and much of it is malicious. This means that only 49 per cent of internet users are actual users, that is, humans.

So what does this mean for internet security of websites and for advertisers and marketers on the web?

For sites, bots carry a cost burden, in terms of bandwidth, risk and security. But for the marketers and advertisers, it’s a little tricky. The bots can be used to drive up their advertisement costs, by generating more traffic.

The more sophisticated, real, and perhaps more human than humans bots are the social bots. You may consider yourself a big deal on social media when you have hundreds and thousands of followers. But how many of these followers are real? Have you ever gone through your list of followers and realised that some of them might be bots? How does that make you feel? Probably surprised, irritated and vulnerable, and certainly not very happy!

Social bots have built-in databases of current events, they can recognise languages, communicate with humans, send messages on a randomised schedule and even complete regular sleep/wake cycles! In short, they can very easily predict and behave like humans due to their algorithms. Pretty smart work from the programmers!

@Tofuproduct is one prime example of Bots 2.0. Although there are some doubts whether it’s a bot or a real being, it is certainly a very interesting concept – and “product”. Named after a soy-product that takes on the flavour of whatever it is paired with, @Tofuproduct aims to ”write like you do”. The intelligent bot sometimes produces creepy results. Speaking to Mashable, its founder/creator Joseph Toscano said that while he's been working on the algorithm for several years, the specific implementation that @tofu_product uses took a mere three days to perfect, though Toscano is still refining it. "It's not terribly complex," he says, "but it produces results that frequently make me laugh. That's good enough for me, and hopefully for a lot of Twitter users out there."

Sounds harmless enough right? Not really! With bots 2.0, the differentiation between humans and robots has become difficult. For marketers this is a murky territory which whether they like it or not, have become a part of. Fake traffic, fake likes, fake followers – questionable traffic has become essential to online advertising.

An article published on adweek.com claimed that the President of Medialink, Wenda Millard, alarmingly stated that a quarter of the online ad market is fraudulent.“In most people’s wildest dreams, they wouldn’t imagine how much [questionable traffic] there is… People should be very, very worried.”

While most people would discard bots as being harmless and would question why they should worry about it, the answer is very simple: advertising and marketing these days goes beyond making people buy things – they make people buy things and the image of their clients.

According to the latest stats, Katy Perry leads the race with most Twitter followers, followed by Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and the President of the United States, Barack Obama. If you look at Facebook, then it’s a battle between Rihanna, Shakira, Cristiano Ronaldo and a few other celebrities. But really, it’s not about who is winning the followers’ or the fans’ race. It’s about what happens once they get the millions of fans.

What we ‘like’ or follow on social media depends on what others around us have liked and followed. This clearly creates a mob-like mentality that can be seen easily on social media where users follow those who they consider highly influential.

Take for instance, the campaigns run by the US Presidential candidates in 2012. Obama’s campaign’s usage of social media and how it brought forth a new trend during his first presidential win cannot be denied. However, according to researchers who looked at the Twitter activity surrounding the 2012 Presidential campaigns, everything was not as good as it appeared to be. According to the study, almost 30 per cent of Obama’s followers, and almost 22 per cent of Mitt Romney’s followers were fake. The claim was vehemently denied by the Romney staffers.

The same trend was followed and taken up by France’s Nadine Morano, Christian Democratic Union of Germany and American politician Newt Gingrich among others – all of whom were responsible for smear campaigns that featured bots and fake followers. Gingrich had 92 per cent fake followers.

The mob mentality is not so different in our country too. However, in the case of the Land of the Pure, social media campaigns are run more as smear campaigns with parties trying their best to out-do each other and top the charts with the highest number of followers and to make sure others’ followers are run into the ground.

The trend to out-do the opponent by hook or crook was very apparent before and during the May 2013 elections in Pakistan. With Pakistan Tehreek-I-Insaf emerging as the most politically active party on the internet – the rest soon followed suit. However in Pakistan’s case, instead of bots following people, maybe it was the other way around.

According to common lore, Pakistan Muslim League (N)’s Shahbaz Sharif, who was the Chief Minister of Punjab in 2012, ordered all Punjab government officials to like his Facebook page. Shahbaz also ordered the officials to remove all PTI-related content from Facebook and ordered those who had liked the PTI page, to unlike it immediately.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Chairman of Pakistan People’s Party is purported to pick fights online and set off jiyalas after people. But the rowdiest of the all were the Insfians who are known for spamming anyone else who disagrees with their point of view.

Whether they are bots or paid humans – nothing can justify such behaviour of the “fan following”.

When it comes to the entertainment industry, celebrities too, are not shying away from the faking it trend. An infographic by concerttour.org last year revealed a list of the top ten musicians with fake followers; Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Shakira were included in the list.

Coincidentally, Lady Gaga was the worst hit last year when her video had 176 million fake views. The development came a few days after YouTube stripped off more than 2 billion views from the channels of Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG and RCA Records. Katy Perry, Eminem, Rihanna and Beyonce were also affected, but of course not as badly as Lady Gaga. Gaga’s camp denied it, saying “She has far more important things on her mind than manipulating YouTube and Twitter.”

However in some cases, it’s a different story altogether. Limited Run is a service which allows labels, musicians, and artists to create their own stores for selling digital and physical products. In Limited Pressing’s (now Limited Run) case the company was in for a surprise when it started experimenting with Facebook ads. They found out that bots were driving up ad costs, but they could only account for 20 per cent of the clicks that were being converted to users according to Facebook – with the remaining 80 per cent coming from bots. Facebook, however, would not reply to their queries. They promptly shut down their Facebook page, ditching it altogether.

Whether fake or real, no one would deny the prestige that comes with having a large number of followers and fans on social media. The more the followers, the more bragging rights you have. Having a higher number of fans and followers also allows artists, celebrities, politicians and ordinary people to impress potential clients and competitors.

Think about it. You can wait for your brand to reach to its audiences directly. It may take time because the noise that the bots create is enough to drown out your brand – be it a celebrity, a politician, or your selling your credentials as an expert. Or for a few hundred dollars you can gain enough ‘noise’ for people to see you and associate you with your brand. It’s building loyalty versus quickly adding on numbers – what would you prefer?