Sure it is, it's omission of a material fact. You know the person is trying to get through to real people. You know the number of actual people who are followers is smaller than the real number (through your intentional act of buying them), and you know this is material to the person you are talking to. If they suffer legal injury, congrats, you committed fraud.

This is pretty basic stuff. The kind of logic parsing you are attempting is not how the law works.

"Companies need to do their research and ask the right questions before they part with their money..."

While generally true, it's irrelevant here. This is a thing you would definitely have a duty to disclose (for a ton of reasons). This would make it ripe for a misrepresentation-type fraud claim.