If your business is new to social media, you may feel a little insecure about your follower count. You might be thinking that if you could reach 1,000 followers, or some other plateau, you would start seeing some returns from your social media investment. While it may seem tempting to resort to a quick fix, the last thing you want to do is buy followers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or any other social platform.
Why not to Buy Followers on Instagram or other Social Platforms
1) Weaker Audience Participation
If you buy followers on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, the user accounts who follow your brand are just for show. They will not like, comment or share any of your content. In fact, this short-term, cosmetic fix will lower your engagement rates.
Buying phony followers also hurts your ability to listen and learn from your target audience. The addition of inactive accounts makes it more difficult to figure out your audience’s interests and demographics.
This strategy will not directly improve your sales numbers, because the “friends” you are buying typically aren’t even real people.
2) May Damage your Reputation
While you might think no one will notice, buying followers could ultimately damage your brand reputation. Potential customers may think there is a problem with your company, because it does not have a real audience of supporters. In addition, your brand may even lose sales, because if you do not appear to be transparent or trustworthy.
3) Violates the Terms of Conditions
If you are interested in receiving long-term returns from social media, buying followers probably isn’t the right move. Since this practice violates many social platform’s official terms and conditions, your account could potentially be suspended or even terminated. Then, your business would lose the opportunity to reap the rewards of social media marketing services, a risk your brand may not be able to afford to take.
Better Alternatives to Buying ‘Friends’
If your business is looking to grow its social media footprint, there are legitimate practices you can follow that are proven to deliver better results. You could invest in a comprehensive content strategy that not only raises your followers but also increases engagement level, conversion rate and sales numbers.
These three types of advertising campaigns are a viable option for organically increasing your audience.
- Followers or Likes Campaigns are geared to increase the size of your audience. These paid advertisements, which appear in user’s timelines, aim to attract non-followers to join your business’ page.
- Promoted Content looks like any other social post but this paid piece of content is shown to a wider audience than normal. This exposure is a great way to grow your audience.
- Audience Targeting directs your content to smaller, sub-categories in your audience who are most likely to engage with it.
All three of these options are guaranteed to deliver stronger results than what typically happens when you buy followers on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
