As soon as you create social media accounts for you business you’ll notice that it takes time to turn your account(s) into a success. Is there a fast way to grow your social media? Let’s look into that.
If you have watched the documentary ‘Fake Famous’ (I highly recommend watching it) you know how easy it is to buy followers for your Instagram account… Or for other social media accounts. Well, so it seems. What is the downside? Should I do it? These are some of the questions that pop up when people have seen that documentary.
‘Fake Famous’: an interesting social experiment
If you didn’t know that it is possible to buy followers for Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok or other social media accounts then the documentary will definitely be an eye-opener. It seems so easy and such a super-fast way to boost your social media accounts.
But the most interesting part of ‘Fake Famous’ is seeing how it changes how people or brands look at accounts with heaps of followers (more than 10,000 or even more than 100,000). Therefore, the documentary is a must-see.
Should I buy followers for my social media accounts?
And now for the million-dollar question… Should you buy followers to boost your Instagram account or other social media accounts?
Well, you’re the only one that can answer that question! I’m not going to be the one to say that “it is bad to buy followers” or to say “it is good to do it”. That’s not what this article is about. You decide what you want to do with your social media accounts.
As a famous football (soccer) player once said: “Every advantage has its disadvantages”. I can only tell you about an experiment I did myself on one of my social media test accounts.
Advantages of buying followers
The reason why people buy followers for their social media accounts is simple: to get more followers.
Whether you just want to boost a relatively new or small account… Or want to fake it all the way, it is your decison to do it.
Disadvantages of buying followers
So let’s focus on the disadvantages of buying fake followers for your social media account. Yeah, they are fake. All the followers you buy will be bots, no matter what the website you uses to buy them promises you. Watch ‘Fake Famous’ for a detailed explanation how these fake followers aka bots work.
The main disadvantages of buying followers are:
- You will mess up the statistics of your account. Let’s assume, you have 200 real followers on Instagram and get on average 20 likes per post. Then you will have an engagement or interaction percentage of 10%. Add 800 fake followers and your engagement drops to 2%. Add 1200 fake followers and your engagement drops to 0.9% (assuming no changes to the number of likes).
- You could have your account locked or banned by the social media platform.
Followers you bought can disappear when the social media platform detects them or does a clean-up action later on. Websites that sell followers nowadays give you a no drop guarantee, but it can still happen.
What happens when you buy followers for Instagram?
So what happened when I bought followers for an Instagram test account? Well, that was interesting… Several years ago I did a similar experiment with a Facebook page and this was definitely different.
Good different or bad different? Keep reading and you will find out. So I started with a small yet active account that had 200 followers.
- After placing the order for 1,000 followers, the number of followers increased by at least 1,000 followers in the next 5 minutes. Yes, within 5 minutes. Even though the website promised a gradual delivery.
- On the day of purchase, I did see a message on Instagram about the system limiting certain activities to protect their community, but that was only briefly. There was no ban (yet).
- In the next few days, the number of followers dropped 25 to 50 daily and increased by a 100 (the no drop guarantee in action).
- That went on for a few days to week(s), then the number of followers stabilised. The delivery was completed successfully. However, you will notice a drop in interaction. Not the number of likes per post, that remains the same, but the interaction percentage. Of course. These new followers are just a number that is added, they do not provide any extra interaction… There are sites where you can purchase interaction but I’ll leave that for a future post. Maybe.
Was it worth it? To be honest, yes. The reason for doing this was just to give a relative young account a quick boost without setting off alarm bells. It definitely wasn’t my intention to add tens of thousands of followers… Just a quick start, without being proud of the number of followers. The future of the account is in my hands and will require the traditional hard work to really grow the account.
Tips when you do decide to go for it
As mentioned earlier, this blog post isn’t to recommend it nor to discourage you from doing it. You decide, but if you want to go for it then here are some tips.
- Don’t believe what these websites promise you!
- Buying followers means buying fake followers aka bots. They all promise real followers but that won’t happen.
- Gradual delivery won’t happen either. You will get these followers dumped onto your account in minutes.
- Yes, they will deliver… Most of them.
- It doesn’t matter who you choose to buy your followers from.
- If you don’t want to put your credit card details in a check-out system of a website you don’t trust (yet), then use a virtual or digital credit or debit card. You can open a free online bank account with Wise (New Zealand, Australia, USA, UK or Europe bank accounts). Once you have opened your free Wise account, you can add digital debit cards to your account. Another free service. These virtual or digital cards can be frozen or blocked when you are done with them or when they get stolen. That way you never run the risk of losing your real card when things go wrong with your online purchase.
What is your conclusion?
That you now have all the info to make a well-thought-out decision whether you want to buy followers or not. And that you should watch the documentary ‘Fake Famous’ on Neon in New Zealand.
Oh, one last piece of advice… If you do decide to buy followers, please do not think you have made it. Buying followers is still faking it till you make it. Keep in mind that you still need to put in the hard work to turn your account into a real success. Once that is done you can be really proud that you have made it
