Tell me if this sounds familiar; You created your accounts on all the major social media platforms. You create content weekly, sometimes even multiple times a day. You’re doing everything the social media experts are saying but you’re still not seeing that number of followers tick upwards, and in some cases, you’re even seeing the numbers decrease! 

When you’re seconds from throwing in the towel, you get a DM popping into your inbox: For only X amount of money, with no effort, you can get X amount of followers! 

Tempting, right? 

Even if you’ve heard, time and again, that you shouldn’t, it can feel like it’s the only way sometimes. So what can really go wrong? 

Why do you want followers? 

This might seem like a silly question but hear me out. Why do you want followers? Is it just so others see a huge number when they look at your profile? 

Maybe. It does feel nice to have that extra clout. 

But does it mean anything if those followers will never convert to engagement or income?

Most people want to have followers so they will: 

• Interact with content for immediate feedback

• Buy products and services

• Share content to spread awareness 

In this blog post, I will tell you how buying followers works, why I don’t recommend it and give you some advice on things to do instead so you can maximize your Social Media ROI.

How does buying followers work? 

Buying followers sadly is quite popular even though it’s really not recommended and can have negative effects on your business. There are a lot of options on how to do it, and a quick google ‘buying X platform followers’ will give you a lot of different options. You pay the fee they request and they add a set number of followers to your account. 

In most cases, the followers they add are bot accounts with no person behind them to appeal to. The only benefit to the process is having a higher follower count and potentially flagging the algorithm to your indiscretion and landing yourself in a shadowban.

On top of that, the followers are not guaranteed to stay—so anyone using a follow/unfollow service that ends up as one of your followers will unfollow within days if you aren’t following them back and most platforms clear bot accounts every couple of months. 

Even if a site advertises and promises you “high-quality Likes/Followers”,  these followers will never be as good as genuine followers that you build over time. In my opinion, slow and steady wins the race!

Having 100 followers where 90% will engage with you daily and buy from you is so much better than having 1000 or 10,000 followers where 10% will engage with you and buy from you.

3 REAL Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Buy Followers

• Low Engagement is not great for the algorithm

• It can cause potential clients to skip over your accounts 

• The chance of purchased Likes to become clients are extremely slim 

Low engagement is bad for the algorithm

As I mentioned above, having 10,000 Likes or Followers doesn’t mean much if these followers aren’t engaging with your social media content. In most cases, bought fans won’t engage with your content because the majority of them aren’t even real people. 

And the ones that are real aren’t going to be interested in what you have to say because they likely aren’t your target market and they may not even be aware they are now following you. 

So buying followers guarantees you an increase in following, but it does not give you genuine engagement from your audience that shows your content is worth looking at and showing more people.

Algorithms are impossible to nail down 100% of the time, but one thing that has never changed is how much social media wants you to be, you know, social! When the platforms notice how high your follower count is and how low your engagement is in comparison, your content will be deemed as ‘not relevant and it will be shown to fewer people. 

So when you buy followers packages, you are actually harming your algorithm ranking and pushing away real potential followers. 

It Can Cause You to lose real potential clients

OK, let’s say that these bought followers actually do somewhat engage with your content. This will be good for your overall algorithm ranking but not with actual likes and people that will support your business—which can actually cause a red flag for your accounts. 

So although you may see a lot of engagement, it won’t be coming from followers who are really interested in your business. And if you are posting consistently and your “bought fans” are engaging with but your actual potential clients aren’t, is it worth it? 

Remember that yes you can buy followers which = likes but in the end it doesn’t equal customers or more money for your business. 

Purchased Likes Won’t Become Your Customers

Many brands and businesses are on social media to help generate more sales for their business but if you’re engaging daily with people on the platform who have absolutely no interest in your business, products or services you sell, then you’re not going to see a difference in your bottom line. 

While you’re aiming to be as social as you can on your social media platforms, we can’t forget that the time we invest in them is for marketing our business. So buying followers defeats the purpose of trying to make real connections online. 

Bought followers haven’t stumbled upon your content, decided they like you and what you’re about, and made the decision to follow you. They might not be even close to the correct demographic. So the likelihood of them joining your customer base is small. 

What are the other options to grow your feeds without buying followers? 

So now that we have told you why you shouldn’t buy followers, what can you do to actually grow your feeds?

Here are things to do to grow your social media feeds:

• Create great shareable content

• Hold a contest (make sure you are following the rules!)

• Post consistently

• Run ads

• Create free downloadables

If you want to increase your followers (with real likes and followers), then you need to focus on great relatable shareable content

If you have money to spend on followers, you can use that budget to instead invest in someone to help you with your graphics, or with writing engaging captions for your posts. There are so many social media marketers who specialize in your specific pain point and it would have a much larger impact on your sales conversion. 

And if you don’t have a budget, focus on providing value. Create something people like and relate to, that they want to share with their own followers. Once the snowball gets rolling, the effect can grow your reach exponentially! 

If you do decide to buy likes for your social media platforms, do so understanding that your purchase is for a vanity metric and proceed with it as such. If you only care about what number of followers you have, and have cash to throw at it, and haven’t spent long on your account (therefore do not care if you’re shadowbanned) then, by all means, go ahead. 

But at the end of the day, you’re investing your time to make money for your business, and social media becomes less effective when you take the ‘social’ out of the equation.  

Social media marketing platforms are more effective for your business with just 100 followers if they are actual customers, compared to 10,000 fake customers. Aim for real growth and your business will benefit. 

Not sure how to start engaging? Book a 1:1 session for your business.