Building your Instagram account from scratch can be a daunting task that requires a lot of planning, creativity, and time. So, buying some followers to boost your growth might seem tempting. Overnight, you can go from zero to 10,000 followers and even more.
However, you should think twice before giving in. Fake followers won’t help your long-term goal. Instead, you risk ruining your reputation and losing your account if Instagram notices your activity.
Before you make a decision, learn how buying Instagram followers can affect your brand.
There’s No Real Engagement
While buying Instagram followers will increase your numbers, it does not guarantee genuine engagement. This is especially true if the followers you purchased are fake bot accounts that only provide you with automated comments.
So, if you want to increase your follower count, you must keep engagement in mind. For this purpose, you can look into hiring a growth service that can get you real Instagram followers organically. Working with a trustworthy partner will result in genuine engagement from followers who are interested in your brand and what you have to offer.
You Might Get Inappropriate Bot Comments
As we said, more often than not, fake followers might leave automatic comments on posts. These are usually generic comments such as “nice post” and “extraordinary.” Moreover, fake comments may often be in a different language to your own and inappropriate for the particular post. For example, an overly positive comment might end up on a post where you criticize a specific topic or you announce something sad.
Bought Followers Equal Spam
By buying followers, you’re essentially opening your account to spam posts. This isn’t limited only to your business Instagram account. If you provided your email address when you bought the followers, there’s another excellent opportunity for the spammers. They will also have access to your real followers to deliver your spam, leading to them unfollowing you.
Your Competitors Will Know
Buying followers can make your likes-to-follower or likes-to-comments ratios unusually high. You may also find yourself being followed by like- or follower-buying services. Plus, the accounts that like and follow your account will likely have no activity, which could mean a lack of posts, only a few followers, missing profile pictures, and more. All these signs make it evident that you’ve bought followers. Your competitors will be able to easily spot your folly, which could ruin your reputation in the industry.
Instagram May Suspend Your Account
In its efforts to bring more authenticity to the platform, Instagram can now identify and purge fake followers. Moreover, buying followers is against the platform’s guidelines. Therefore, Instagram reserves the right to suspend accounts that have been involved in this dodgy practice.
You Will Lose the Real Followers
Regular Instagram users will notice if your account is mainly followed by suspicious-looking accounts. If the only comments on your Instagram post are obviously spammy, it will ruin the vibe for the genuine followers, and they might decide you’re not worth their follow. So, you might end up losing the people you’re hoping to attract.
You Won’t Make Money
Bought followers aren’t genuinely interested in your brand. Whether they are real or fake accounts, they won’t spend any money on your products or services, nor will they refer people to you. If you’re an influencer, brands will avoid working with you.
Nowadays, brands have access to more advanced tools that help them pick out the accounts with fake followers from the real deal. For example, having a high follower count but low engagement is off-putting for partners and brands. A good engagement rate is typically between 1% and 5%, and the more fake followers you have, the lower these engagement rates will be.
Fake Followers Mess Up the Analytics
If your followers are real, you can easily spot which content resonates best with them and even interact to discover what they would like to see more of. However, fake followers make it hard to determine what’s working and how you can improve your Instagram strategy, which can hinder your overall business goals.
Final Words
Buying Instagram followers will boost your account, but won’t bring you long-term growth. Bought followers will never engage with your posts, refer other people to you, or become customers. Additionally, Instagram has advanced means to spot fake followers, which can lead to locking your account down and ruining your reputation.
Conversely, real followers enjoy your content, engage with it, and are likely to become customers. If you want to grow the number of Instagram followers, focus on organic practices. Commit to curating high-quality content, establish meaningful connections with followers, and invest in Instagram ads.
Salman is a prolific environmental writer, and has authored more than 500 articles in reputed journals, magazines and websites. He is proactively engaged in creating mass awareness on renewable energy, waste management, sustainability and conservation all over the world.
Salman can be reached on salman@cleantechloops.com
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