If you use Instagram, you may have received messages from people who offer you thousands of new followers, shares, or likes on your pictures. Whilst most people will ignore this, it can be tempting to take the jump – Especially if you’re expected to grow your online communities by an employer, are struggling to gain online traction, want to stand out from the crowd, or are simply someone who wants to become an influencer. But please just don’t do it.
It’s way better to have a small group of followers that really care about you and/or your business, than thousands of inactive accounts that don’t really care about you and/or your business. Here are some of the reasons why.
A Low Engagement Rate Will Make Your Posts Less Visible
Whilst having thousands of followers might look good at first glance, fake followers will not engage with your account as these accounts aren’t real people. A lot of followers and little engagement equals a low engagement rate – let this be exactly what social media algorithms look at.
To get a higher engagement rate, it might even be better to delete inactive followers.
Instagram Recognizes and Deletes Fake Followers
Instagram wants its users to have a good user experience. Therefore, they want to keep their space free of spam. One way Instagram does this is by finding and deleting fake accounts. This means that the followers you have bought might disappear soon after.
Buying Fake Followers Can Harm Your Reputation and Credibility
Would you invite actors to come to your wedding and pretend to be your friends? Well, you might. But it will be very humiliating when people find out your friends were fake. It’s the exact same thing when you decide to take a shortcut and buy followers. Once people have a closer look at your account and find out that your followers are fake you ruin your reputation and credibility.
Buying followers is against Instagram’s Terms of Use
Instagram makes quite the effort in finding people who are violating its Terms of Use. In their terms of use, it’s clearly stated that you’re not allowed to artificially collect likes, followers, and/or shares. If their robots find out that you’ve been buying followers, you could get suspended or banned.
Big follower numbers on Instagram might look great, but won’t help you reach your goals. In the end, the best way to build an organic following is to share quality posts, work on community building, and get genuine shout-outs from other people on Instagram. The money you’d waste on buying followers can then be spent on creating a proper social media strategy or in advertising.
