It was recently announced that Instagram are cracking down on 3rd party automation tools and fake followers.
The is good news! As a social media manager, I will never endorse the purchase of fake followers.
But there will be a lot of accounts out there that will hurt from the crack down – and may see their numbers drop significantly, depending on how many fake followers they have bought in the past.
You can see the appeal as to why some people and businesses would do this:
The more followers or ‘likes’ = the more “social proof”. It looks good. Many people equate the follower number to your “success”. And from what I understand, it’s also pretty cheap to buy them.
When sussing out a new brand, having more followers can also have an impact (whether consciously or subconsciously) on potential customer’s decision to do business with you and/or whether they see you as “legit”.
But it’s certainly not the end-all-be-all of your business’ social media success! Your follower count is just ONE factor out of many factors. And buying fake followers will have negative implications on your account.
But how can you tell what are fake followers?
On way is to go onto someone’s follower list and take a look at who is following them. If they’re a bunch of accounts that have foreign names (countries that your business most likely does not do business in!), possibly no profile picture, and they either have a private account or they only have one or two posts on their account… they’re likely to be fake.
So WHY would I advise against forking out $50 to buy some followers? What are the negative implications?
1. It hurts the algorithm
When you buy followers from “Timbuktu” who have no relevance to your business, in a nut shell, Instagram will get confused and won’t know who to show your content to! You want your content to show up in the feeds and explore pages of your target audience. That is difficult to make happen when Instagram sees your big number of fake followers and chooses to put your content in front of them… and not your actual target audience! You need to help the algorithm out, understand it and use it to your advantage.
2. It hurts your engagement and reach
Fake followers are very unlikely to engage with your content (let along buy your product or service!) It’s much more important to play the long-game and build an engaged online community, who value what you have to say – and therefore would more likely take action on your, well, ‘Call to Actions’ (e.g. to buy your product, sign up to your email list, or read your blog). 500 loyal followers who hang onto your every word (and do what you want them to do) is much more helpful and effective for your business than a huge following of low-quality accounts.
3. It hurts your credibility
You could have 1000 or 10,000 followers, but if only 30 people are liking your posts… it looks a bit suss. In the age when anyone can become an “influencer” and buy fake followers and what not, sometimes it can be hard to gauge what is authentic and what is fake on social media. And how do you think your real audience would feel if they discovered your 50,000-strong following was mainly a bunch of bots? Authenticity will win out on social media, always.
On more point to consider
Influencer marketing can be a brilliant tactic to utilise for your brand, but when looking into finding one to partner with, be sure to check out whether the influencer you want to approach has real followers, or just hundred or thousands of fake followers. Again, check their engagement levels and see if it matches up to their numbers!
So in conclusion, remember that fake followers are just a ‘vanity metric’ number. They are NOT your ideal customers. And they certainly won’t engage with your content (let along buy your product or services)!
Don’t get me wrong, large (and loyal) followings of your target audience can (and does) happen without the intervention of fake follower purchases. You’ve just got to play the long game – as with all social media platforms – and build up a community of loyal and true fans with great content that they love. This is what will ultimately lead to Instagram success for your business!