Are you tempted to buy social followers?

[MageWorx]

And so far, no one has presented any evidence that this makes one blind bit of difference to whether people like you or not.

Completely agree.

If a company page has nothing but the crowd of fake followers and delivers no value, no useful content, there's no any interaction, engagement, etc. , such a page will remain 'dead', no matter how many followers you may purchase.

 

[TimFallon]

Doesn't seem like a good idea. Especially when on Facebook at least if your posts are being promoted (paid) you only reach 1% - 2% of your followers. In that case you'll want that small percent to be people who are genuinely interested in your business as opposed to some dummy account in Bangladesh.

 

[MG72]

Buying social media followers is only for vanity. You are much better cultivating followers who may actually use you. Better having 10 genuine prospects than 10,000 nobodies from around the globe

 

[800heerww]

Well, it was proved most of Obama's twitter followers were simply bots and fake.

 

[PPKDIGITAL]

People can notice if you have bought your social followers.
There pros and cons in having a vast amount of followers/likes.
It all depends what audience you are targeting and how you want to grab peoples attention.
I wouldn't say it's a big no no but there are better ways of getting more followers/likes

 

[ethical PR]

Well, it was proved most of Obama's twitter followers were simply bots and fake.

Can you link to the evidence for this?

 

[threenine]

Can you link to the evidence for this?

It has been widely publicised for several years now. Below is a link to one of the stories.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/14/obama-fake-twitter-followers_n_1775448.html

Using the following search phrase in google "Obamas social media followers fake"
will give further examples

 

[Karimbo]

everyone has a few fake followers. in fact I rememebr there was a website where you can check what percentage of followers were real (of any given person).

Even the most genuine users had as much as 25% fake followers. That's just the nature of the platform. Bot follower services try to hide their trail so what they'll do is follow legitimate users, celebrities and in the mix follow their low key client accounts so it get mixed in well with the pool. otherwise the bot accounts will just have their clients and will look unnatureal and easy to detect.

 

[BristolRemovals]

No

Haha - so true.

 

[alexdigital]

Don't do it. It will only damage you in the long term. You need real people that engage with you to get any benefit from social media in business.

 

[StevePoster]

Absolutely no, Google easily detected this kind of buying links, likes, followers, etc. and this will only lead to ruin your site's reputation on the web. We need trust from the targeted audience in order to gain this kind of investment.

 

[integrity Rules]

edited

Social proof (i.e. people tend to like what other people already like) is a well documented social phenomena. But it's just one influencing factor among many.

Cialdini identifies 5 others:

• Authority
• Like (in the sense of 'similarity')
• Commitment and Consistency
• Reciprocity
• and Scarcity

Sure, you will get followers who follow you because you seem popular ( social proof) , but 'follows' don't pay the bills, you've still got to move people from 'seeing your tweet' to 'buying your stuff'.

> getting followers is easier than keeping them,
> if/once they twig that you've bought most of your followers, the authority you lose may be much more significant than whatever benefit the followers brought in the first place. ( social proof devalued)

Lyds

What i take from your post is that its worth thinking longer term and systemically about this 'Followers' lark, otherwise there could well be unintended consequences!
Be really clear what you want the followers to do for you.

 

[OakMarkLondon]

well you get what you paid for 700 followers of a fiver... hmm what is the point?
I would recommend taking the time to build a valuable content and get real followers. It will pay off in the long run!

 

[MojoPromotions]

Personally I don't think it's worth it at all! Although Google is a mysterious creature, it accounts for social media followings and I'm sure it Google will recognise if you've gone from 52 followers to 2052 followers overnight - it isn't a natural, organise growth. Honesty is the best policy with social media and all aspects of digital marketing - it has to be done properly and cutting corners is great for a temporary boost but in the long run, it's a waste of time and money. I know a lot of people who have had Twitter accounts suspended for buying in followers - the likelihood is half of the accounts you buy will be deleted once it's noted they're spammy accounts. Do it the old fashioned way!

 

[Concept Vehicle Leasing]

No, social media isn't a numbers game, and it's quality over quantity. You want followers who have an interest in your business, and your services, you want them to enjoy what you are posting/tweeting, and you want to be able to actively engage with your followers.

The egotistical side of me would get a limited enjoyment out of logging on to facebook/twitter (other social media sites are available) to see a humungous number, and I still set goals for myself (ie I would like to get to 4000 followers by Christmas - so please follow @vehicle_lease !) but would benefit more by having fewer followers that were actually interested. It's like that saying: would you rather have 100 mates or 5 best friends?

 

[beasty]

All business is a numbers game, you want ONE MORE customer, social media is a way of reaching customers and you want MORE rather than less.

Quality is the big issues with most and chasing likes is chasing the WRONG NUMBERS, you should of course chase CUSTOMERS.. still a numbers game though..

 

[CoderDog]

I understand why people do it - if you are a brand new company and you want to look 'big and popular' you may choose to buy likes and / or followers. However it is worth remembering that all they are is a number, these 'followers' you have paid for will never interact or engage with you so it is just to make you look more popular than you are.

I have not done it myself and would not choose to, but I know of a company that did. It did them no harm in attracting new followers however they gained nothing from these followers directly.

one example for this: I found a web design company page where they have around 100k fans. I checked their posts and usually they have 1-2 likes, comments. How it's possible that you have 100k followers, but nobody cares? Weird, isn't it? It looks very bad and totally fake. The people want to work with realiable and honest people, companies.
Go for real people and engage them!

 

[CoolHandCol]

Don't do it!!! The days of trying to fool Google are over

 

[beasty]

Got nothing to do with Google...

I would say if you have 5000 likes nowadays odds are you have pi££ed of 5000 people to the point you like your posts so they do not keep getting asked to like!

100K LIKES congrats you have annoyed a small city

 

[Karimbo]

Here's another idea. Social media does sod all. I've done ppc work for nearly half a decade and worked with social media as well as paid search. Based on numerous paid campaigns on Facebook we've had no noticeable results from it. At best it is good for big brands to engage with audiences, you gave a nice metric which tells brand managers how effective a campaign is compared with TV or radio advertising, but it is useless as a sales driving force, we've burnt through tonnes of money at the behest of clients which to me was completely wasted but clients loved it because they increased likes and they could report increase in likes and engagement to their superiors.

I'm not talking about fake likes here, I'm talking about genuine likes where you pay through your nose to appear on people's feeds and get approximately 1 like or comment for every £20 or £30 you spend at a rate of £3 per thousand impressions.

It's very difficult to monetise on your Facebook page because the whole platform us designed to distract users into Facebook ecosystem with endless scroll down feed.

It's much better to market your website and get it high on organic search so you can attract people looking to buy products you're selling

 

[jackb144]

Its not worth it. And it is obvious when they have xxx,xxx followers/likes, but their posts get xx likes/rts/replies.

 

[EspressDesign]

No! It just feels dirty! And I imagine they aren't 'real' accounts.

You are better off with 10 followers that are actually interested in your content, than 1000 followers that aren't.

 

[japancool]

Here's another idea. Social media does sod all.

It works very well for me, thanks.

 

[siobhan.mpd]

Hi - I'm Siobhan from My Parcel Delivery

This isn't something I have ever done nor do I plan to moving forward. The problem is that while it will inflate one number (your followers), it will simply drop another off a cliff - your engagement level. we understand why some start-ups do it after-all we were a start-up not too long ago! Making yourself seem on a par to some of your bigger competitors can help improve consumer confidence but it is no substitute for providing the best service and investing in marketing.

The question businesses need to ask themselves is what is their measure of success? Once they have established this the answer on whether to buy followers or not is simple.

 

[JohnRam]

I really would never consider it – primarily because I do not believe that it adds anything. I want people to engage my content, I want people to care about the work, I would rather have 100 fans who are actively involved in what I write and do than 1000 fans who do nothing.

 

[J Howard]

This is working for many companies. Even the big companies promote these trends. They promote the LIKE trend. By getting traffic to the site they try to get more potential customers and it goes on viral most of the time. People see the likes and they like it too. So, Like Begets more likes.
It is profitable for them . And it must be paying them back that is why they pay for it. Otherwise there is no point spending money .

 

[wher2guv]

I would not pay for likes or followers, but I think the success of social media depends on the type of business. If your a local gardening business for example you need local followers who give good feedback on your work. An online shop on the other hand offering shipping is a different story promoting new products and sales on a greater and cheaper level than TV or Radio.

My Taxi website and social media brought in customers from Europe and the US as well as my local community and student population with 700 all organic followers. I'm hoping it will generate some custom for our new online store which is starting to gather pace after starting in September.

 

[amac]

I really would never consider it – primarily because I do not believe that it adds anything. I want people to engage my content, I want people to care about the work, I would rather have 100 fans who are actively involved in what I write and do than 1000 fans who do nothing.

This is a good attitude. You want those group of customers, fans, whatever you call them regardless of how many there are. Too many folks do the scatter approach and hope for the best.

 

[Mail Workshop]

I am more interested in building a follower base that is engaged and relevant than a load of spammy followers that may as well not exist.

 

[derick32]

Definitely NOT! It doesn't last very long.

 

[Karimbo]

It works very well for me, thanks.

well you sell Japanese collectables. its very scene stuff and you're probably one of the few suppliers in your market.

you have loyal fan buyers. so it would work for you. majority of businesses aren't suited for social media.

 

[japancool]

well you sell Japanese collectables. its very scene stuff and you're probably one of the few suppliers in your market.

you have loyal fan buyers. so it would work for you. majority of businesses aren't suited for social media.

So clearly, it works for some businesses. Whether it works for the majority of businesses or not is debatable, but it does not do "sod all".

 

[Alan]

The question was originally posted in Dec 2013.

Putting that aside, the question was about 'buying' social followers, to me that means getting fake account followers, and personally if I see a Facebook business page with 3,000 followers and virtually no follower interaction that this company isn't genuine and has tried to buy a presence they don't deserve, probably from fivver.

Basically, with Social as well as SEO there is really no substitute for hard work and shortcuts are not a good idea. imho.

 

[beasty]

Buying social media followers is as useful as having a book in your shop that people tick if they enter

NO ONE ELSE GIVES A FK

 

[Alan]

Buying social media followers is as useful as having a book in your shop that people tick if they enter

NO ONE ELSE GIVES A FK

At least the customers entered your shop! Buying social media followers is as useful as having a book in your shop, that you sent over to india to get 1,000 people that never visited your shop to tick, and then put the book back in your shop.

 

[beasty]

or

Buying social media followers is as useful as

having a book in your shop
you sent to india to get ONE person to sign under 1000 different names and then sent back to your shop

That makes you pretty stupid

TELLING people you have 1000 likes when you did the above, makes you too thick to breathe as everyone knows what you did!

FB likes are the most over rated thing , lets all just move past them and consider they mean SFA

todays NEW LIKES 0
todays NEW CONTRACTS 4

 

[grgzy]

The problem with buying social followers is engagement.

If are posting status / tweets out and lets say they always get 10% engagement from your 100 true followers.

If you buy 900 and then you do the same tweet / status update you will only get 1% engagement from your 1000 followers.

Because you only get 1% engagement the social networks will not share you content with as many people as it will not be seen as interesting.

As less people start engaging with it, it will be shown to less and less people.

 

[brc]

Not read the entire thread so forgive me, just want to throw my two pennys worth in.

I think this is a very good way of getting the results that are needed if you are smart enough to play the game and plan what you want to achieve.

We have bought followers... I think we are upto about 8000 odd... now the thing is we didn't setup the accounts as our business or brand name we setup as a community that shared an interest...

For example if you sell tents...it would be foolish to setup a facebook page that was XYZ Tents Limited and then buy followers... a total flop and pointless exercise ...

However if you setup a page that was 'I Love Camping' ... that there is an altogether different proposition... instead of having adverts saying 'Like this if you want to buy a Tent for £10' ... having adverts that say 'We love camping..If you love camping like our page'... if the adverts are targeted correctly then you will start to build an audience who chances are loves camping.

Now on this page you start putting up content from all over the web, videos, articles, pictures, products from all places and of all price points... you get a conversation going, you start to build trust as a community...you then start feeding your product into this community gently and subtly, you let people share there thoughts, you present 'exclusive deals that you have obtained for community members' from selected vendors like yourself and all of a sudden you start to see alot of results.

I guess its about being smart and thinking out of the box... having pointless likes is useless but having a community where people are engaged about a certain topic, niche, activity etc and then marketing to them in subtle ways does deliver.

 

[Simply Business]

Imo - certainly not! Aside from providing no real value to your business (except ego-boosting) it's pretty easy to sport companies that do buy followers and it absolutely tears apart credibility!

Also, how can you measure engagement accurately etc?! And any engagement you do get from genuine followers will look pretty measly compared to your amount of (fake) followers!

But there will be people out there who disagree.

 

[YouGavel]

With such tactics (buying followers or even fake profiles) you are just fooling yourself while making other people rich...