Should You Purchase Social Media Friends and Followers?

Recently we noticed a competitor had a large number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, but when we looked closer using a few of the common Internet analysis tools, we discovered that the overwhelming majority of these friends and followers were inactive accounts, nearly 85%. While it’s possible that these followers compose the dullest collection of people in the world, it is more likely that these followers were purchased and are therefore utterly worthless.

We’ve all seen the ads to purchase social media friends and followers. You cannot have a Twitter account without encountering the vendors who promise 10,000 followers for around $100. It’s very enticing to suddenly boost your numbers to amazing levels, but these vendors are predominantly selling connections to accounts that are not regularly monitored, probably not ever, and not by people who are actually interested in you. Mostly these are dummy accounts, designed to prop up social media numbers. The industry refers to these as “fake followers.”

Some level of fake followers will always be connected to your social media accounts. It’s unavoidable and typically in the single digits, but let’s examine the reasons why you should not purchase social media followers.

Integrity: While it’s deceptive to fool your friends and family, it is unethical to sell goods and services on the illusion of popularity. Many customers flock toward apparently popular market choices. When a rock band, for example, boosts their profile with a fake following, it’s a dicey decision that may or may not pay off with increased attention, but when a buyer’s purchase decision hinges on the seller’s ability to reach other people, such as boasting a large Twitter audience, deceiving the buyer with a fake audience is illegal.

Reputation: Organic social media growth is difficult, requiring a relentless dedication to providing useful and/or interesting content. There’s no cheating this factor. Large numbers of fake followers will be discovered. People will notice your anemic discussion rate—low percentages of replies, re-posts, and re-tweets, etc. On your social media timelines or by using any of the available Internet analysis tools, informed people will uncover the sudden burst and subsequent drop in new friends and followers, which coincides with the time you purchased your fake fan base. Moreover, customers will notice that they aren’t getting the anticipated public relations push because your social media followers aren’t real people.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Not only will you not be able to trend on Facebook and Twitter, which is something we covet above most social media efforts, search engine algorithms will spot your fake audience and penalize your rankings via their ever-present and omnipotent SEO. You can buy a social media following, but you cannot make it do anything. It’s a dead beast, and search engines will drive past it on the digital highway.

Publicity scams go back as far as biblical times, but the short term gain never outweighs the eventual damage. Buying a fake audience will hurt you in the long run, while attracting a following through concrete value will achieve legitimate results. For example, if you liked this article, you might consider following us on Twitter, subscribing to our blog, or requesting a book review. Thank you.

There are many social media auditing tools to choose from. According to TwitterAudit.com, here are some statistics for the top Tweeters:

@JustinBeiber, 48% fake

@KimKardashian,  44% fake

@TheEllenShow, 36% fake