What fake thing you ever appreciated? Nor friends, lover, or even brands you wear, you prefer the original, rather than fake.

But social media has turned into a pretense which is heavily depended upon how popular you’re as a brand or even as a content creator.

For this, people are now turning to buy their way out to reach that social media validation of having more likes, followers or comments. 

Followers are the top things amongst others that are constantly being bought to cope up with a FOMO (fear of missing out) which is now hovering over everybody’s mind as criteria of success.

It is understandable that social media could be boring and dull when initially you make a presence, especially for brands, whose aim is not only popularity but business as well out from that platform. 

But in any case, be a content creator or brand, paid anything from Followers to Comments is just a social media spoof and can never benefit your social media presence,

Let’s break this down fact by fact, why it is a bad idea to buy followers!

The Reasons why you shouldn’t buy followers are as follows: 

• They are not your Target Audience

Let us assume that the brand you are working manufacture a product which is for Women. Your obvious target audience would be women but in that too, you will target specific age and income group and rest are prospective buyers since they can be an acquaintance of such women but are not a direct consumer of that product. You would want such an audience to be on your social media platform as well who would be updated about the product and content which you will create would be relevant to them as well. But buying followers, even if they are real, exposes you to an audience which is not yours in the first place and having them is useless and a bad investment altogether.

• Decline in Engagement

No longer having a presence on social media is static or monotonous. Now every day, there is a new trend which is if not kept in sync with, your social media can sink in and have poor presence which can lead you to become obsolete. Engagement is one medium through which you ensure that your social media reach is not for a toss and is actually turning out well for you. But having fake followers or bought followers is completely bad for the health of your social media. As said, they are not you ‘followers’, hence having them is equally useless because they won’t interested in your content at all and that will lead to having no engagement from their side on your platform. What could be worse is that if they are fake accounts, they won’t be valid at all as followers. Poor engagement can affect the algorithm and hamper the overall reach. The social media presence which you actually aimed at building got submerged just like that.

• Paid Advertisements go for a toss

Why you invest in Paid Marketing? It is a more surgical approach to target “Your Audience” so that they get to see what you are doing and you get a chance to market what you think are your hotcakes to the consumer who is in need of those products. But the calculations here go haywire because your ads are now not only seen by your audience but also the fake followers/audience which is either not interested or they are bots. Your money is wasted twice this way. One when you bought that fake following and now when you are investing in ad campaigns which are not actually reaching the kind of audience you are hoping to target.

• Potential Spammer

Remember having spammers? Well, a bunch of them could be from your fake follower's list as well. They have a access to see who all you’re following and can create havoc for you by either spamming your account with irrelevant comments and opinions and can directly go to your follower's profiles and spam them with content, ads, comments, and messages they don’t want to have in the first place. It creates distrust in the minds of your audience and to simply put, breach of privacy and is very annoying.

• A major crack in your reputation

It is at the end of the day fraudulent practice to have followers who are not real. You are deceiving your consumer both potential and existing by showing a fake image of your brand being popular over social media. This is even more dangerous if you’re a content creator because this means that as an influencer or an artist if suppose, you’re creating a picture and position of yourself in the market which isn’t true at all. All the above points as well, especially bot followers bothering your existing clientele or audience is another issue because as a brand you’re a nuisance or a threat to people who follow you.

All this sums up to just one thing that buying followers is a facade rather than a pro in any sense. In longer run, it breaks your reputation down in the very market you were trying to create a mark on.

So what should one do if not this to create a reputation?

•    Have an interactive platform

Engage with your audience. Whatever amount of it you have. By interaction, it doesn’t mean they commenting and you obliging with a ‘thank you!’ but to actually going to their profiles as well, and appreciating the content they create.
 
•    Promote the platforms you’re on

Social media is about having a presence first and then talking about it time and again on all social media, you are on. You have to link all your social media platforms together and build a network and keep making your following aware of what all you are doing across all those platforms. This is what you can do online. Your website is one place where you can mention all your social media links as well. Then come to your visiting cards, pamphlets and even social media creatives where at the bottom you can mention all these platforms by an icon and through the course of time, people will start picking up on these mentions and the traffic will go to other platforms beside on the one you are mentioning it.

•    Buy ads!!

Paid promotion is far better than the paid following. But rather than leading people to like your page, show them your service, work, or product. Be a seller and be aggressive. Showcase your work to get or attract your audience. But bar from buying the followers.

•    Contest your way out!

People love to win and especially if a challenge is there and with that a price they would like to earn out it. Free products, vouchers or anything else which your brand can offer but must be related to your brand because otherwise, it doesn’t solve the purpose of you hosting a contest. You can boost such contests by promoting them through paid marketing, along with that it brings tractions through tactics like “ tagging other people”, “using the hashtag” and other such means to bring reach to the social media presence.

Investing your money in social media is a decision to be taken wisely. Buying followers is not one of them!