3 Reasons Buying Followers Is Hurting Your Company

We judge people by the company they keep. If you surround yourself with fake friends, for example, you’ll be perceived as shallow and dishonest. A genuine person is someone who has real relationships.   

The same principle applies to social media. Surrounding your brand with fake followers damages your credibility. And in today’s complex social media landscape, credibility is all that matters. Without it, you simply can’t compete.

It’s tempting to inflate your social media footprint by purchasing “likes” and followers, but doing so is fundamentally manipulative and deceptive. The argument against buying fake followers isn’t just a moral one, though. It would still hold some appeal to business leaders if it actually worked.

It all boils down to a matter of strategy. Fake followers have no sustainable positive impact on your brand. Spending money on them is not only a waste — it’s counterproductive.

Here’s what you get when you buy followers:

1. No ROI 

Though the pace of robotics innovation may be lightning fast, sadly, robots still cannot buy your product. (The future of robo-purchasing looks bleak, too.) Therefore, adding a robot to your payroll will yield no return on investment.

2. No SEO

Not only do robots have zero purchasing power, but they also lack the ability to engage with your content. And Google doesn’t really care how large your fan base is — what really matters is how many people are interacting with your content. Your 50,000 followers won’t boost your ranking if they’re completely idle.

3. No Credibility

Forget Google for a second. What happens when a real, live customer notices that you have 50,000 followers but nobody is retweeting, pinning, or commenting on your posts?

The fact is that consumers are aware that many Twitter account followings are wildly inflated. Many have poked fun at celebrities like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga for their huge fake followings, and big brands are no better. (In fact, according to Business Insider, Twitter’s own account has 47 percent fake followers and 36 percent inactive followers.)

In buying followers, you’re being underhanded. You’ll never convert a customer who doesn’t trust you. At best, you’ll be a joke. At worst, you’re sending a negative message about your product. If you had faith in what you were selling, would you really need to buy a fake fan base? 

The Real Way to Build Your Brand

When it comes to developing brand equity, anyone who buys followers is missing the point. Numbers matter, but content quality and engagement levels are exponentially more important.

Cultivating a solid social media presence takes time and effort. But publish quality (read: non-advertorial) content on a consistent basis, and people will respond. Address their needs, and they’ll become brand advocates. 

Take Neil Patel, for example, the founder of KISSmetrics. Neil is generous with his Twitter influence and often shines the spotlight on his followers. Because he never publishes self-promotional content, Neil conveys a sense of humility and accessibility. At the same time, he will always retweet a positive comment on his product or personality from a follower. In doing so, he’s converting brand loyalty into marketing power.

Neil has cultivated a devoted following of more than 100,000 engaged Twitter users. KISSmetrics is one of Entrepreneur’s “100 Brilliant Companies”. 

You can also look to HubSpot, a company with more than $50 million in revenue, as an example. According to Chief Marketing Officer Mike Volpe, about 75 percent of lead generation comes from inbound marketing. 

How does this happen? According to Volpe, the answer is simple: Stop thinking about your digital content from an advertiser’s point of view. Instead, create content that your customers “actually want to interact with and share with their friends.”

The growth that both Patel and HubSpot have achieved would have been impossible with fake followers. Their success is built on the vibrant relationships they have with real people.

If you’re still wringing your hands over your low number of “likes” and followers, strive for quality and engagement. The numbers will follow.