While most people are just looking for a quick Instagram boost to increase their followers, it’s important to keep in mind the risks of buying followers over and over. An influencer’s biggest asset is their social media marketing abilities. If they have fake followers, the trustworthiness of their social media marketing will be low, causing a lack of authenticity. Besides, the cost of buying Instagram followers is not cheap, either. Many websites offer a wide range of Instagram followers starting at about a dollar, and the list goes higher. Some sites cost hundreds of dollars for the entire collection. The cost could be justifiable, but it’s not worth the risk.
Influencers and brands seem to be buying followers because they think they will appear more valuable and credible to followers on social media. Unfortunately, this can be detrimental to their reputation because it ultimately sends the wrong message. Having fake Instagram followers creates an environment where someone can feel fraudulent. Among other issues you will find in this practice is that the amount of interactions (likes, comments, etc.) within your profile will not match the amount of “followers” you have. Besides, brands will stop reaching you as an influencer ambassador for their products, since they will not trust you.
In case you sell products through Instagram and the majority of your followers are fake, your business will crash! There’s actually a pretty good example of this… INSIDER commented about an Instagram star with 2 million followers, who couldn’t sell 36 T-shirts. The Miami-based influencer said she was advised by the brand’s founders that she needed to sell at least 36 T-shirts from the first run of items in order for the line to be continued, but she missed the mark. This ultimately demonstrates that having a huge amount of followers does not always translate into having a great amount of engagement. She should have focused on having genuine engagement and real followers.
On the other hand, if you create engaging and authentic content, you will naturally gain followers over time. A marketing strategy that focuses on building a community of loyal followers will provide you with new engagement opportunities as you build your audience. By posting quality content you will have a more positive brand reputation, allowing your audience to naturally trust you more. Eventually, the engagement that you build on your Instagram profile will also form a community of genuine social influencers and a community of genuine business owners that will voluntarily spread the word about your personality or business.
If you share a post, make sure that it is a worthy read. Don’t waste your time with posting something that is going to be ignored. Take your time in writing a quality post and make sure that you offer high-quality content, which will be a delight to read and engage readers’ attention. If you only post a photo with no content, you’ll quickly start to lose followers. Many people use social media just to post and share pictures that are flashy, but shallow. Sharing useful and meaningful information is essential to establishing a strong social media marketing presence, so your posts need to be informative about a topic or something that can emotionally impact your followers, pushing them to want to know more about it.
In a few words, not paying for followers will only strengthen your brand’s reputation. I know that getting organic engagement can be tricky, but all you have to do is post great content, since nothing will ever compare to having genuine, authentic followers who keep their engagement with you strong and real. Just in case you want to get a deeper understanding of your profile’s engagement and maybe uncover who of your followers might be fake, use the following tools:
