Is Your Social Media Marketer Buying Your Instagram Followers?

There are 700 million monthly users on Instagram with 400 million daily users. Instagram has emerged as a leading advertising platform for businesses and influencers looking to get a piece of the pie.

It seems that everywhere you click on Instagram, there’s an influencer and business showcasing its products, fashion and travels. With thousands of followers, you might be intrigued and captivated by their accounts, but the ugly truth is that businesses and influencers create the illusion of relevancy by buying followers.

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Why Buy Followers?

People follow trends. By making an account seem more relevant than it actually is, people become intrigued and follow it. Buying followers is seen as a faster way to get the ball rolling on social media. For many influencers, having huge amounts of followers can help them get noticed by big brands. Influencers want to be sponsored, eventually earning an income through Instagram. For businesses, having many followers is a good first impression.

3 Tell-Tale Signs

To the untrained eye, fake followers can pass under the radar. Here are three ways you can spot them:

  1. Follower to Like Ratio – Having a significant amount of followers is great, but what’s the point if you’re not earning likes from them? If an account has an organic following, then your audience will enjoy your posts and like them! The higher the number of followers, the more likes each post should have.
  2. No Engagement – Similar to follower-to-like ratio, engagement should work the same way. If your followers are interested in your brand and account, they will engage with you in the comments section. The more followers, the more comments.
  3. Bot Followers – Investigate followers. Scroll through and be aware of bots. Most likely, if someone has bought their followers, their follower list will be filled with users that don’t have profile pictures and often lack their own posts.

Putting Your Brand’s Integrity at Risk

While quantity over quality may seem intriguing at first, these fake followers won’t build brand loyalty or assist in your return on investment. Influencers and businesses won’t see a spike in mentions, page views or interaction.

Your online reputation is everything. There’s nothing worse for a business or influencer’s success than being exposed as fake or ingenuine. It can tarnish their brand’s reputation and influence.

Let’s Grow Your Account Organically

Don’t jeopardize growing your social media presence by taking the easy and dishonest way. Building a successful social media following takes a concise plan, research and time. That’s what we do. When it comes to website creation and social media engagement, we don’t believe in shortcuts. Take a look as some of our clients here. If you’re ready to grow your social presence on an organic level, then contact us today!