Buying social media followers for your website: yay or nay?
- Thread starter cpvr
- Start date
I think buying followers may be against the Terms of Service for most, if not all, social media platforms. Doesn't stop people from doing it, of course, but definitely food for thought if someone were to consider doing it.
That said, I disagree with the practice regardless of if it was against the Terms of Service or not. It can hurt the brand, and it generally tends to be pretty obvious when someone does buy followers. Better to grow things organically through the use of hashtags, interacting with posts on your chosen social media platform(s), and encouraging the community to follow and engage with posts on social media (if possible).
That said, I disagree with the practice regardless of if it was against the Terms of Service or not. It can hurt the brand, and it generally tends to be pretty obvious when someone does buy followers. Better to grow things organically through the use of hashtags, interacting with posts on your chosen social media platform(s), and encouraging the community to follow and engage with posts on social media (if possible).
I also disagree with the practice. I’d rather build my accounts organically. That said, it is a known tactic for those who don’t want to take the long road. Just like how some people buy backlinks to boost their SEO rankings. Reddit’s social media sections are flooded with posts like that, which is why I created this topic. to set a baseline and get a discussion going.
These services exist, and social media platforms haven’t cracked down on them effectively. Sure, it can hurt a brand, especially if the results don’t match the inflated numbers. But some brands use these tactics early on to make their profiles look more established, or to game engagement metrics like likes and views, because yes, those are sold too.
It’s basically a shortcut. Some see it as “cheating” because it inflates perceived authority and follower count, even if the substance isn’t there. It’s not a route I’d take, but it’s definitely something that happens, and ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.
I think it's a bad idea, like mentioned above I thought it was against the tos for lots of different social media platforms. Also like Al said, if you've got a bunch of followers but no one is interacting with your posts that looks bad.
Any time that I wish to do a collaboration with an influencer or pay them for promotion, I look at the engagement levels and what type of discussions are happening in the comments on their posts.
Most serious spenders will do this.
If you have 100K followers and no engagement, I'm not spending my money or collaborating with you.
If you have 10K members and a lot of great real engagement, I'll be all over that.
Followers is a vanity metric.
I have a Facebook page with 25K+ followers. I don't really use that to advertise to advertisers. I use my views. In 28 days, I usually get around 2 million views. I also use my engagement rates which is very high. Followers in all honesty doesn't mean crap. YouTube is experimenting with actually hiding public follower counts. I hope they do it.
Most serious spenders will do this.
If you have 100K followers and no engagement, I'm not spending my money or collaborating with you.
If you have 10K members and a lot of great real engagement, I'll be all over that.
Followers is a vanity metric.
I have a Facebook page with 25K+ followers. I don't really use that to advertise to advertisers. I use my views. In 28 days, I usually get around 2 million views. I also use my engagement rates which is very high. Followers in all honesty doesn't mean crap. YouTube is experimenting with actually hiding public follower counts. I hope they do it.
I would never advise anyone to buy followers on social media, as that will not help you at all. The best way to gain followers is to do it organically so that you are sure to have followers who are interested in your content and will interact.
Buying followers only leads to followers and no interaction, which in turn, will not help you at all.
Buying followers only leads to followers and no interaction, which in turn, will not help you at all.
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