// WIDSIX WRITTEN WORD //

What Happens When You Buy Followers

Let’s get this out of the way right now: Buying followers is NOT the move. 

If you read our post, What NOT To Do On Instagram, you will know that buying likes and followers is the cardinal sin of social media marketing. However, admittedly we didn’t go too much into detail about why exactly this is. I mean, on the surface it seems like the perfect deal. Invest a little money into increasing your likes and followers, and you make your page seem more legit, plus you can trick the algorithm into believing you’re more popular than you actually are… right? Well, not really. Think about it, if it’s that easy and effective to buy 1,000 new followers for only $5–$10, then why isn’t everyone doing it? In this post, we’re going to do our best to convince you NOT to buy followers (or likes). You’ll thank us later.

So what happens when you buy followers?

1. It will be painfully obvious that most of your followers are fake.

If someone were to click on your followers tab on your profile page, they would almost immediately be able to tell that your list of followers looks shady. There’s no guarantee that your followers are going to look real, so most of them will have spammy, nonsensical usernames and either a random fake photo or no photo at all. Not to mention, your engagement to follower ratio will be way off. With real followers, the number of likes and comments you get on your posts will be proportionate to how many followers you have. 

2. Brands won’t want to work with you.

One of the benefits of having a high follower count is that you will likely get approached by brands who want to pay you to promote their product. Great! Until they take one glance at your followers list and realize you’re a fraud. Brands aren’t going to be fooled by this trick, and they won’t want to spend thousands on someone who isn’t going to be able to provide them any real return on investment.

3. Fake followers won’t engage.

Engagement is the key factor in getting your posts to appear on people’s explore pages. Since Instagram values an authentic user experience over everything, they take likes and comments into account the most when it comes to promoting your posts. But buying followers won’t boost your engagement at all. In fact, it may even hurt it.

4. Instagram might suspend your account. 

Instagram has made it clear that they will not tolerate inauthentic activity on their app, and have been cracking down even more on fake accounts and those who buy followers. Buying followers actually violates Instagram’s community guidelines. They are removing any likes, follows, comments, etc from third-party apps that are designed to grow accounts’ audiences artificially. 

How to Grow Your Audience Organically

Growing your audience the right way takes time, but it’s totally worth it. Here are some tips to explore and try:

  • Make your Instagram page public so people can see your content.
  • Mix it up and put out a variety of fun posts that show visitors that you have dynamic, fresh content coming out frequently.
  • Encourage engagement by including calls to action in your posts.
  • Be in tune with your audience and what they want to see.
  • Keep a consistent tone for your brand.

Trust us, it’s not worth it.

So now that you know what really happens after buying followers, it doesn’t sound like such a great idea now does it? Don’t worry, there are plenty more ways to grow your brand organically, and your efforts will produce results if you just have patience. Good luck!