Buying Followers

In a world where those numbers hold so much value, it's easy to fall into the trap of buying followers and likes. Though not something I've ever resorted to myself, I've seen others do it and witnessed the damage that can be caused by doing so, especially to smaller businesses. 

What does buying followers/likes entail?

You can buy followers through third party sites - most of these accounts are bot accounts. I'm not able to give a step by step how to as a.) I don't know personally where to go, and b.) I don't want to seem to be encouraging or promoting doing it. 

Common Interest

People who choose to like or follow your page will do so because there's a shared common interest, goal or product. One of the downsides of followers who are bought is that this doesn't exist - you're not going to get any return as a small business from the accounts bought. 

Credibility

Though on paper you might end up with a rapidly growing account going from a few thousand to tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers in a quick time frame, and those numbers might be incredibly high at first glance, when people see the return on the investment - e.g. the number of likes on a picture of a product doesn't reflect the number of followers you have or have gained - then the customer is less likely to trust the products you are promoting. 

"Why are they paying people to like their page or pictures, if their product is worth investing in?" ... the general public is becoming much more aware of how social media works, and where years ago people would have been none the wiser, that inconsistency is evident to most these days. How much business do you think is lost because a person thinks the page might be a scam due to the amount of bot followers it has? 

Algorithms

Seems to have become an everyday word this doesn't it? I don't think I'd have ever used it in day-to-day life pre-Instagram! 

Instagram is designed in a way to promote and show pages that are being interacted with organically. This means "naturally" and without any cheats, if you will - the AI technology used will identify pages that have had that rapid growth, see that those followers have been bought, and the page will become less and less visible. If anything, eventually, buying followers will actually damage your promotion as opposed to helping it in any way. 

Terms and conditions don't allow it.

I think this is really important to note. When you sign up to Instagram and tick that t&c box, you're agreeing to their terms which include not buying followers. In agreeing to that term, you are putting your page at risk if you then go against it. 

Imagine working your butt off to promote your new online small business, you start making a profit, and your page is shut down with no warning because you've violated the terms you agreed to. You'd not only lose your page but you'd lose the business that you've built in the process! 

The top and bottom - don't do it!

If you want your Instagram page to gain some traction organically then use it regularly and interact with the followers you already have. Know that a lot of business comes from word of mouth and recommendation, so if you do what you do well to a small amount of genuine followers then your page will naturally grow. If you do what you do well to a massive amount of followers bought in, with no interest in what you're doing, then they will not interact and you'll never be seen. 

Create relatable content, engage with the people who comment on your posts, create and run adds. 

Slow and steady wins the race.  (Image used is a screen print from one of many daily messages I receive on instagram).