Should You Buy Followers on Instagram?
Fake followers. What are they? Is it okay to have some? What impact do they have on an Instagram profile? In this article we'll be looking at each of these questions, and ultimately answer the question:
Should you buy followers on Instagram?
What are fake followers?
Fake followers, or bot followers, are profiles created just so they can follow your profile if you pay their owner. Other bot users use a computer program to spam comments all over your posts, and they're often intended to scam your audience.
Our profile reports use AI to look at your follower list and work out what percentage of followers are fake. There are a few things we look for when doing this:
- Does the account have no followers but follows a lot of people?
- Does the account have any content?
- Does the account spam the same message repeatedly?
- Where is the account based? Often, fake accounts originate from China or India, where many 'bot farms' exist
Fake followers keep following me, is this bad for my profile?
Everyone gets fake followers, there’s not much we can do about that. It is important though to keep an eye on how many you have. Usually, when we help brands find creators to partner with, we say that anything up to ~25% fake followers is ok. It's normal to see some.
However, if more than a quarter of your followers are fake, it can be a red flag for brands, and a possible indicator that you've purchased followers in the past.
Why are fake followers bad for my profile?
Remember that fake followers aren't active Instagram users. A high proportion of fake followers will not only mean you lose credibility, but it will also have a negative effect on your engagement rate. Your engagement rate shows how much of your audience is engaging with your content (liking or commenting for example). By having inactive followers, a smaller proportion of your audience is engaging with your content, and the Instagram algorithm favours popular content (in other words, with high engagement rates!).
Keep in mind that if you're looking to work with brands, they want to make sure that the content you put out is going to be seen by real, potential customers. Fake followers are worthless to brands.
So what can I do about a high fake follower %?
Don’t worry, you can easily remove followers. It may seem counterintuitive to remove followers when you're trying to grow your profile, but the benefits of having a smaller audience, but an authentic and engaged one, vastly outweighs the benefits of having a larger, less engaged audience.
To remove followers, just click on your follower count to see the list of your followers. Scroll through the list every now and then and use the remove button to clear out any accounts that are clearly not genuine.
Should you buy followers?
It's clear why some people decide to buy followers on Instagram. Building a community from scratch is hard and takes a long time. But if you're passionate about creating great content for an engaged audience, then it's vital that you trust the process and grow organically.
If you'd like to know more about your profile, such as how many fake followers you have, the demographics of your followers, and how your content is performing, then head to www.influent.digital and sign up now.