The Instagram fake follower industry is built on the proposition that you can get a lot of followers by spending a little money. With that boost, profits and partnerships are sure to follow.
Although it may be cheap and easy to buy Instagram followers, there are hidden costs that can be expensive. Your reputation could be ruined, you could lose your real followers, and your account could be deleted if Instagram notices your deception. If you’re trying to become famous on Instagram or build your business, buying followers will not help you achieve either goal.
This post will show you the ins and outs of the fake follower industry on Instagram, as well as what can happen if you choose to buy fake followers. We’ll also provide some tips on how to get more real followers using effective methods.
How Much Does It Cost to Buy Instagram Followers?
This varies depending on the service. Most offer a volume discount, so that 10,000 followers look like a better deal than a few hundred.
Generally, it is not expensive to buy Instagram followers when you buy them instantly. Most of the services we looked at charge approximately $15 for 1,000 followers. Some were more costly, with fees in the range of $25-40 USD.
If you want to grow your number of followers quickly, you’ll have to pay for a growth management service. These can be either automated or manual, and they cost anywhere from $50 to $250 per month.
The long-term damage to your professional reputation and account is not included in those costs.
Does Buying Instagram Followers Work?
Short answer: no, absolutely not.
Will buying followers boost your Instagram account? Yes, but they will be of questionable quality and it is not a meaningful return on your investment. The number of real followers you have is a vanity metric. If those genuine followers enjoy your content, they are likely to turn into customers.
If your only goal is to have a higher number of followers, then these services will help you accomplish that. However, your account will eventually be locked down by Instagram due to the spammy activity.
However, if you want your business to be successful, have a connection with customers, and make a profit from your social media strategy, then there are more effective ways to use your time and money.
What Happens When You Buy Expensive Instagram Followers?
Someone I know did a little experiment to see what would happen if you bought Instagram followers from a cheap, instant service. In 2021, they bought their followers. There were a few differences:
The Premium Service Was More Work
Because these services are trying to get you engagements by liking and following other accounts, you need to give them specific information about who you want to target. This includes influencers, demographics, and hashtags.
You might ask yourself: if you created this information, couldn’t you use it to like and follow any relevant accounts? And the answer is yes – you should do this because you’ll do it better than someone who is paid to do it.
The growth agent advised that it is good to post one Instagram story daily and two to three posts in the feed each week. However, this is just a reminder that you cannot simply rely on gaining followers without putting in any effort.
They Got Security Alerts From Instagram
You need to give these services your account information so they can login to your account on your behalf. The click farms are all over the world, so the agents use a VPN to make it look like they’re logging in from your area.
Despite being promised more security, the author was constantly getting security alerts from Instagram. This is because Instagram is very good at noticing when something strange is going on with an account.
They Got Security Alerts From Their Bank, Too
The credit card was declined and received multiple calls from bank due to suspected fraud. They successfully convinced bank to unlock card and first payment went through.
They waited for the service to start, and even though they were charged, the service told them it hadn’t gone through. So they paid again, even though the bank warned them they were being scammed.
Even though they had already paid them, the service didn’t start working until the payments cleared. They were out $500 before they even got started. But finally, the money went through.
The Results Were Not Great
It took nineteen days for the promised followers to appear after the first payment was made. There was a total of 3,138 followers.
For the price, you might expect them to be great! But they were inactive, looked fake, and weren’t related to the account.
Why You Shouldn’t Buy Instagram Likes
There are three main reasons why you should not buy Instagram likes. First, it could violate Instagram’s terms of use. Second, it could damage your reputation if people find out you bought likes. Third, it could waste your money if the likes you bought do not lead to real engagement.
It Ruins Your Engagement
As an account’s follower count grows, it’s not unusual for engagement to go down slightly. However, it’s easy to tell when an account has an unhealthy and suspicious number of followers compared to its engagement.
If an account has 18,000 followers and only receives 60 likes per photo, this is not a good engagement rate. It’s easy to see that the person running this account has purchased followers at some point in the past.
If you buy fake followers, they won’t engage with your content, which creates a vicious cycle of trying to get more fake followers to increase your engagement. This is not a sustainable strategy and will cost you time, money, and bring little ROI.
An account with a disproportionate ratio of followers to likes is likely buying followers and likes. This is especially apparent when there are many likes but few comments.
So, the easiest two ways to identify accounts that use purchased likes or followers include:
- Looking at who follows the account. If a majority of the followers have hardly any activity on their account with inconsistent follower ratios, they are likely to be purchased followers. Things like no followers, little to no posts, very old posting history, and a high number of followed accounts all represent fake followers. Also, if any companies that sell fans are following the account, they’ve likely been involved in some way.
- Checking engagement numbers. If the account has any of the skewed ratios that we mentioned above, they are likely buying likes or followers.
Instagram Can Take Action Against Your Account
A punishment for buying followers or likes and using automation services on Instagram can be suspension, deletion of content, or even deletion of your account if it goes against the terms of use.
One of Instagram’s main goals is to provide an authentic experience for users. When bots interfere with this by spamming users with fake likes and comments, it compromises the user experience. Instagram will take action against these accounts and many of the services have been shut down.
Although you may be tempted to buy fake followers and likes for your Instagram account, it’s not worth it. Not only could your account be deleted by Instagram, but the fake followers and likes may also be deleted. This has happened to both regular users and celebrities who have lost thousands of followers.
Don’t put your account at risk by trusting companies that are likely to go out of business soon.
Fake Followers and Likes Give Zero ROI
The purpose of businesses and influencers on Instagram is to turn followers into partners, sponsors, clients, or participants. This is done by conversion, which fake followers cannot do.
The only thing that fake followers do is make it appear that your brand has more popularity than it does. In terms of producing results, fake followers are unlikely to have any impact.
And yes, the number of followers or engagement a brand or business has can influence how users perceive it; however, that doesn’t mean that a high follower count or high engagement amount will automatically result in business partnerships or success.
If you primarily use bought followers and likes to grow your Instagram account, it will be more difficult to keep up your brand image and standards over time. Your partner will see few benefits from collaborating with you, and eventually figure out that you have employed underhanded tactics to grow your account.
Brands also look at engagement when considering working with an influencer. If an influencer has bought likes or followers, and their comments are low, brands will notice. Low engagement on posts or stories, or lack of DM’s are all red flags for brands. These metrics are impossible to fake if an influencer has purchased followers or likes.
It is better to have a smaller group of engaged followers than a larger group of unengaged followers.
Organic Instagram Growth
This can be done effectively through influencer marketing, content marketing and community building. If we can’t buy Instagram followers, how can we organically grow our following? One way to organically grow your Instagram following is through influencer marketing. This can be done effectively by working with influencers who have a large following and are able to promote your content to their followers. Additionally, content marketing and community building are also effective methods for organic growth.
Building real relationships with other businesses and customers will result in higher conversion rates, ROI, and collaborative partnerships than if you were to simply buy fake followers and likes.
Organic growth on Instagram can be achieved through a variety of strategies. One tip for organic growth is to:
- Produce great content
One way to get a lot of Instagram followers is to post interesting, creative content that stands out. And…
- Use hashtags
Now that you’ve got great content, how can you get more people to see it? You can’t get likes or follows if you don’t increase your reach.
If you want to increase the number of likes and comments on your posts, you should make sure your account is public. If your account is private, people may not want to follow you because they would have to wait to be accepted before they could see your posts. So,
- Optimize your workflow
Running an Instagram account can be a lengthy and complicated process that requires your attention to many different aspects. It can sometimes become overwhelming, so it is useful to know which tools exist to help streamline your workflow, save time, and give you peace of mind.