Should You Buy Instagram Followers Everything You Should Know

The amount of work it takes to build a wide range of followers on Instagram can be both exhausting and time-consuming. For this reason, it might be tempting to take short cuts wherever possible. You want to do this in order to expand your audience, and this includes buying Instagram followers. Should you buy Instagram followers? Well, here’s everything you should know. 

Whether you are trying to become a celebrity or you simply want to promote your business, the goal is to reach more audiences. You might find this goal difficult to achieve, and you are almost losing faith in your contents. In this article, we will be exploring everything you need to know about buying Instagram followers. We will also touch on the pros and cons, which will help you decide if it’s the right move for your account. 

Does buying Instagram followers cost so much?

The price for Instagram followers can range from a few dollars to hundreds and thousands of dollars. However, there are plenty of cheap services available. You can buy 1,000 followers for as little as $10. But it is important to note that you might only be paying for a number. Many of these accounts are either bots or inactive accounts. Unfortunately, this means they will never respond to your post.

With prices as low as this for a large number of followers, there should be a spur of thinking. If it was really as cheap and easy as that, then everyone should be doing it. But then, what’s the catch? Is opting for this option safe for your business? Is it legal to buy Instagram followers and is it a worthwhile investment? 

Is it legal to buy Instagram Followers? 

Yes, it is completely legal for you to buy Instagram followers. There are no laws in place that go against that and buying followers won’t get you into legal trouble. However buying fake followers is against Instagram rules and regulations. You signed it when you were creating your account on the platform. 

Can I be penalized for buying Instagram followers? 

Yes, Instagram can penalize you. According to Instagram community guidelines, buying fake followers is recognized as fraudulent. 

Not only will Instagram remove the fake followers, Instagram also reserves the right to suspend accounts that are involved in this practice. Instagram might send you a warning note when they suspect you of fraudulent practices for the first time. They might not the second time. 

Apart from being penalized, whenever you buy fake followers, you are increasing the likelihood of your account being spammed. Since you do not even know the sources of these accounts you are buying, they can bring spam with them. This can cause really bad consequences for you and your followers in terms of security. All your personal and confidential information might be compromised. 

Bots and Inactive Accounts

Bots

Instagram bots are rampant nowadays. You’ve most likely come across them today, and if you haven’t, you’re still most likely to encounter them. Some companies have been found to have automated the process of creating bots so well that they can sell them to you as real followers. These bots may even assume the identity of a real person by using other people's photos and names. 

In some cases, these bots' accounts can appear real and organic. These companies can automate the bots' sharing and liking of your content. They can even be programmed to produce and share content. But because they are not real accounts, they will not produce an organic-looking interaction on your post. As a result of this, the engagement they produce will have little or no impact on your account. 

When Instagram detects this, the algorithm will not work in your favor. Without real followers to engage with your posts, your contents are automatically hidden to the general public. The only people who will be seeing your posts are your inauthentic followers and that is bad for your business.

Inactive Followers 

From the above explanation, it is important to note that not all fake followers are bots. Some accounts are genuine but not active. These are then sold by these companies. There are reasons why a real person might have an inactive account. For example, the account may have been created for the purpose of filling out a request form or simply to submit a link to an Instagram account. 

Some accounts are also created with the sole purpose of getting followers in return. In these cases, the accounts might show early engagements, interact with all of your contents including stories and posts. However in the long run, when they decide to go dormant, their engagement will drop. It could be because they are not on the platform for a legit purpose. This then will become a drain on your Instagram accounts Performance metrics. 

Everything you should know about buying Instagram Followers

You’re more likely to Buy Fake Followers 

Recently, Instagram has been fishing out accounts that violate their terms of service and agreement. This is why purchasing fake followers is not as popular as it once was. These days, in order to buy Instagram followers, you will need to know someone who can refer you to a vendor. These vendors will then deceive the followers as soon as payment is made. For this, you will need to purchase from someone or a website you can trust with your account information.

Assuming you were able to get a trusted and legitimate vendor, they wouldn’t sell the followers immediately. You will have to wait a few moments to a few days for your followers to start rolling in. The vendors do this so as not to alert Instagram that something dubious is going on. However, once you get your brand new, purchased followers, do not expect so much. This is because there won’t be so much interaction to boost your engagement metrics.

Negative effect on the algorithm 

If your purchased followers are bots or inactive accounts, they won’t engage with your posts. This consequently means your posts will not show up on the explore pages or your real audience news feed. This means you will get an engagement that fades away over time. Your inauthentic followers might give you views, comments, and likes at the moment. 

What happens when the attention they throw at you now fades off and you start reporting on how hard it is to measure your metrics? Engagement is key when it comes to how the Instagram algorithm works. What's the point of having 10,000 followers who don't interact with your content? Without proper engagement, the algorithm won’t throw your contents out there in the eyes of its users. 

Instagram recognizes and removes fake followers 

Instagram is looking to improve and maintain genuine interaction on the platform by protecting real accounts and experiences. The terms of use and identity were recently updated to identify and remove inauthentic accounts from the platform. By buying followers, you are violating the Instagram community guidelines, and this may trigger a harsh reaction from the platform's moderators. 

Instagram is also removing comments, likes, and follows from their third-party apps that are designed to grow people's audiences artificially. It is better to grow your audience organically because fake activity steps on Instagram's mission and might result in grave consequences for your account. 

It can hurt your credibility 

People might decide to follow you organically if they see you have a lot of followers already. However, that is not a guarantee, and here’s why. Remember we mentioned earlier that in the long run, these inactive followers may never like or comment on your posts? This could ruin your credibility with your real audience. It might be hard for them to notice at first, but as time goes on, it becomes more obvious. 

Your real audience will notice sooner or later that most of your followers are bots. These findings could deter them from following you because you will appear deceitful. It won’t take long before they hit the unfollow button. For example if you have about 20,000 followers with only 10-20 likes per post, trust me, it won’t take people long to realize something is fishy. 

Performance Metrics can be distorted

With a high percentage of your audience being inauthentic, it is practically impossible for you to measure your posts' metrics. You cannot measure how well your target audience is connecting with your brand. You cannot measure posts that do well with your real audience since the ratio has been affected. 

Consequently, you will not know how well you’re serving your real audience or what they think. Then you will not be able to convert your Instagram followers into real customers. Instagram's algorithm is not really tied to the number of followers you have on your account. This is why paying for followers who are not real or active will really not help your account in the way you want it to. In fact, it may not even help your account in any way at all. 

Conclusively

Buying followers on Instagram is almost never the best strategy. Instead of going this route, you can work towards growing your Instagram audience organically. This can be done by posting high-quality content and engaging with your audience. In most cases, this is typically a more effective route to take. 

However, whatever decision you decide to take in reaching your business goal, whether through purchasing followers or growing organically, make sure to choose what works best for you and your business. You do not want to hurt your account and business all in the name of growing your following. We wish you all the best!