Buying fans and subscribers to increase the statistics of its Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram pages is rampant among companies and personalities of all types. We sometimes even find individuals who, wishing to give an impression of popularity to their publications, have recourse to the purchase of likes and likes by the hundreds.
This practice is widespread in particularly competitive environments, such as politics, for example – you can sometimes find up to half of “false subscribers” on the pages of significant personalities. But brands are not left out! Monitoring daily whether your followers are active or not hiding bots is impossible.
Still, it is easily detectable as an account that has resorted to inflating statistics. If you want an idea, there are tools to determine the number of fake and inactive subscribers, such as SocialBakers or TwitterAudit (which does not make the difference between counterfeit and inactive subscribers).
Why Do People And Companies Pay To Get Subscribers?
The answer is quite simple: it’s within anyone’s reach, and the process couldn’t be more stale, and it may seem more manageable than a long-term Community Manager and Social advertising job. -term. We pay 10€, we get 100 subscribers, and it stops there. In addition, the search for notoriety and popularity is increasingly vital to face competition from the sector by gaining (so-called) credibility.
The method is straightforward (more or less) legal, and the sites selling these services guarantee real subscribers and honest people who will like your Facebook Page or follow you on Twitter. For the less informed, the solution seems tempting. And yet, the legitimacy of this technique is just as questionable as it is ineffective.
Also Read: Corporate Social Media, Marketing Campaign: How Much Does It Cost, & How Does It Work?
Here Are Our Top 3 Reasons Why You Should NOT Resort To Buying Followers
The purpose of a business page is to work on its image, to make people talk about it, to make itself known, to engage its community and above all, to generate new customers… And buying fake subscribers risks doing the opposite for you! No contacts, traffic, engagement, sales: no concrete results.
Little To No Engagement From Your New “Followers.”
Unlike acquiring subscribers through a well-thought-out Community Management work, purchasing fans is not based on any targeting criteria. As a result, the publications have no chance of interesting your new “fans”. », and even less to hire them. Not only will they find no resonance with them, but because of their dubious provenance – perhaps you won’t even speak the same language – you also risk seeing them disappear little by little or altogether overnight. Many of these accounts are also inactive, and social networks are increasingly waging war on fake accounts and other bots.
Dummy Subscribers = Unqualified Base
Because of their indifference to what you publish, these subscribers – and again, if they are active! – constitute only a displayed figure, it is impossible to transform them into qualified prospects, whereas the interest of social networks for brands is to generate engagement and profit. It is also useless to try to contact them directly – as one might do after noticing a new subscriber with an exciting profile – which is a social selling practice that tends to show its effectiveness!
Abysmal Return On Investment
Having a smaller but qualified subscriber base is better than a large and inconsistent one! Not only does investing in buying followers and likes come at a price, but you may never see a return on your investment. These subscribers do not show any interaction with your publications and, therefore, do not fuel the activity or the discussion on your networks, and even less do not generate traffic to your site, all this in no way helping the rise of your notoriety. And because of their hazardous attribution, you have no chance of turning these fake subscribers into customers.
How Do You Build A Natural Base Of Qualified Subscribers?
There are other much more productive techniques to generate engagement around your brand and gain notoriety… Without inflating your statistics with subscribers without affinity with your brand.
Use Social Ads Platforms
All social networks now have an advertising platform on which it is possible to advertise according to various objectives, including gaining notoriety and generating sales. Whether on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, all of these platforms have particular targeting criteria, which allow you to advertise to the right people and gain popularity in no time.
Build A Relevant And Interested Community Through Creative And Targeted Advertising
Sponsored ads allow you to promote your page (among others) to a targeted audience according to their centers of interest, the pages to which they are already subscribed, their sector of activity, etc. Platforms that allow you to create ads impactful and in your image (we think in particular of the immersive Facebook Canvas format) to enable you to reach your target and let them know about your page and your activity through traffic acquisition campaigns.
Generate Engagement By Animating Your Community
It is a question of acquiring new followers to build notoriety and knowing how to maintain the relationship. It is therefore essential to animate your networks by offering news and exciting content, entertaining publications to engage them, as well as offers or event operations to share, which will not only attract traffic to your site and allow you to collect reusable customer data but will animate your page and its community in a fun way.
Thus, The goal is to create a privileged relationship between the brand and its subscribers, allowing it to gain notoriety thanks to the network it is building while improving its brand image, showing that it is present, and listening to its customers by interacting with them.
Having a committed and qualified community is an essential step for brands, for their e-reputation, and to allow them to acquire new customers. However, buying dummy subscribers does not help notoriety; on the contrary, these practices risk being spotted by the networks and their users and tarnishing the brand’s image. Social networks are becoming increasingly used as acquisition levers, so don’t skimp on your efforts to work on your notoriety.
Also Read: Why Should You Use Hootsuite For Your Social Networks?
