Botting: Why buying is bad for business

More followers, more money, right?

While you might think that buying followers, likes, or comments is an easy way to grow your business’s social media accounts quickly, it’s never going to end well. 

We understand just how difficult it can be to grow your presence on social media, but taking shortcuts is never the answer. 

Sure, there are plenty of cheap services available that sell followers, comments, and likes, but it’s only going to make your account seem inauthentic, hurt your engagement, and potentially see your account removed entirely. 

Let’s explore a few of the reasons why buying followers is seriously bad for business.  

Botting is bad for engagement 

When you purchase followers, it’s more than likely that you’re buying bots or inactive accounts. Inactive accounts and bots won’t interact with your posts, and that means you won’t show up in Instagram’s discover section. 

That’s right, buying followers is actually killing your organic reach. 

Not only will buying followers hurt your organic reach, but it will also have dramatic ripple effects on your ability to advertise effectively on whichever platform you choose to buy followers for. Buying followers will corrupt the information needed to advertise to your followers and create things like lookalike audiences and more.  

Bots don’t spend money  

While you may think that spending a bit of cash to buy followers sounds like a great idea, have you considered the fact that these “followers” you are paying for aren’t going to interact with your posts, increase traffic to your website, or spend any money?

Having a lot of followers may look good on the surface, but surface-level appearances on social media doesn’t pay the bills.  

Botting may see your account deleted 

Still think buying followers is a good idea? What if we told you that Instagram might delete your account entirely if they discover you have purchased followers? 

Instagram is actively taking steps to reduce the number of bots and fake accounts on its platform, and did you know that buying followers violates Instagram’s community guidelines

You might think buying followers is worth the risk but is risking your entire account worth it? You’ve worked hard to grow your existing follower base. Don’t jeopardise all that hard work for a bunch of followers that offer nothing more than clout.

Fake followers will hurt your credibility 

One of the main reasons people choose to take the risk of buying fake followers is to try and convince real people to follow them organically. It makes some sense. You are probably more likely to follow an account with a large number of followers, right? An account with a large followers base must post excellent content. But what if no one is interacting with said content?  

Imagine you stumble upon an account with 35,000 followers, but everything they post only gets a few comments and likes. Something’s going to seem pretty fishy, right? 

If a business is willing to purchase followers to deceive people into following them and doing business with them, it doesn’t exactly build trust, does it?  

So, what should you do instead of botting? Well, you can start by making your account public, posting great content, listening to your existing followers, and interacting more often. If building a large business following on social media was easy, everyone would do it. 

If you’re struggling to manage social media and business, check out our Social Media for Business webinar

A born and raised sandgroper, Cal only ever dreamed of one thing growing up: the squeaky courts of the NBA. But his inability to dunk squashed that dream. Cal is the Marketing Coordinator at Coffey & Tea.