In the world of social media Instagram has been emerging as one of the powerful platforms! From individuals to businesses, and even influencers love to connect with their audience using Instagram. But when there are billions of active users on any social platform, making your own unique identity seems like an impossible thing!
As a result, thousands of people switched to different shortcuts, like buying followers. To boost their overall presence, people love to enjoy these kinds of services. However, this strategy serves to be beneficial in the world of social media. Still, it brings a lot of drawbacks with itself as well.
This blog by ProflUp covers some of the best pros along with the downfalls of buying Instagram followers. Let’s see whether buying followers is a great option or if you should dump it for your long-term success!
Image Source: https://www.instagram.com/leomessi/
The Pros of Buying Instagram Followers
1.   Instant Boost in Credibility and Social Proof
The first and foremost benefit for which people love to buy Instagram followers is the social presence! High followers mean better reach, and better reach means greater visibility!
Those accounts with millions of followers globally appear to get trust and popularity from every visitor. This credibility helps them to increase their followers organically to stand out in the long run. As a common perception, we all love to follow those accounts with higher followers.
If you are in the business industry, a high follower count means you are getting some attention from your audience. Ultimately, it helps to create a strong brand image. This way, it’s easy for businesses to attract potential customers for increased sales and better brand presence.
2.   Increased Visibility and Reach
Like any other social platform, Instagram loves to favor those accounts with more followers and better engagement. If you are thinking of buying followers, it would surely give your profile an ultimate boost.
For improving your visibility and appearing in the search results, this hack can be a power booster for any beginner. But, you must create valuable content for your audience to sustain in the long run.
3.   Kickstarting New Accounts or Products
Stepping into the business world for the first time? Are you a naive individual with a thirst to be famous all around social media? Building your social presence from scratch over platforms like Instagram is one of the biggest challenges any content creator could face.
By smartly buying some Instagram followers, you can kickstart your social account. These followers on your account serve to be a gray-structure for launching new products or services over your profile.
4.   Saving Time and Effort
Organic growth does not come overnight. From Instagram to Facebook and even TikTok you need thousands of engaging videos posted with consistency. High-quality content, combined with consistent effort and smart strategies to appear in the search algorithm, takes years to show results.
To quickly jump on your growth plan without spending several hours every day on social media management, buying followers could prove to be a better approach for you!
5.   Enhancing Brand Perception in Competitive Markets
To set your brand apart from online competitors, buying followers would be an ideal choice for any business. When people see your posts every day, they start recognizing you. It ultimately leads to higher conversions in the long run. This popularity can help you sustain better engagement on social platforms.
The Cons of Buying Instagram Followers
1.   Low Engagement Rates
Like every other thing, with so many pros, buying followers for Instagram has its downsides, too. When you buy fake Instagram followers, it results in zero authentic engagement! No matter how much people claim about organic following accounts, these accounts usually turn out to be fake ones.
They never interact with your content, leading to mismatched behavior. With high followers but low likes and rare comments or zero shares, this imbalance always sets red flags! These red flags are not just for your customers but even for Instagram’s algorithm.
2.   Risk of Account Suspension or Banning
According to Instagram’s terms of service, buying followers is not allowed. Like all other platforms, Instagram has been keeping an eye on these suspicious activities. The result is banning those accounts from social platforms.
Whenever someone tries to buy fake accounts, the social algorithm notices them. You might face different penalties, with zero reach and even shadow banning. In severe cases, Instagram even suspends your account for a lifetime. These results point out Instagram hates fake followers for marketing or boosting customer engagement.
3.   Negative Impact on Analytics and Marketing Decisions
For content creators and even businesses, the Instagram algorithm plays a key role in identifying and optimizing their content strategies. Being a content creator, if you buy fake followers, it might mislead your audience about your engagement or demographics. With poor marketing decisions or ineffective campaigns, you might have no followers at all.
4.   Damaging Reputation and Authenticity
We all are living in a world where authenticity is our top priority. Fake followers not only affect your overall online reputation it even sends a message you are not loyal to your audience.
From brands to sponsors, we all can easily find out whether some account owns organic followers or not. It raises a question about your trust and credibility in the industry that is actually impossible to rebuild.
5.   Financial Cost with Limited Return on Investment
If you’re thinking of buying some Instagram followers, it is not always a cost-effective option! The reason is the return on investment is usually ignorable as these fake followers would not engage with your content.
So, ultimately, your conversions, sales, or even growth remains unaffected. For business accounts, whatever money they are spending for their account growth should be spent on strategic marketing moves for better results.
6.   Potential for Spam and Phishing
Hundreds of people sell fake Instagram followers. It might lead you to a spammy account. When people share their account data with such unauthorized services, you can even end up losing your social profile.
7.   False Sense of Achievement
Although these followers give you some temporary success, without real authentic engagement and connection building, everything is zero! If you neglect quality content creation, none of your audience would love to see you around them. As it is always said, building relationships and real connections proves to be the key to your social media marketing.
Finding a Balanced Approach
Now, the question here is, how should a person enjoy the perks and benefits of buying followers without falling for these downfalls? Let’s have a look at some of the best strategies for a balanced approach:
1.   Combining Purchased Followers with Organic Growth Strategies
If you’re thinking of buying Instagram followers, make sure to mix and match it with other organic growth methods as well. Create engaging, high-quality content. Collaborate with other social influencers to build genuine connections with your audience.
2.   Opting for Quality over Quantity
Instead of buying thousands of followers on the 1st go, make sure to consider small purchases at a time. Although some people offer regular followers, still not all of them are organic. It helps you to get some real people as well who might love and engage with your content.
3.   Focusing on Content and Community Building
However, Instagram’s success is all about quality content with organic connection building. Share your thoughts with your audience. Engage your customers in the comment section. Build a loyal community to sustain in the long run!
Conclusion
Although buying Instagram followers hangs in between the benefits and downfalls, as they provide an immediate power booster to your online visibility, with unimaginable consequences like low engagement and even account suspension, people hesitate to buy such services.
If you are in the business industry thinking about long-term growth, go with quality content and best media marketing strategies. In case you are considering getting some help from buying social followers, be smart and share other organic strategies in your marketing plan as well. To cut it short, Instagram, like all other platforms, asks for genuine engagement with real connections to build success in the industry!
With ProflUp, your growth is our responsibility.
Set it up once, and we’ll handle the rest!
Owner & Writer at SocialMediaSlant.com | Expert in Social Media Strategy & Content Creation
