{"id":6751,"date":"2014-05-07T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=6751"},"modified":"2020-03-30T23:21:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T03:21:00","slug":"tempted-buy-social-media-followers-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/tempted-buy-social-media-followers-less","title":{"rendered":"Tempted to buy social media followers? Why less is more"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you get spam emails, you\u2019ve probably seen subject lines like this:<\/p>\n

\u201cBuy followers for cheap!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook more legit \u2013 Twitter followers $2.99 per 1,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boosting your following on social media for just a few bucks can be tempting. Popularity increases perceived value, and a large audience conveys clout and credibility. It\u2019s also an endorsement of you and your message by other individuals, businesses, and entities using platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.<\/p>\n

But paying for those followers can have the opposite effect. Cheap \u201cfollowers\u201d are often dummy accounts, overseas users (many businesses pay low-wage workers overseas to create fake accounts), and inactive accounts. And there are plenty of free online tools that can quickly tell you how much of an account\u2019s following is fake.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a celebrity or politician, that can make for embarrassing headlines. If you\u2019re a business or individual trying to market yourself or build a brand, it can make you look downright untrustworthy.<\/p>\n

On the biggest platforms, the money spent on followers will ultimately be wasted. Twitter and Facebook now routinely delete fake and inactive accounts. Those 40,000 Facebook \u201clikes\u201d you bought can disappear in a matter of days. And the sudden drop in numbers will alert any real followers you have that you\u2019ve been artificially bulking up.<\/p>\n

Fake followers also defeat the purpose of\u00a0social media marketing<\/a>: They\u2019re not real people who are going to spread your message and who might eventually do business with you. Their only value is in making it appear that you\u2019re popular.\u00a0Until you\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t succumb to the come-ons for cheap followers. Even if it\u2019s just a dollar, it\u2019s a dollar wasted \u2013 or worse.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never bought followers, it\u2019s likely you have a few fakes and inactive accounts following you anyway. That\u2019s not your fault; they\u2019re out there and most people have some!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good idea to periodically do some housecleaning and get rid of the accounts that aren\u2019t doing anything for you. Our in-house team of social media strategists at EMSI Public Relations<\/a> shared their thoughts on how to do this for the largest platforms \u2013 Twitter and Facebook:<\/p>\n

For Twitter,\u00a0use free online tools to see what percentage of your followers are good accounts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We use\u00a0fakers.statuspeople.com<\/a>\u00a0to see what percentage of followers on an account is genuine, inactive or fake. If 80 percent or more of your following is good, you don\u2019t have to worry about appearing disreputable. Keep in mind, the tools that tell you how many fakes you have are neither foolproof nor entirely accurate.<\/b><\/p>\n

That said, fake and inactive followers don\u2019t do you any good. Engaging users \u2013 having them respond to, retweet, favorite, and \u201clike\u201d your content \u2013 is what helps create future customers. You can clean your account by running it through ManageFlitter.com<\/a>.\u00a0This app identifies which of your followers are fake and allows you to easily remove them.<\/p>\n

Review those who have liked your Facebook page.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Businesses, brands, artists, and others using Facebook to interact for promotional purposes use pages specifically designated\u00a0by Facebook for that purpose. People simply \u201clike\u201d your business page rather than submit a friend request as they do with personal pages. The number of likes you have indicates the number of followers you have. Again, since the value of the platform is getting people to engage by sharing and \u201cliking\u201d your content, it\u2019s better to have 500 engaged potential customers than 10,000 followers in India.<\/p>\n

Review who\u2019s following you by going to the Admin Panel in the upper left-hand corner of your community page and clicking \u201cSee all likes.\u201d Go through the list. You may recognize names of regular customers or people who often \u201clike\u201d or comment on your content. Check the user profiles of the ones you don\u2019t know, or who look less than genuine, to decide if they\u2019re real people. The list gives you the option to remove anyone with the click of a button.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t purchased followers, cleaning house once in a while shouldn\u2019t be much of a chore.\u00a0Your reward will be having a higher percentage of users who will actually help spread your message to other potential customers or clients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you get spam emails, you\u2019ve probably seen subject lines like this: \u201cBuy followers for cheap!\u201d \u201cLook more legit \u2013 Twitter followers $2.99 per 1,000.\u201d Boosting your following on social media for just a few bucks can be tempting. Popularity increases perceived value, and a large audience conveys clout and credibility. It\u2019s also an endorsement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1038,"featured_media":6773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTempted to buy social media followers? 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