Organic reach is down and your social media strategy has stagnated, which means you are looking for a way out of it. So what can you do when you need to get more followers interested in your brand?
People tend to have two choices. They either use some of the secrets that'll boost their organic reach, or they succumb to the ads that claim to offer X number of followers for a small amount of money. Here are five reasons why you should never buy followers to increase your organic reach on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social media network.
1.Nothing to do with you
Your current crop of followers means something because they are your customers and they are your clients. You might have never met them, but they have started to follow your brand for a reason. And that's why they continue to engage with your updates.
Bought followers have no idea what your brand stands for or what it sells. They are there just to make up the numbers. You are not going to get any engagement from them.
2.Engagement is down on Facebook
One of the nuances of declining organic reach on Facebook is that the more unengaged your followers are the more your overall engagement rate goes down. What this means is that your stuff is less likely to appear in news feeds, thus ruining your engagement rate further because fewer of your customers will actually see what you are posting.
That's what happens when you buy followers.
3.You become a platform for spam
Once you start to incorporate bought followers into your community, you become a platform for spam. Once those followers are inside your community they can target your genuine customers. They will target them with their own spam. And this is going to benefit them. Many companies are using marketing companies that use these tactics.
If your brand becomes known for spamming followers with irrelevant nonsense, they are going to stop following you.
4.Your reputation gets jeopardized
There's nothing worse than being discovered buying fake followers. It's humiliating for your brand because it proves that you're unable to actually bring real people to your brand. It shows that you have something wrong with your brand that you have been unable to fix through conventional means.
Your online reputation is everything, especially these days where one of the pillars of a great brand is transparency.
And people will find out eventually. It's only natural because fake followers are easily spotted through their profiles. They tend to come from strange third-world nations and their profiles are surprisingly insufficient, with some of them not even coming up with a profile picture.
5.It's goes against the terms of conditions
The simple fact is that buying followers is against the terms of service of practically every major social media network. They have strong policies against it because they know that fake followers impact their bottom lines. Investors are not going to stand for fake followers because they can adversely affect the stock price of a company, and therefore the overall value of that company.
Social media networks are becoming increasingly effective at unveiling brands that have bought fake followers. Sooner or later, you will get caught.
Conclusion
Buying fake followers can not only destroy your brand it can put your entire company at risk. Getting banned from Facebook and Twitter over fake followers can compromise your future because you no longer have access to two major marketing channels.
Now imagine trying to make a company successful under those conditions.
Social media brand building takes a lot of time and effort, but if you are smart about it you can still be successful, even when dealing with all this competition.
What are your top tips for increasing your organic social media following?