To sum up, it seems to us that buying followers in general is a questionable approach that in the end rarely does much good. Companies looking to find themselves an influencer to collaborate with should allow themselves plenty of time to see whether a blogger or Instagram star has actually acquired their followers organically. At the end of the day, 100,000 followers really doesn’t mean anything if there is no corresponding interaction. An account is only as good as its interactions.
User engagement is one of the most important online marketing KPIs, in social media marketing. Generally followers who have been bought will have little or no interest in posts made by companies or influencers. Only in the rarest of cases will a purchased follower like and comment on a post, so the engagement rate is usually quite poor. For this reason these are sites that also sell likes and comments, but the danger here then is that you may once again find yourself quickly running out of funds.
It is companies in particular that need to exercise extreme caution when it comes to purchasing followers, likes etc., as they could be embarking on a very slippery slope. If it happens that someone within the online community notices such a purchase, the popularity you had bought could suddenly have a very negative impact. At the very least you will be in a legal grey area, as there are those who argue that engaging in such activity is unfair on competition. Such methods and their results give the public the impression that there is large and widespread of your brand or one of your products - when in reality this might not be the case at all.
Overall it makes a lot more sense to invest time and energy in creating great content and campaigns, allowing you to naturally generate followers. It may be that the best way of achieving this is through collaboration with influencers, but as stated above, be careful which influencers you choose.
More on the topic of influencer marketing as well as a whole series of articles on Instagram for businesses can be found in our Digital Guide.
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