In this digital era we live in, many people, young and old, are buying Instagram followers, hoping that they’ll become super-stars overnight.
However, people who are buying Instagram followers aren’t (or don’t want to be) aware that doing so is possibly the greatest mistake that one can make on Instagram. In this article, you’ll…:
(1) …learn 6 reasons why you shouldn’t be buying Instagram followers.
(2) …what to do if you already bought Instagram followers before.
#1 – 6 Main Reasons Why Buying Instagram Followers is the Greatest Mistake you Can Make
Buying Instagram followers will Destroy Your Engagement Rate (ER)
Most people believe, thanks to the Instagram fake follower industry, as well as various “marketers”, “gurus” on YouTube, that the number of followers is the only metric on Instagram that matters. They are wrong, as usual – there are 3 of them. In order of importance, these are:
(1) …reach (the number of Instagram users that’ve seen your content).
(2) …ER (Engagement Rate, which is the sum of all your likes, comments, replies, shares and saves divided by the number of followers, multiplied by 100).
(3) …number of followers – real, high-quality followers, to be more precise.
If you use the targeted following method and Soviet era tactics in order to conduct your Instagram ad campaigns, increasing all of the metrics above won’t pose much of a problem. If you’re skeptical (as you should be when Internet advice is concerned), see the results for yourself,
Before I explain how having a high number of fake followers will decimate your reach and ER, it is important to know how the Instagram algorithm works!
So… whenever you add new content on Instagram, it’ll initially reach only a small segment of your Instagram followers. If it performs well in that segment, the Instagram algorithm will presume that your content is great. As a reward, it’ll increase the reach of your content by showing it to another segment of your Instagram followers. If your content performs great in that segment as well, the Instagram algorithm will presume that your content is not great – but excellent. Because of this, it’ll reward you, yet again, by further increasing the reach of your content by showing it to yet another segment of your Instagram followers. That process goes on until your content either stops performing well or until all of your current followers have seen it.
If the vast majority of your followers are real, your content good and if you interact with them, the reach and ER of your content are going to be very high. As you can see on the right, according to HypeAuditor, my average Instagram ER, back when I had 5.2k followers, was 19.77%. The average ER for an account of such size is…4%. And no, I haven’t used any ads back then, because my account yet wasn’t monetized at that time.
Now…if you’ve bought Instagram followers, your reach and ER are going to get decimated because these fake followers won’t be interacting with your content – they’re programmed just to follow you!
Because of the lack of engagement, the Instagram algorithm will presume that your content is of low quality and will punish you by gradually limiting its reach. Eventually…the reach that you content is going to get will be so low that even the few of your real followers will have trouble seeing it!
Many “influencers” are well aware of the above facts. Hence, they’ll either hide their likes (and play dumb) or will be buying Instagram followers, which are programmed not just to follow but to imitate human behavior (viewing, liking and commenting on content), in order to keep their reach and ER as high as possible! However, the Instagram fake follower industry “forgot” to tell that the Instagram algorithm is not so easily fooled – it won’t increase the reach of their content because it won’t be taking the engagement of those accounts into consideration! In short, all the likes and comments that those fake followers gave you won’t count!
Instagram Purges Fake Followers and Engagement
Having a large number of fake followers is very, VERY damaging to every social media platform! Should that be the case, the value of shares of the company that owns that platform would go down. For example, on July 11th, 2022, Twitter shares fell by 7% because Elon Musk terminated a $44 billion (yes, with a B) takeover of that company on that day. The main reason why he did that was because Twitter failed to prove to him that less than 5% of its users are fake!
In order to prevent the loss of value of Meta shares, Instagram’s algorithm is always on the hunt for fake accounts. If it ever suspects that an account is run by a bot…it gets purged straight away! So… if you ever decide to buy say 10k followers, be rest assured that you won’t enjoy them for long – regardless of their “quality”!
Besides purging fake accounts and (shadow)banning people that use them 24/7, the Instagram algorithm is also continuously removing likes, follows and comments from third-party apps which artificially grow engagement.
Buying Instagram Followers Is a Waste of Money
Buying Instagram followers is a waste of money because of one simple reason – they aren’t going to make you any money! Fake Instagram followers, no matter how well programmed they are, aren’t going to buy your products, visit your website(s) and/or refer people to you. The reason is simple – they aren’t humans!
A couple of years ago, a fakefluencer Arianna Renee decided to launch her own clothing line, ERA. Since she had 2.6 million followers, she assumed that she could sell tens of thousands of her products rather quickly. Instead, she sold, I kid you not…less than 36 T-shirts. That was the end of (an) ERA. The main reason why she spectacularly failed were…fake followers! As I’ve stated before, fake followers won’t be buying your products!
Instead of spending your hard-earned money on buying Instagram followers, it’d be much more cost effective to spend it on Instagram ads. That way, you won’t only expand your Instagram reach considerably but you’ll be able to get real Instagram followers IF your content is good enough. Also, they’ll be buying your products and/or visiting your site and referring people to you.
If Arianna Renee had spent tens of thousands of dollars on Instagram ads, she’d be much better off. Since she’s relative attractive, I’m certain that her Instagram ad campaigns would’ve helped her got tens of thousands of real followers. Because of that, she’d be certainly able to sell much, much more than 36 T-shirts!
It may be too late for Arianna now, but…not for you! Don’t do the things she did – and is still doing. Some people…just don’t learn from their mistakes!
Accounts That Bought Followers Are Easy to Spot
The first sign that someone has bought Instagram followers is that most (if not all) followers that follow that account…:
(1) …have a stock or commercial image as their profile picture, or don’t have it at all.
(2) ...lack a bio or have a totally weird one (usually consisted of emojis, l33tspeak and other random gibberish).
(3) …have usernames that are obliviously machine generated, such as J0hnsmith1, gjfu879lkhk and so on.
(4) …have few followers but follow thousands of accounts. For example, they have 2 followers…but they follow 3000 people. That’s not something that any human would do!
(5) …didn’t post any content of their own.
(6) …have little to no engagement on their content (if any at all).
It is important to keep in mind that every public Instagram account has a small percentage of bot followers. If yours is public, you’ll know what kind of fake followers I’m talking about!
The second sign that someone has bought fake Instagram followers is very low ER. If you ever see an account that has say 100k followers and only several hundred likes on every post…you can assume that most followers of that account are fake! If such account is hiding likes…you can assume the same!
The third sign that someone has bought Instagram followers is the type of accounts that have left comments. If the vast majority of comments that you see are made by fake followers…you can be certain that the vast majority of followers of that account are fake as well!
And finally, the fourth sign that someone has bought Instagram followers is a low HypeAuditor and SocialBlade score. If someone gets a low score on either of those, that means that he/she has either lots of ghost or fake followers. Because the latter is unfortunately more prevalent, that’s what most people will presume.
You’ll Ruin your Instagram credibility forever
Reputable brands and influencer agencies are very selective with whom they want to work with because they are well aware of the fact that many people are buying followers and engagement nowadays. They don’t want to lose money and reputation by working with such accounts – would you work with an influencer who can’t influence? I think not!
In order to see how reputable brands and influencer agencies choose the influencers, you need to be in their shoes!
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re an owner of a successful influencer agency right now. Since business is, thank God, booming, you’re in position to hire an additional influencer. After a certain amount of time, you’ve found two prospects – Jane and Joe. Jane has 100k followers, while Joe has 50k followers.
Many people would, without any hesitation, choose Jane on the spot simply because she has much more followers compared to Joe. But not you, since you know that many people are buying followers and engagement nowadays. Hence, you decide to dive in deeper in order to see if hiring Jane would be worth it.
After checking manually some of her recent followers, you notice that most them are fake! It’d be understandable if most of them were “forex-bots”, “crypto-bots”, and “sex-bots” since many public accounts get followed by them. But hers…were not!
Next, you decide to check the amount of likes her content got. But…you can’t, because she hid them. So …you decide to check the comments. After a couple of minutes, you notice that most comments are made by fake followers as well. Some of them are generic, and some others are actually ads for male potency in Arabic and Hindu.
Most influencer agencies, based on the above facts alone, would never hire Jane. But not yours. You decide to give Jane one last chance by running a detailed check of her profile through HypeAuditor. The results show that…:
(1) …80% of her followers are either “mass follower” or “suspicious” accounts. In other words – fake and ghost accounts. Because of that, she got a low score. So …she has, in practice, 30k followers. And they don’t seem to be engaging with her content very much.
(2) …most of her followers are coming from India, Brazil and Nigeria…countries known for having a large number of bot farms.
Since you don’t want to lose money and reputation by hiring a fraud like Jane, you decide to block and blacklist her. If she’s a fraud on Instagram, that usually means that she’s a fraud in real life as well!
With Jane out of your way, you decide to see if Joe is a man for the job. After checking manually some of his recent followers, you noticed that most of them are real people! Yes, he has some “forex-bots”, “crypto-bots”, and “sex-bots” following him. But…since his Instagram is public, that’s perfectly normal.
So far, so good…but it ain’t over yet. Now…you decide to check the engagement and comments on Joe’s content and notice that he gets an average of 10k likes and 150 comments per post. That’s quite impressive ER for an 50k account like his. What’s even better…most comments are written by real humans. Yes, he has some comments made by bots (collaboration and promotion offers), but…that’s normal for a public account.
Most influencer agencies, based on the above facts alone, would hire Joe on the spot. But, since you were burned by Jane recently, you’ve decided to run a detailed check of Joe’s Instagram account through HypeAuditor. The results show that…:
(1) …80% of Joe’s followers are classified as real people and influencers, and 20% are classified as suspicious or mass followers accounts. Because of such ratio, his HypeAuditor AQS score is quite good. That means that, out of his 50k followers, 40k of them are real. And they seem to be pretty active.
(2) …most of his followers are coming from the US, Canada and Germany. There aren’t any Instagram bot farms there as far as you know!
Since you’re now certain that Joe is an influencer who can actually influence, you decide to send him an e-mail, where you ask if he is willing to join your team. After all, people who are honest and willing to work, like Joe, are a huge asset for anyone! Especially in this day and age!
As you can see from the above example, the phrase “Fake it until you make it” doesn’t quite work on Instagram!
You’ll Get Banned
As I’ve stated before, Instagram, in order to protect its reputation, as well as the value of Metas’ stocks, is always on the hunt for fake accounts and people that use them. If Instagram finds out that you’ve bought followers, it has the right to not only delete them, but ban your account for violating the Community Guidelines, which states the following (emphasis mine):
Foster meaningful and genuine interactions.
Instagram’s Community Guidelines
What kind of ban you’ll get for buying Instagram followers depends on factors such as your account’s age, standing and the money you previously spent on ads. You can get…:
(1) …a shadow ban. While you’re shadow banned, your Instagram account, as well as its content, will be undiscoverable via hashtags and on the Explore page which’ll severely decrease your reach and ER! The only way to get it removed (I’m speaking from experience – I deservedly got one for buying “likes” when I just started my Instagram career) is by buying ads!
(2) …a temporary ban which can last up to 30 days.
(3) …your account disabled without any warning – and without any possibility of appeal.
The only people that can buy Instagram followers and almost get away with it are celebrities, public personalities (politicians, CEO’s…) and business entities. Why? Because their Instagram accounts are verified. As incredible it may sound…verified accounts can do things that we, users with non-verified Instagram accounts, are not allowed to – bullying, posting content that goes against Instagram’s TOS and, as you might’ve guessed it, buying Instagram followers! As you can see, the Chinese phrase “Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi (What is permissible for Jupiter may not be permissible for a bull)” exists for a reason!
#3 – What to Do if Someone Tries to Sabotage you by Buying you Fake Followers
Once you become someone on Instagram, you need to be prepared for all kinds of sabotage. The most common thing that your competition or people who just hate you (for whatever reason) will do to you will be “hate-buying”. “Hate-buying” is when someone buys you fake followers in order to either make you look bad to brand reps that you’re collaborating (or planning to collaborate) with or to get you banned for violating Instagram’s TOS. All of this may sound silly to you but believe me…to many it’s not!
Getting your account sabotaged by “hate-buying” is not the only thing you need to be worried about – there’s also a chance that a company selling Instagram followers will, without your consent, send you lots of them as a “free trial”, in order to encourage you to buy more. Although this act per se is not a sabotage, its effects are the same!
Set Your Instagram profile to Private…and Wait
Setting your Instagram account to private is the first step that you’ll need to do if you are a victim of “hate-buying” or some “free trial”. Yes, doing this will reduce your visibility and income significantly. But…that’s the only way to protect your reputation, as well as your account. Let go of your ego!
Once you’ve switched your Instagram account to private, it’s hammering time – start blocking all the bots that you got from your list of followers, in order to make sure they never come back.
In order to avoid an action block at this rather critical stage, don’t block more than 20 bots every hour.
Once you’ve blocked all the bots and believe that more won’t come, make your Instagram account public again. If another swarm of bots comes your way, repeat this whole process!
Contact Meta’s Customer Service
As soon as fake accounts start swarming your Instagram account, quickly switch your account to private and contact Facebook Business Support as soon as possible. From what I can see, the best way to contact them is through Facebook. Don’t bother using any other methods of contact (Instagram, e-mail, phone and so on) because they won’t be responding!
On Facebook messenger, write a message where you’ll explain what happened to you and what you’re doing to take care of the situation. Be concise and honest. Also, if you know…:
(1) …who “hate-bought” you followers, send screenshots and ask them to take action against that person because “hate-buying” is a form of cyber-bulling. And Meta takes cyber-bulling VERY seriously.
Also, if you know (or have money), don’t be afraid to consult with a lawyer who’s specialized in internet law.
(2) …what company sent you bot followers, tell them that they did that without your consent. If you have screenshots, show them!
If Meta’s Facebook Business Support contacts you, be nice and honest with them!
#4 – Conclusion
It’s a known fact that many people nowadays are in such a hurry to success that they eagerly take any shortcuts that come across their way – regardless of cost. Many industries came to be because of this fact – the Instagram fake follower industry being one of them.
The Instagram fake follower industry wants you to believe that, by buying Instagram followers, you can become famous overnight. However, things don’t quite work that way. Yes, you’ll get tens of thousands of followers in a blink of an eye. But…you’ll lose your reputation and your account…possibly forever. Are you willing to pay that price?
If you are, go right ahead and buy as much Instagram followers as you want. But remember…sooner or later, you’re going to regret doing that! In the best-case scenario, you’ll lose your account. In the worst-case scenario, you’ll became a laughingstock like Arianna Renee is AND lose your account.
If you aren’t, realize that becoming an influencer on Instagram is much harder that many want to believe – there’s a lot of hard work involved. In order to become one, you need to:
(1) …become an interesting person, and that is hard work.
(2) …build a strong follower base, and that is hard work.
(3) …you need to provide something of value to your followers and that involves, as you might’ve guessed it, hard work.
(4) …get lots of money in order to start conducting your Instagram ad campaigns. For most of us, that involves sacrifice…and hard work.
Thank you for reading. If you’ve liked this article and want to see more like them, make sure you subscribe to the e-mail list and to follow me on Instagram!
Until next time.
Your man,
-Leon