Read This Before You Buy Followers on Social Media!
If you’re considering whether to buy followers for your practice’s social media platforms, read this first!
It’s really great to see people engage with your practice online, and it is the number one goal for lots of marketing professionals. However, while it can look really impressive to have a huge following on Instagram or Twitter, or any other platform, buying followers isn’t the answer.
After all, what is the intention behind your following?
For most practices, it’s about winning the hearts of actual patients, not just appearing to be popular.
Here are a few things to consider before you go ahead and artificially increase your follower count:
1. Authenticity is always more effective than faked content or followers
You might think nobody will notice that you’re followed only by ‘pretend’ followers, but rest assured, they will! Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are all platforms that really value creative, authentic content. The biggest user groups (namely, Millennials and Gen Z) know all about this – they are digital natives, and they will expect a lot from the brands they engage with when it comes to content.
In other words, faking follower counts is really risky. Genuinely interested users who notice that you have a lot of followers may follow you, but they’re very likely to realise something is up when your posts don’t garner any responses or likes. Would you keep following an account if you saw that most of their “loyal audience” were inactive accounts or bots? It can feel really deceptive and actually harm your brand reputation.
Trying to get follower counts up artificially will never make up for poor quality content. It’s much better to focus your energy where it really counts!
2. What does real engagement mean, anyway?
It’s going to be really hard to tell how effective your actual social media platform is if your followers are fake. How will you know if a post really connected with your audience, the people with who you actually want to engage? Bots and bought followers will really screw up your metrics.
Not to mention that purchased social media followers don’t provide long-term value to your profile's activity, anyway. The followers you buy might give you views, likes, and comments early on when you’ve just acquired them as a follower, but it’s unlikely that they will stick with you over time.
Setting follower counts as a target might be one metric to use for success, but the great thing about social media is the potential for deeper engagement with particular brands through their various content offerings.
Great social media is all about having a back and forth, starting a discussion, sharing insights and behind-the-scenes information, sharing fun creative content, and therefore creating communities around a particular brand or business. Think twice about how you measure success from your own social media efforts.
4. The algorithm says no
It’s really important to note that a lot of social media platforms are starting to crack down on fake accounts and activity. Instagram, for instance, has updated its terms of use to identify and remove inauthentic accounts from its platform. That means that Instagram will remove any likes, follows, or comments that come from a third-party app designed to artificially grow an audience. By doing this, you are violating the community guidelines for the platform and this can really impact your discoverability on the platform – you’re likely to be penalised by the algorithm. You might also find that all those bought followers just disappear overnight! That’s because the platforms do purge those accounts, so you may well end up back at square one.
Equally, on TikTok and YouTube, the algorithm cares about other things, like completion rate (i.e. how often someone finishes watching a video), authority (i.e. consistency and quality of content), and engagement from the audience (i.e. comments, responses, shares, etc). this means that having a lot of followers is only one part of the puzzle – it’s really important to be offering content that actually speaks to the audience and encourages them to get involved. Check what matters on the platform you are using and think twice about whether your follower count is the place to focus your efforts.
5. There are much better ways to boost your following!
There are so many other, algorithm-friendly ways to boost your reach! For instance, paid social posts are absolutely allowed and campaigns can be really effective at helping introduce your brand to new audiences. If you need help on this, get in touch – we can make sure the content you most want to share is seen by the right people.
You could also consider influencer marketing, collaborating with other brands or businesses, offering incentives or creating challenges that get viewers involved, and much more – your imagination is the limit! And don’t forget to use all the tools each platform has available. This might include Instagram or Facebook Lives, or mixing media in your posts to provide a good range of content. After all, nothing beats creating great content that inspires users.
We hope this helps you think twice about buying those followers. We know you want to offer genuine value to your customers, and that you want to really engage with them. So remember that there are better ways to make an impact than buying followers! For help with getting your social media presence up off the ground, reach out to us today. We can help make sure your good intentions and valuable expertise are discovered by genuine people online.