Why you should avoid buying Instagram followers

We’ve been talking lately about how amazing a tool Instagram can be for your business. Instagram is chock full of marketing opportunities—from paid ads to IGTV to product posts.

However, capturing people’s attention isn’t just about sharing an image and collecting Likes and followers. You need to spend time interacting with people and liking other users’ posts – time that many business owners simply don’t have.

Managing a business Instagram account is another task on your to-do list that’s already packed with meetings, deadlines and projects.

Short on time, a big mistake many businesses make is trying to buy Instagram followers or engagement.

If you’re thinking of buying Instagram followers or using Instagram bots to try and increase engagement, don’t.

Here are two big reasons why you want to avoid paying for Instagram followers:

1. Instagram bots are not human

It may seem tempting to buy Instagram followers and have bots automatically comment, like posts and auto-follow Instagrammers in your niche. Using Instagram bots makes it look like you have a lot of followers and comments—often in hours or days.

For example, an Instagram bot could comment “Awesome!” on any post with a hashtag you’ve determined and follow the poster.

The problem with Instagram bots is they aren’t real. They’re robots. You aren’t growing your followers organically with people genuinely interested in your service or product, and you can forget about engagement.

Many Instagram users are wise to Instagram bots and won’t follow someone who leaves a one-word comment on their post. If they start realizing you’re using bots, they might react negatively towards your brand and cause other users to join in too.

Instagram has shut down a large number of third-party automation sites and apps like Instagress and PeerBoost for violating their Community Guidelines and Terms of Use, so using bots could even jeopardize your account.

© Susan Friesen

Bots can also leave comments that don’t make sense and can be downright insensitive, like “So cool!” on a tragic post. Bots don’t understand the context of the conversation, they simply add comments based on a hashtag.

2. Buying Instagram followers is a big fake

© Susan Friesen

It can be enticing to beef up your numbers fast by buying Instagram followers, especially when you see how cheap it is—sites like Buzzoid charge as little as $3 per every 100 followers.

Well, first off: if you buy Instagram followers you’re going against Instagram’s Terms of Use.

Instagram monitors fake followers and deletes their accounts so it’s likely you will eventually end up losing paid followers and your Instagram account could suffer.

Other issues with buying Instagram followers include:

• It doesn’t increase engagement because the bots don’t engage with your content.
• It destroys your brand reputation as your audience sees that you have a high number of followers but limited engagement.

There’s no easy way to grow your Instagram followers. If you take shortcuts, you’re running the risk of being banned by Instagram and ruining your reputation.

You’re better off posting engaging content, interacting with people, and using the proper hashtags to attract and retain your audience.

It’s simple: you can’t automate the level of human interaction today’s Instagram users expect from brands.

(Featured image by DepositPhotos)

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DISCLAIMER: This article expresses my own ideas and opinions. Any information I have shared are from sources that I believe to be reliable and accurate. I did not receive any financial compensation for writing this post, nor do I own any shares in any company I’ve mentioned. I encourage any reader to do their own diligent research first before making any investment decisions.