This is as good of an idea as a mail order bride. Yes, it is important to have fans and followers, but it isn’t just about numbers. Sometimes doing things the hard way is best (and it will save you money).
As a company, the focus should be on creating a loyal fan following, not a vast one. the phrase: a bird in a bush is worth two more, comes to mind. If you interact and engage with the followers you do have, they will tell their friends and expand your network. Keep in mind the following things if you are thinking seriously about buying fans.
- Numbers aren’t everything
Having fans or followers in the thousands isn’t important if they aren’t interacting with your company. When you buy fans, they won’t engage with you because chances are they are fake people created by the company selling them to you.
- Low Engagement = low edgeRank
Now you are probably asking, well what is edgeRank? It is geared more toward Facebook in how they determine which posts will appear on users’ news feeds. When your page has little to no engagement, Facebook won’t find your posts being valuable to include in news feeds. EdgeRank is made up of: your score between viewing user and edge creator, weight of this edge type, and time decay factor based on how long ago the edge was created.
- It’s a waste of money
You could spend your money doing something more productive like running Facebook ads or Promoted tweets. This will have a better effect on your engagement than buying fake people. Sure, it will cost more, but your ads will be targeted towards people who will actually want to buy your product.
4.You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink
Again, buying your fans won’t always mean that you will hear from them. Social media is successful because the majority of control lies in the hands of your customers. You need to be valuable or likable by your customers so they will want to engage with you. Actual fans and followers will do just that. You can buy as many fans as you like, but the end of the day you can’t make them interact with you. A real person that genuinely likes your company will want to engage with you, so be sure to talk back to them.
Your ultimate goal and reasoning behind creating a large following is to increase brand awareness, engage with your customers to establish and maintain brand loyalty and gain customers. If you are still on the fence, think of it like window shoppers. You don’t want a bunch of people coming into your store and crowding it when loyal customers who will buy something are trying to shop.