Just don’t do it.
The key component of social media is the “social” aspect of it– that is, to interact with other people and to be, well, social. Purchasing your fans gives you no advantage in social media, only to seemingly build up your numbers and to give the illusion that you have worked hard and built a community, when in fact, you forked over your credit card number for x amount of fans. The increase in your numbers may induce short-term satisfaction, but ultimately will do you no good. You see, nothing in life ever comes that easy. Building a community on social media is an organic process. It doesn’t happen overnight, and the growth requires a lot of nurturing and TLC.
However, when all of your work comes to fruition– and trust us, it will– you will have built up a solid, legitimate community of people who actually care and want to talk about your business. If you decide to buy fans instead, you won’t get any of this. None of the satisfaction that comes with hard work that you invested. And certainly, none of the interaction from your newly-bought fans. Why? Because they’re not real! We hate to break it to you, but the 5000 fans you can acquire for “just $10”? Those accounts were most likely forged. In Calcutta, India.
Still not convinced? Here’s another reason why you should never buy fans or followers: it’s a waste of money! The most popular social media sites are free, and all the tools you need to solicit fans and followers are at your disposal. Why throw away your hard earned cash for something that won’t benefit you?
Are you really still thinking about buying fans? Did all that above not deter you yet? Okay, we’re pulling out the big guns now. People KNOW when you have bought fans, and this threatens your credibility and reputation.
It’s not rocket science figuring out that someone has bought his fans on Facebook. Here’s the not-so-secret secret: Facebook numbers. Yes, the very thing that a fan-buyer believes to have boosted his credibility can betray him in the end. If you see a page with an absurdly high fan count, raise the red flag. But the real indicator of artificial fans is the “People Talking About” numbers. If a page has a thousand likes, but only three people total interacting with the page, then you know something is wrong. Fake fans are not going to interact with a page, period.
And to take it even further, the new Facebook Timeline allows the public to look at your page’s insights (if you don’t turn off the option). Not to be stereotypical, but most people who buy fans aren’t Facebook savvy, and probably won’t know how to turn off this feature. So, the public can look at the page insights and see a suspicious sharp increase in fans who are all from India. Talk about embarrassing!
To recap, don’t buy your fans! Why? Because it doesn’t provide your business with any quality, it’s a waste of money, and people will know!
