Who buys Instagram Targeted followers and for what?

Several categories of users actively buy targeted followers. For example, many girls consider it a shame if only a couple of hundred users follow their Instagram account. In their understanding, this indicates that their entire wardrobe, accessories, jewelry, travels, cakes and photo reports from the fitness center do not attract an army of thousands of fans, which means that they themselves are of little interest to anyone. To correct such an image failure, several thousand or several tens of thousands of targeted followers are bought. The only problem is that the absolute majority of them are bots, but what won't you do to avoid shame.

Another category that is no less active in acquiring targeted followers is the owners of relatively popular Instagram accounts who want to improve the attractiveness of their account in the eyes of potential advertisers. For example, an account has 50 thousand real targeted followers. For greater effect, another 50 thousand bot targeted followers are purchased. The result is 100 thousand targeted followers. What is important is that half of the real targeted followers “like” and comment on the owner’s messages, which can convincingly prove (if you don’t dig into the account) that all 100 thousand targeted followers are real. As practice shows, such additional purchases of targeted followers are carried out not only by relatively little-known individuals, but also by owners of millionaire accounts – famous politicians, athletes, show business stars.

And finally, the buyers of subscriber bots are simply naive people who still believe that for 200 rubles a thousand people will show increased interest in their account in the form of a subscription. If we talk about negative consequences, then the active purchase of targeted followers often ends with the account being blocked. Therefore, if you still decide to do this, just in case, keep the archive of your account somewhere else.

There are several categories of people who care about the number of targeted followers both on Instagram and on other social networks. The first category is people who want to place advertising posts on their accounts. If we are talking about a small region, then 20 thousand targeted followers is a very solid indicator for advertisers.

The second category is the actual stores, manufacturers, brands that offer their products directly. In this case, targeted followers must be real people interested in buying a certain product or service. Or at least they must want to recommend the product to their friends on social networks. Otherwise, the number of targeted followers can be hundreds of thousands, and the purchases will be 0.00001 percent.

I would divide all the buyers in question into 3 categories:

1. Trusting clients

Let's say there is a client who has an Instagram account. His goals are clear - as many people as possible know his brand/product/service and ultimately buy it. He contacts an agency or freelancers who do SMM, sets tasks, allocates a budget. If he gets unscrupulous contractors, he can get exactly bought targeted followers who are not interested in the account, the product, or the client, and, therefore, they will never buy anything from him.

What advice can you give to clients here? Ask potential contractors for links to current accounts, groups that they manage, read reviews from previous clients, set realistic goals: allocate a budget of 10,000 rubles and demand 10,000 targeted followers - this is unrealistic! And most importantly - do not chase numbers. "Who has more" does not work in social networks. There is an interesting site called "Sotsmerka", where SMM agencies compete with each other in the number of targeted followers. And it is sad to see that the agencies themselves experience jumps in numbers in one day. One day plus 500 - everything is clear: they caught up. Another day minus 1000 - also clear, the social network cleaned up the "caught up".

For example, in our agency, the main indicator of work efficiency is always the so-called engagement indicator. This is the ratio of the number of activities (likes, reposts, comments) to the total number of targeted followers. Only on the basis of this indicator can you understand how successful an account or group is and how interesting it is for users, and chasing just the number is a waste of effort, time, and money.

2. Unscrupulous agencies

Since the first category exists, there is also the second one – those who, in pursuit of a quick and short-term result, are ready to show beautiful numbers on targeted followers (I will say right away that we do not belong to them, do not ask us about it). Many times, applicants from large, well-known agencies came to us for interviews, who said that they are not averse to such means of “improving” the results for clients. As they put it, “what to do if you have not achieved the goal for targeted followers in any other way.”

The contractors' goals are clear: to make money, to show the client the result. And once again, advice to clients - do not chase only the number, look at the activity of your account.

3. The ignorant

This category includes all owners of any commercial accounts who promote them on their own, without turning to specialists. And they buy such targeted followers, believing that the more, the better. But in reality, a sad situation arises when, for example, you want to subscribe to some account, see that it has 10 thousand targeted followers and... silence. No likes, no comments. What is the first conclusion that comes to mind? That's right, it's boring here, the content is uninteresting, I won't subscribe. Therefore, in this way, those who wind up targeted followers to their account, dig a hole for themselves.

Buying targeted followers can only be useful at the stage of creating an account. If you plan to promote it, then it may make sense to buy a couple of hundred users just to make it psychologically easier for new target clients to subscribe to you. But this is not necessary. We have examples of successful promotion and growth of accounts and publics starting from zero targeted followers. Therefore, it is better to invite friends and employees to subscribe than to buy users. There is, however, one advantage of the number of accounts - in the line of results for a keyword, accounts with a large number of targeted followers are ranked better. But the number is not the only indicator in ranking; the activity of the account is also taken into account.

If we talk about unpleasant consequences, there are many more. The most serious risk is that a social network can ban an account with purchased targeted followers. And if there were also real, live targeted followers and posted content, it would be a pity to lose such an account. The second unpleasant consequence is reputational risks. If you promote a well-known brand, and there is absolute silence on your page, it looks sad, because it turns out that you are trying to buy friendship, since no one is really interested in you. And the third point is the inability to understand the statistics and calculate the same engagement rate when there is a mixture of purchased and attracted targeted followers. For those who focus on results, this is important.

Now let's get back to the first category - those who buy targeted followers to attract advertisers. I'll note that the latter are easily taken in: they look at the number of targeted followers, forgetting to study their activity. Let's say a beauty blogger has 300 thousand targeted followers, but no more than 10-20 likes and comments under the posts. Isn't this a signal that placing an advertising post with this blogger will show zero efficiency? Yes, in our time, many advertisers are more or less versed in SMM, but there are also a huge number of those who are just mastering Instagram. And so they create pages, and contractors drive fake targeted followers there. Their number grows, time goes by. And there are still no sales. What is the advertiser's reaction? Disappointment in the tool: Instagram is bad, it turned out to be ineffective. That is, people do not even understand and do not try to figure out the reason for what happened. “The garden is not bearing fruit” is the only conclusion that advertisers draw.

Recently, landscape designers contacted our agency, they already had about 30 thousand targeted followers on Instagram, that is, there were already minimal sales. Our specialists developed a plan to increase the number of targeted followers, conditionally 2-3 thousand people per month. But no! The designers wanted to get 100 thousand targeted followers in a short time. Two weeks later, I went to their page and saw with my own eyes that the task had been solved. The manager, from whom the management demanded 100 thousand targeted followers, did the job. The box was ticked, the job was saved. But, alas, there will be no effect.

Buying followers makes sense for people who are just starting to master Instagram. It's called the principle of social proof: follow my page because someone else has already done so. You can delete fake friends later.

Buying targeted followers is not regulated by any laws. And even more so, it is not punishable. This is a moral question: can and does a company want to be honest with its customers? In this context, it is worth talking about reputational risks. Probably everyone remembers the scandals associated with politicians who inflated their Twitter targeted followers. There is only one conclusion: everything secret sooner or later becomes clear.