Should You Buy Instagram Followers?

These days, it seems like everyone has bought some Instagram followers, to the point where researchers have looked into the numbers of big stars and realized that they too, have fake followers.

The logic behind buying Instagram followers is simple – the more people follow an account, the more that account is going to be popular, not just with people, but with the Instagram algorithm. This, in turn, will recommend that original account to even more people, thus gaining even more followers on the platform.

The websites that offer this type of services are practically countless, allowing anyone to buy thousands of Instagram followers for a small price – often the same as a small latte from Starbucks. However, if the system was that easy to rig, everyone would have done it by now. That’s why we’re going to discuss all of the questions people usually tend to have regarding buying followers on Instagram, as a way to get a better idea of how this business works.

Thin Line Between Real and Fake Popularity

With the simplest search on any search engine, anyone can see that these services are available far and wide, and they tend to be very cheap. The main downside here, of which most people are aware of, is the fact that when completing such a purchase, the only increase is the number of followers. They usually tend to be either inactive accounts or bots.

Aside from the direct purchase, there are also plenty of other services to use for this end-goal. Very common are those that offer to follow other accounts on the account of whoever is making a purchase, based on a set of preferences: gender, location, account type or even hashtag usage. In an ideal setting, after following these accounts, those people will then follow back the account in question.

However, while this is a much better option than the previous one, as the followers are more likely going to be real people instead of bots, engagement with these accounts is not guaranteed. It can’t be since these services can’t guarantee that the accounts they follow are going to follow back your account.

Even in the case when this happens, it’s still not a guarantee that they’re going to stick around and provide long-term engagement, let alone become loyal followers. Yet, engaging with posts is the goal here, in eventually gaining even more followers and reaching more people through recommendations and through posts showing up in people’s Explore Page.

The Downsides of Fake Followers

Purchasing followers on Instagram has only short-term benefits, as there is no real long-term value for any Instagram profile. While these short-term followers might increase the number of views, comments, and likes early on, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to stick around. They could stop following the account whenever they want, and in the case of bots, they could get removed off the platform whenever Instagram decides to perform a purge of this type of accounts. Both options only lead to lower performance on the platform, thus never really achieving the set goals.