It’s always frustrating that when you set up a new social media account for your business you can’t automatically get followed by everyone who already knows about you. You have to start from 0 and work your way up, so it’s understandable that many companies are tempted by offers to buy likes and followers.

You may have even seen it happen. A small company sitting on twitter with around 500 followers overnight jumps up to 20,000! What did they do? Some kind of marketing miracle, surely? No, they bought followers. It happens on Facebook too and the lure is that your company will seem even more popular and so more people will organically like and follow you. Perhaps as well these new followers will share and like your content to even more people?

Unfortunately it doesn’t work like this. These bought followers will largely be fake accounts with little or no activity on them so your content is going into a void. The social media sites also work very hard to remove these fake accounts and so even if you’ve paid for your followers there’s no guarantee they will still be there next week. Big search engines like Google are also tough on spammers and buying followers could affect your SEO.

Because your new followers won’t be interacting with your content Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm will assume you have poor content and this will affect the visibility of your posts.

Social media relies on organic followers, on real people spreading your message. Buying followers will not sit well with your customers as it suggests dishonesty. Although it isn’t instant, taking the time to really grow your online community is what social media is all about. This is what will generate you quality leads and business, but this is what a lot of companies don’t have time to do. Getting in a dedicated social media manager will give you the time to concentrate on your business whilst your social media is developed organically online, helping your business to thrive in an increasingly online world.

By Harriet Thacker