Why You Should Never Buy Followers or Likes: COMMON SENSE

Transam Top:  Target // Pants:  Old Navy // Boots:  Corral

At this point, this is a topic that should already be common sense in the world of blogging/influencers, however this still happens for some reason.  It’s extremely noticeable with some people too.  Don’t worry, I’m not calling anyone out in this post, but I am going to call out the actions of these bloggers and influencers.  It is extremely sad, because a lot of bloggers work really hard, and can’t get ahead of the game because they are doing things the right way.  Not ALL bloggers with a large following bought that following, because some of those bloggers worked their asses off, or they just got lucky and were spotted one day, and boom, instant success overnight.

Being approached by companies selling followers and likes has become an everyday occurrence.  I never even thought of caving and buying into it.  Although, I will say, some of their rates are so dirt cheap, which is why people don’t think it’s a huge deal.  I want real people following me.  At one of my previous jobs, I overheard one of our interns talking about how some random company pays her to like and follow people from a specific account.  She said how even though it was helping her pay for things as a college student, she found it so sad.  I have to agree with her.

FRAUD

You do realize, that as a blogger/influencer, you are committing fraud?  This would basically be the same as a corporation “cooking the books” so to speak for their investors and board members.  The only difference, is it’s on a much smaller scale, and the legalities of the influencer world are still a little bit of gray area.  Being an influencer is a fairly “new” thing.

A few years ago is when legal action started taking place when sponsorships weren’t disclosed properly.  You have to disclose this information, otherwise legal action will take place.  If you are showing that you have 100k followers, and you also pay for likes/engagement (because back in the day you didn’t have the option to buy likes so it was even more noticeable when you had 100k followers and only 100 likes, or no engagement), but you really only have 1k REAL followers, you are a fraud and a fake.  I don’t understand why influencers don’t see this.

IT’S OBVIOUS

Nowadays, it’s a little “easier” to be less obvious.  You’re not fooling everyone though.  Just like I mentioned above, if you have 100k followers and only 100 likes average on photos, it’s REALLY obvious that those followers aren’t real.  Now, you can also buy likes and comments, but little do these influencers know, there’s still another way to tell.

If you don’t have very many comments but you have 5k+ likes on a photo, something is a little fishy.  Or, if those comments are just emojis.  If you take a look at a blogger’s followers, if their profile has no pictures or anything, or they follow a shit ton of people but have no followers, that’s sign number 1.  I’ve seen these companies get smart and make sure an account has at least 3/4 pictures, but if they are following 10k people and only have 2 followers, it’s also a little suspicious.

THERE ARE ANALYTICS

Brands have smartened up!  There are now ways that brands can find your analytics for social media.  There are analytics that tell them if your followers are fake.  If you didn’t already know this, then you are living under a rock.  I’m actually really happy that brands have started to smarten up, because not only is it unfair to the people who work hard to get to where they are at with their blogs, but it’s unfair to the brands who are blindly working with people who they think are reaching an audience.  A blogger/influencer can also have a huge audience reach, but have a small following.  There are some people out there who’s engagment is so high, that it’s surprising that they don’t have a huge following.

ARE YOU HAPPY WITH YOURSELF?

At the end of the day, are you happy with deceiving people?  Are you happy that you need some kind of justification of some number to feel better about yourself?  Personally, I would not be happy with myself.  This is why I stopped doing loop giveaways a few years ago when it was super popular.  I didn’t realize it at the time, until I stopped that, this was a different form of buying followers.  Since that revelation, I haven’t done any loop giveaways.  I participated in few loop giveaways, and never again.

Having any type of giveaway on my blog is scarce.  I used to do these for my loyal followers.  The scarcity of giveaways is also due to people winning the giveaway, getting a Gucci scarf (that came out of my mom’s store) and unfollowing as soon as they receive it, never even giving my mom and I a shoutout on social media, and not even saying thank you.  Sooooo, giveaways in general are very scarce.

WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU

If you’re an influencer/blogger you know that having followers is a huge deal with brands.  Nowadays, they require a minimum of 50k followers on Instagram, so little baby bloggers like myself don’t stand a chance.  With that being said, I do understand it being tempting, but please, do it the right way.  This is another reason why people don’t take bloggers/influencers seriously.  If you’re doing stupid shit like this, then you’re making the rest of us look untrustworthy.  It only takes one person to ruin it for the rest of the crowd.

INSTAGRAM PURGE

If you’ve been on Instagram for a while, you may or may not remember the Instagram purge a few years ago.  This is how a lot of people saw exactly how many fake accounts some bigger bloggers had.  Some followings got cut in half!  When one goes from 50k to 25k, it’s so obvious that those were paid followers.  When the purge happened, my following decreased, but it was in my favor.  Some of those spam/scam type of accounts were following me, but it was maybe 50 accounts that were deleted.  Which is obviously not a big deal compared to thousands of lost followers.

I really hope an Instagram purge happens soon.  To be completely honest, I wouldn’t even care if my following decreased because of spam/scam accounts that were following me.  I try to block most of these accounts, but they keep coming.  Or the bloggers who follow and then unfollow five million times; yup, they get blocked.  I do not want those types of accounts following me.  I want real people who enjoy the content that I spend so much time creating.  If real people aren’t following me, then it’s all for nothing.  Don’t get me wrong I enjoy creating content, but if no one is seeing it, then what’s the point?

xoxo Monica

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