The idea that you must have a certain number of followers to be taken seriously—especially as you get your brand up and running—has been floating around for years. Vanity metrics are all about appearances, after all. Surprisingly, buying Instagram followers has become less straightforward than it once was. As a result, third-party auditing and vetting tools are getting increasingly popular. But there are very good reasons why you shouldn’t buy fake followers.
1. Fake followers don’t engage
Of course, it makes sense that buying followers does not include a boost in engagement. These companies charge separately for that. You can have thousands of followers but zero likes, comment,
2. Fake followers are obviously fake
I myself tried a fake follower account and I noticed that people knew my account was fake. And if people click through and look at my actual follower list, their suspicions will be confirmed. My new followers often have names that look like they were mashed into a keyboard (plenty of numbers and random letters), they usually only have a few posts, their photos are often random, and they almost never have Stories.
3. Brands will blacklist you
Partners run us through even the most basic Instagram audit tool. A lot of brands track your engagement to see if you have any at all.
4. Instagram might suspend your account
Instagram has a vested interest in making their platform a place where people want to spend time. But an army of fraudulent accounts doesn’t make anyone feel human, let alone connected. Accordingly, Instagram’s been taking a lot of steps towards reducing unwelcome behaviour on the platform. Fake accounts are regularly purged by the platform, which means your followers could disappear at any time.