Is Buying Instagram Followers Worth It?

Is buying Instagram followers worth it?

The prevalence of social media pressures its users to be follower-driven.

For instance, the idea of being popular on Instagram (given the opportunities it presents) can pressure people to grow their followers in all ways and means.

This may include methods like purchasing fake followers from various websites and services.

However, is buying Instagram followers worth the money or is it just a scam?

This article explores the ins and outs on fake followers for you to determine whether you should buy them or not.

Without further ado, let’s get right into the answer.

Table of Contents

1. Is buying Instagram followers worth it?

2. Disadvantages of buying Instagram followers

3. What happens when you buy Instagram followers?

4. Advantages of buying Instagram followers

5. How much do Instagram followers cost?

6. Alternative to buying Instagram followers

7. Follow for follow restrictions

8. Final thoughts

Is buying Instagram followers worth it?

The short answer is ⁠— no, buying Instagram followers is not worth it in the long run.

Here’s why.

Buying Instagram followers is not only unsafe, but it also kills your engagement rates.

Buying Instagram followers literally means that you’re accepting fake followers into your account.

Fake followers stir up a ton of disadvantages such as killing your engagement rate and risk of getting banned (more details later in the article).

So don’t be persuaded by websites and services that tell you about all the positive things about purchasing followers because they are untrue.

Hence, if you’re looking to purchase fake followers; think again because you’ll definitely regret it in the future.

Disadvantages of buying Instagram followers

Buying Instagram followers will stir up a lot of problems in your account (in the present and the future).

So if you’re thinking of buying them on impulse, stop and read the next few pointers!

Here are all the disadvantages of buying Instagram followers you want to keep in mind before making a decision.

Buying Instagram followers kills your engagement rates

Buying Instagram followers will decrease your engagement rate by a chunk (depending on the number of fake followers you have).

This is because fake followers do not engage on your posts.

Fake followers won’t like or comment on your posts which will decrease your engagement rates significantly.

Here’s an example.

Prior to purchasing followers, an account has 1,000 followers and a 10% engagement rate.

After purchasing 1,000 followers, the account now has 2,000 followers.

This means that the account’s engagement rate is now diluted to 5%.

Engagement rate is the most important metric on Instagram and purchasing fake followers will negatively affect it.

You can have a ton of followers; but if your post has little to no engagement, your account is worthless.

Fake followers are basically ghost followers. Which means that they won’t like or comment on any of your posts.

Any service that claims they sell ‘real’ followers or provide ‘organic’ growth is a fraud. Do not trust them!

There are countless of people getting scammed by these websites and services because what they claim isn’t true.

You’re not going to get real followers and organic, sustainable growth. Instead, you’re going to get fake followers and a customer support team that doesn’t respond to your queries.

Do keep this in mind if you’re looking to buy followers for your account.

Fake followers are very obvious

It’s very easy to tell if someone bought fake followers on Instagram.

Firstly, fake accounts do not have a profile picture.

Secondly, the username of a fake account is either a random mix of letters and numbers which does not make any sense.

Lastly, a fake account have little to no posts on their feed.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of an account with real followers vs an account with fake followers.

Real Followers vs Fake Followers

As you can see in the picture, it’s very easy to tell between real Instagram accounts and fake ones.

So, the next time you see someone’s followers dominated with accounts with no profile pictures, senseless usernames, and doesn’t have a single post on their feed, then you know that they bought followers.

Buying followers is also a drastic solution to boost your self-esteem on Instagram.

It may work well in the beginning, but people tend to be very inquisitive on Instagram and they will find out that you bought fake followers based on your follower list or engagement rate soon enough.

It violates Instagram’s Community Guidelines and Terms of Use

On November 19, 2018, Instagram announced that they will be removing inauthentic activity (followers, likes, and comments) in their blog post.

This means that purchasing fake followers, likes or comments directly violates the Instagram Terms of Use and Community Guidelines.

Since the early days of Instagram, fake accounts are consistently being removed so this does not come as a surprise.

In fact, Instagram is consistently improving their AI so that it detects fake accounts better. Sooner or later, fake accounts might be a thing of the past.

So before you consider buying fake followers, you’ll have to be prepared to lose whatever that you bought.

In other words, buying followers is a waste of money because they will eventually be removed from your account.

Moreover, your account might be permanently suspended from Instagram.

Brands will not want to work with you

Brands will not want to collaborate with you if you bought fake followers.

This is because your engagement rate is either really low or fake.

If you bought followers, they might suspect you of buying likes as well. This will negatively affect your credibility.

No brand will want you to endorse their product or service because your audience is a bunch of fake followers.

So, if you’re looking to become an influencer on Instagram, buying fake followers is out of the question.

Followers aren’t really as important as compared to your engagement rate. However, your post’s engagement (likes and comments) needs to be real to be even considered as a metric.

What happens when you buy Instagram followers?

If you’re curious about what happens after you buy Instagram followers, this section is for you.

Here is a compiled list of reviews from real people that have purchased fake followers from various websites and services.

These reviews are adapted from TrustPilot.

1. Upleap

These are the reviews from real people who tried Upleap (an Instagram growth service operated in Malaysia).

Absolute Scam! I’m with my lawyer now. They lie about everything, they don’t even send proof if the social media guys actually exist. They even fake numbers on the dashboard. STAY AWAY. Even on the internet, you can find articles that this is a SCAM! Every good rating here is a fake. They fake the ratings. 

Source: TrustPilot

Terrible, I was skeptical at first so I tried out the free trial. I was kicked out of my account immediately and they changed my password. I had to contact Instagram for ages and I tried to contact Upleap but had no reply whatsoever.

Source: TrustPilot

These guys are scammers. I signed up and nothing happened. Apparently, my account manager Cayley Wong has been assigned to my account and will personally help grow my Instagram account. Please, stay away from this mob. It’s a waste of time and money. 

Source: TrustPilot

What happens if you purchased one of Upleap’s plans:

Firstly, you’ll get a dedicated account manager, which is not a real person. Secondly, the followers you’re going to be getting are very sketchy-looking (with no more than 3 posts, less than 150 followers, and a following of over 6,000).

Lastly, the numbers on the dashboard are fake, they might change your Instagram password and you will get zero engagement from the followers that you got.

2. Simplygram

Some of the most recent reviews from people who tried Simplygram (USA based service)

Waste of money and cause of embarrassment on social media. Almost all of the followers are bots or fake accounts with nasty pictures, looking like accounts from India or the rest of Asia. I ended up blocking thousands of them after noticing the garbage that I received as followers.

Source: TrustPilot

Signed up for a free trial. They claimed that they will not charge me after my trial ends. A week later, £164.20 is taken from my account. Stay clear of these people.

Source: TrustPilot

I normally do not write reviews like this, but this is incredibly bad. Their marketing is great, but the followers are not genuine. Also, I tried to email them five times to cancel my subscription but got NO replies. I also had to contact my bank as they said I have weird transactions, and I had to close my card details for new ones. Not sure if these two go hand in hand, but they very much could be. So do not give them your card details! Used this site expecting a real social media manager, but that’s not the case.

Source: TrustPilot

What happens if you purchased one of Simplygram’s plans:

Once you start your free trial, they will automatically charge you after it ends and there is no refund. The followers you’ll be getting are fake ones from Asia that will not give you any engagement.

To make matters worse, they will not reply to any of your emails.

3. Instazood

Here are the reviews from Instazood (an Instagram growth service based in Georgia).

It’s trash. When it worked it was great, but It only worked like 1/4 of the time. And that’s not something you want from a service you have to pay for. Their support is almost unreachable, and if they do respond, you’ll just get standard answers. It doesn’t support Paypal, and Credit card payment only works sometimes.

Source: TrustPilot

Really really useless. They kept sending me emails to add accounts but my account was always there. I sent so many emails with zero replies from them. Waste of time and money. Very complicated system too.

Source: TrustPilot

The product doesn’t work anymore. I’ve been waiting for a refund. I keep getting told that it’s coming because they are waiting for somebody to return to process it. They are happy to take your money but provide no service after. Don’t be tempted. It simply doesn’t work. They keep saying that my refund is one week away but I’ve been waiting 7 weeks. Liars.

Source: TrustPilot

What happens if you purchased one of Instazood’s plans:

Their product does not work because of the latest Instagram algorithm changes. Their customer service is poor and if you request a refund, they will not give it to you.

Additionally, your account may have a high chance of being suspended from Instagram as their algorithm is getting better and better.

Summary: What happens when you buy Instagram followers?

Here’s a quick timeline portraying what will happen when you buy Instagram followers.

1. After you’ve purchased Instagram followers, your followers will start to rise.

2. Consequently, your engagement rate will be diluted (e.g. from 10% to 5%).

3. A few days later, Instagram’s AI will remove the followers that you have bought.

4. Instagram will eventually remove all your fake followers.

5. You’re back to the same number followers as before.

Advantages of buying Instagram followers

There is no advantage of buying Instagram followers.

After purchasing Instagram followers, your followers will rise, then fall dramatically in the next few days until you’re back to square one.

If you don’t care about your engagement rate, buying Instagram followers is for you.

Buying Instagram followers is not worth your time and money.

Not only are you diluting your engagement rate, but your account may be permanently suspended.

So the next time you’re thinking of buying Instagram followers, think twice.

How much do Instagram followers cost?

Here’s a compiled list of various websites/services selling fake followers.

Price breakdown:

Buying followers cost approximately $13.00 for 1,000 followers. Other growth services charge anywhere between $40 to $199.

Based on the prices, buying fake followers and growth services are quite expensive.

It’s not worth your money because your followers will be removed by Instagram’s AI a few days after you made your purchase.

Alternative to buying Instagram followers

Instead of buying Instagram followers, you can utilize other alternatives like joining follow for follow groups.

Fundamentally, follow for follow groups are places where you can self-promote your Instagram link.

You can also find and follow others in your niche and send them a direct message on Instagram that you came from the respective community to get a follow back.

These groups are safe and does not violate Instagram’s Terms of Use or Community Guidelines.

You can grow 10 to 20 quality followers a day using one.

Here’s how:

Post your Instagram link on Followchain. Make sure to include a short description of yourself or the content that you post (this is to let others know your niche).

Once you posted your Instagram link, other people from the site can now find and follow you on Instagram.

You’ll be able to know who followed you from Followchain by checking your direct messages on Instagram.

You can also find people and content to follow on the home page of Followchain.

If you find someone in the same niche as you, you can click on their link and follow them on Instagram.

Make sure to send them a direct message that you came from Followchain (otherwise they wouldn’t know)!

Once you’ve sent the direct message, the user will typically follow you back within 24 hours. If they don’t, just unfollow them.

Now that you followed someone in your niche, your engagement rate will increase because the user is more likely to be genuinely interested in your content.

It’s important to only follow people within your niche as it will not only increase your followers, but your engagement rate.

After all, engagement is the most important metric on Instagram.

Repeat this process as many times as you like to grow your Instagram audience.

Follow for follow restrictions

The only restriction to be aware is that you may get action blocked if you repetitively follow or direct message others.

To prevent being action blocked, make sure to follow and direct message others in intervals of 5 to 10 minutes.

In addition, you should not send the same direct message repeatedly because Instagram’s AI will think that you are a bot. Instead, send different variations of a direct message.

Here’s a full guide on how to fix and prevent the action block.

Final thoughts

Buying Instagram followers will decrease your engagement rate drastically. It also violates Instagram’s Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.

If you want to grow your Instagram followers, you’re better of trying to grow it organically or utilize follow for follow groups (which are free to join).

P.S. If you liked this article, feel free to join our follow for follow community for Instagram: https://www.followchain.org — it’s free!

Author: Lim How Wei. Lim How Wei is the founder of Followchain, a community that simplifies growth and networking for Instagram users. Feel free to follow him on Instagram.

Categories: Social Media
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/