Every now and then you see those too good to be true offers online - ‘Buy 5000 Facebook Page likes for $100’.
It can be so tempting for a new business to spend just $10 to get 5000-page followers but this is the biggest mistake you can make with long term implications that in some cases, will force you to start from scratch.
Let us dive into what those dirt-cheap page like offers provide - they give you followers that are either bot or fake accounts solely created for the purpose of providing page likes and engagements. Even before we analyze the consequences of buying likes/followers let us first answer the biggest question -
Why do the number of Facebook page followers matter for your business or brand?
Facebook in 2020, is a paid social media channel for businesses. The only exception is that you are a famous celebrity who has just joined Facebook and does not need to do any outreach.
Your page following provides credibility to your brand and acts as social proof. E.g. Would you buy the same t-shirt from a brand that only says 100 followers as opposed to one that has 100k followers? In most cases, the number of followers is a vanity metric but it does have its impact on your conversions. When you reach out to cold audiences you need to build trust and a good sizable follower base helps in that regard.
Even if you have 100k followers, most of your organic posts will be reaching 5-6% of them. That is a discussion for another day though.
Having a sizable follower base of the relevant audience also helps in increasing your business goals. People who follow a fashion brand would be interested in fashion-related products and this will result in higher sales for your business in the long run.
Coming to the consequences of buying page followers, here is what all can go wrong if you walk down that path:
Fake/bot followers are temporary and Facebook will gradually remove those as they find out the fake account. So, instead of growing your account, your follower base will erode with time - and from personal experience, I can say this may take days or at best weeks for the majority of them to disappear.
In order to overcome this hurdle, there are options to buy fake followers that get replenished over time - this is another trap that you definitely need to avoid. This will result in your page getting new fake followers and getting some of the old ones removed at the same time. This will lead to Facebook penalizing you in the long run - even your business accounts and ad accounts being restricted or disabled.
Fake followers will kill your page engagement rate - it is as simple as only real people engage with relevant content. So, what is the black hat solution for this?- buy fake engagement. Now, you are living and breathing in the world of fake followers and fake engagement. The problem with fake engagement is that it can not replace the actual engagement of real and relevant followers. You will not generate any sales or conversions from them and also end up tarnishing your brand value in front of your target audience.
Fake followers make it impossible to have any viable analytics- Fake followers will mix in with the actual followers and now, you are unable to know your audience demographics. You cannot build lookalike audiences because you cannot pinpoint who your actual target audience is. This is the one single reason that should convince any business owner not to go down this road. A lot of people might feel that buying cheap fake followers can be a good way to kickstart things but when you do not know who your target audience is or have any reliable analytics, it is of no use for your business.
So, what is the alternative - run Facebook ads and other social media marketing strategies to increase your follower base. We will be covering that in detail in the coming post soon.
By now, I am sure I have been able to save you from falling into the trap of buying fake followers. If so, feel free to share this post and do leave your comments.
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