Ethical Social Media

June, 2020

Whatever you do, don’t buy followers. Don’t buy likes. don’t buy reviews.

We have a clause in our social media contracts that if we discover that the business we’re working with purchased followers or likes, they will need to pay an additional clean-up fee and social media strategy will be partially put on hold. And we won’t be managing any paid ads until everything is back in shape. And we may discover that it’s best to just start over with certain social media accounts. Plus cleaning up these accounts really sucks so they’ll have to buy us a few rose gimlets. Yes, it can be that horrible.

Buying social media followers is bad news. In fact, it can often be the worst news.

Besides the hollow, empty feeling you’re left with once the transaction is complete, buying followers leaves you with a hollow and empty audience that isn’t listening to anything you’re saying. Essentially, you’re wasting your creative posts on ghosts.

Fake followers are fake.

# They don’t engage unless you paid for that as a separate transaction.

# Fake followers look fake. They have odd names, odd and random posts, and are often not in your native language.

Plus, listen here, buying followers (and engagement) goes against every single platform’s Terms of Service. And, yes, every platform has shut down accounts for buying followers.

And you know what, regular people are starting to get savvy to followers. Businesses certainly are as well. Here’s what to look for when it comes to detecting fake followers:

1. Unbalanced ratio of followers and following. Unless you’re Beyonce´, the following/follower numbers should be relatively in balance.

2. They only have a few posts, but a ton of following. It’s pretty common that bot accounts will post a handful of times in the first few hours and then stop posting.

3. Check out their profile. If it’s empty, odd-sounding, or doesn’t jive with their picture or posts, it’s probably been created by a bot.

So, what do you do to grow your social media following? You authentically engage with your target audience. Use hashtags on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And, of course, keep it interesting.