Just when I thought the world had realized that buying Fans for your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account was wrong, I engaged in another conversation where I had to explain why it does not benefit your business to do so. Seriously? I wrote my original, and most popular blog post ever, on buying Fans TWO YEARS AGO! Buying Likes, fans, followers, Pinners, shares, comments or anything else will do absolutely nothing for a small business. Here’s why:

Fake Profiles

Chances are, the Fans you are buying are fake profiles. Some of them may look somewhat convincing to the average person, but they’re not a real profile for an actual person. There are many problems with having a large number of fake profiles attached to your social profile, namely, if Facebook, Twitter or Instagram decides to crack down on fakes again (yes, they have done this before), you could suddenly lose a large portion of your following. Not only will your dedicated, real fans notice the huge loss, they’ll know immediately why you lost such a large number.

Lack of Engagement

Because these profiles are most likely fake profiles, set up purely for the purpose of selling a Like/Follow to someone like you, they will hurt your organic reach on Facebook. Say what? That’s right, not only will fake people most likely NOT engage with your content, you’re going to find that your engagement rates drop. Why is this? Well, simply put, you’ve got a bigger audience, so Facebook is showing your good, time-consuming content to a bunch of fake accounts. And if you choose to pay to show your amazing content to fans, well then double whammy, you’re now paying Facebook to show your content to Fake profiles.

To add further insult, because these fake profiles are not engaging with your content, Facebook will start to downgrade your Page. In effect, it will show your content to fewer and fewer people organically. This is a downward slide you do not want to start.

Looks Are NOT Deceiving

Today’s social media users are SAVVY! If they see a page with thousands of fans and very few comments and likes, they’re going to realize something is up. I just had a call from a local Halifax journalist last week asking me if I thought a local politician had bought fans on his Facebook Page. It used to be a little easier to “prove”, but with high fan counts and few comments, I suspect the accusation is true. The number one article on this blog is How to Tell if a Page has Bought Facebook Fans. That alone should tell you your fans are watching.

So just don’t do it. Don’t succumb to the temptation to buy fans for Facebook, or buying Twitter followers, or buying Instagram followers. People will notice and once you’ve lost their trust, it’s very difficult to win it back.