Why do some people buy followers on social media?

in #question5 years ago (edited)

View this answer on Musing.io

If you buy followers they will most likely be bot accounts who doesn't give you any more views or interaction. There is also a high chance the accounts will get deleted after a while and you lose all your bought followers.

But the reason most do this is because humans are crowd animals. When you have a new profile with only 3 followers people are less likely to follow you than an account with already 300 000 followers. So that's why some fake their popularity.

Another reason can be because some social media site's use the amount of followers in their algorithm to determine how high your post should rank.


Sort:  

If you buy followers, chances are that they are bot accounts that do not give you more visits or interactions. There is also a high probability that accounts will be deleted after a while and you lose all the followers that you bought

Dear @niel96, it is a great approach that you do, to be honest I had no idea that much did this to falsify its popularity, maybe all this works as a business strategy but it is more rewarding to reach an audience no matter what effort that will cost you.

But the reason why most do this is because humans are crowd animals

Not in vain does the Bible compare us to a flock of sheep, since these kinds of animals are gregarious and like to be in packs.

Thanks for sharing.
Successes
Pr EV

Well I gues it all has to do with pride! Everybody want's to brag about their number of followers. And people do think that other people on social media with lots of followers are successfull!
Also if they do write sponsered post, they probably will need to show a solid followers base.
So probably money and pride will be my answer!

Hi friend @niel96.

In my opinion, having a large number of followers should not be something that "decided" and could have them "de facto".

I think you should progressively "win" your followers. And this is achieved by offering attractive material, being condescending and interacting constantly with them.
So we should ask ourselves if I can really be condescending and interactive with thousands of followers.

It seems to me that you have chosen a very interesting subject.

Dear @niel96

Maybe I think it does not help much, so that if you can not buy empathy with the few that you have, you would only be deceiving yourself, and have those followers just to pretend that you have many? And it's like you say:

If you buy followers they will most likely be bot accounts who does not give you any more views or interaction.

However, the other arguments also have weight.

A virtual hug for you.

Hi! @niel96!

I really had no idea those things could be done. So it makes me think about how fictitious people or companies can be. I suppose those people or companies see the world as a business. Always looking for a way to manipulate social networks.

I'm not a lover of social networks like facebook, instagram, twitter, etc. Of course, I have an account in each of these networks, but I'm not attracted by the number of followers, perhaps I'm amazed. However, in the end, a person who has 300,000 followers will receive 300,000 comments a day and it will take a lifetime to respond to all the comments of a single day, imagine if he/she had to respond to all the comments of a whole year?

The network I like the most is Steemit! Not only because I receive money for what I write, but I receive a "real" value to what I write. Especially when a curator like curie upvotes for me. I feel that my writing is on the right track, it's getting better. What inspires me to create better content.

I'm always the exception to the rule, I hate crowds.

A rather controversial and revealing post.

Great

I was going to give the same answer you gave. The same reasoning goes towards post on the Steem blockchain. If someone sees a post with $10 on it and a dozen replies they are more likely to check that post out. On the other hand if a post has 3 cents on it and 0 replies then people are more likely to no click that persons topic link.

@niel96, And in my opinion some use this Strategy to promote products because product owners see number of followers and they make deal of promotion. It is what it is.

Dear @niel96

Another great choice of topic.

It may not really matter how many followers we have on platforms like Steemit but surely it does matter a lot if you're present on Instagram.

There is also a high chance the accounts will get deleted after a while and you lose all your bought followers.

Most companies (if not all) will replace every deleted fake follower with new one. That's how it seem to be working so far (I used services of few such a companies in the past to learn about their offer).

What you wrote about "crowd" animals is quite true. People like to be around those who they consider succesful. And having huge engagemet / many followers gives such an impression.

Reality is also, that most users buy followers (especially when they do that for the first time) thinking that those will be "real ones". I made similar mistake years back and I still can see that majority of new "influencers" are repeating my silly steps.

ps.
I hope you don't mind if I share your post with few friends on Steemit. I found your content really valuable and interesting and I would be happy to help you grow on this platform (your posts enjoy to little engagement).

Yours, Piotr

"What you wrote about "crowd" animals is quite true. People like to be around those who they consider succesful. And having huge engagemet / many followers gives such an impression."

It makes me think about the Kardashians. They are famous for being famous. And they don't even ask for it, news papers just write about them. Because apparently people like to read that kind of stuff. I don't get the whole fame thing 100%.

"I hope you don't mind if I share your post with few friends on Steemit. I found your content really valuable and interesting and I would be happy to help you grow on this platform (your posts enjoy to little engagement)."

Yes off course you can share it.

"Reality is also, that most users buy followers (especially when they do that for the first time) thinking that those will be "real ones". I made similar mistake years back and I still can see that majority of new "influencers" are repeating my silly steps."

For that reason, if you are talking about instagram. I find it more useful to upvote posts than buy followers. There is this free software called gramblr. You can use it to upvote your posts with from real people. If you use the right hashtags and upvote with hundreds or thousands of votes it will get a lot of comments. And people start following you automatically when you make viral posts like these.

But Instagram i have mixed feelings about it. The platform is plagued to much by bot accounts who spam. I like Twitter more. But it's a different kind of public. Twitter is more business minded, Instagram is for posting jokes and silly things.

Awesome comment @niel96

Kardashians ? Excellent example. I've seen bits and pieces and I could never see much value in that show. But at the same time Im fully aware that many watch them because others watch them.

Cheers
Piotr

I think luxury brands are also kind of like this. I'm still not 100% sure how the mechanism behind it works because i'm kind of an autist. (I would no buy it myself)

Take Gucci for example. They sell like tshirts for 500+ dollars. The quality is not even that special. It's good quality but not really worth the crazy price tag. But you get some kind of respect from others when wearing the brand. There are even artists who brag about it in their songs. People just hype it up themselves.

Supreme is another example of a brand like this. They simply put on every item the word "supreme" and do the price at least x3 from what it normally should cost. And they get away with it, they make a lot of money by doing it. In fact, a lot of young people love the brand. Because then you are the cool kid in school.

Here you have some crazy examples:
https://theidleman.com/blogs/style/the-15-most-expensive-supreme-items-ever

Dear @niel96

Thank you for that amazing comment. I only had a chance to read it now. Appreciate.

Yours, Piotr

I didn't realize you can buy followers. I knew that you can buy likes or views. I personally think this is bull to do. I hate bots period, upvote/downvote bots are the worst. I feel that you are spot on about that exposure is valued on the bases of having a good following. I think this is unfair to those who are new members/posters.

People buy followers because it is an easy and cheap way to look credible and people tend to follow those who are already popular. Here is an example for Twitter:

Anybody can afford this little money and it can give them temporary boost. It's just prole thinking short term and taking the easy path. These people need to learn about the Marshmallow Experiment: https://steemit.com/psychology/@vimukthi/the-stanford-marshmallow-experiment-and-its-implications-on-the-economy-and-democracy


Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.36
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70839.13
ETH 3563.41
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.77