So even if it does serve a purpose, isnʼt buying Twitter followers like paying people to hang out with you?
Actually, itʼs worse.
When you pay people to hang out with you, at least you get some company out of it. Most companies who sell followers are simply selling you spam, just empty numbers. You should want followers because you want to engage a community, not because you want to win some ephemeral popularity contest. Sure, it may look good, but in the end youʼre just talking (and marketing) to an audience of ghosts.
Luckily people wonʼt be fooled by fake followers for long, StatusPeople.com has developed a tool that lets you do a quick breakdown of any Twitter account. The report tells you how many followers are spam and how many seem legitimate. They do this by taking a few random samples of 500 followers and then letting you know how many of those users are fake, real, or real but inactive.
This free product is catching on, and itʼs only a matter or time before itʼs incorporated into peopleʼs existing Twitter tools, providing instantaneous transparency. Hopefully this transparency will scare away anyone selling fake accounts and those of us who do paid acquisition the right way (using aggressive marketing strategies to get real accounts) can sleep a little better knowing that since all the spam is gone we’ll be taken a little more seriously. In the mean time itʼs important for you to be thorough before buying followers. Ask someone what their process is for acquiring followers, it’s likely that if they can’t tell you or dance around the question, they’re probably selling fake accounts.
If you’re interested in Twitter or any other social network fan acquisition done the right way contact Wikimotive and inquire about our acquisition process.