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You are here: Home / Blog / Buying Instagram Likes is Hurting Your Brand. Here’s Why

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Buying Instagram Likes is Hurting Your Brand. Here’s Why

February 13, 2020 99 Comments Animalz

As Instagram has become prime marketing and advertising real estate, more brands have been tempted to buy Instagram likes (and Views, Follows, Comments, Regrams. You name it; they’re all for sale) to compete with rivals who have large followings.

But artificially inflating your engagement numbers is not only a waste of time and money; it can also harm your business.

How? Gaming the system can actually decrease your engagement and destroy your reputation by creating a spammy presence that makes a bad impression of would-be followers and potential customers.

If you plan to buy Instagram likes to fool your audience as part of your Instagram strategy, it’s time to rethink that approach.

In this post, we’ll show you why you should NEVER BUY Instagram likes, and we suggest a few tried-and-true tactics to build your brand the authentic way, so you will NOT be tempted to BUY Instagram likes!

Why Brands Buy Instagram Likes

The reason brands buy Instagram likes is simple: engagement is the most important metric for making sure your Instagram post is seen.

Instagram uses engagement to determine what posts go at the top of users’ feeds. Popular posts are also more likely to end up in Instagram’s ‘Explore’ tab.

The Explore tab, which can be found by clicking the magnifying glass symbol on the bottom navigation menu, is a compilation of posts on different topics that you’ve liked — and posts liked by accounts you regularly interact with.

Since Explore shows users the posts that their followers like in each topic channel, and since more than 50% of Instagram accounts use Explore regularly, it’s an effective way for businesses to reach a new audience.

Long story short: if your post gets more likes, it will be seen by more people. So, many brands seeking to have their posts seen by a larger audience are buying Instagram likes to get a quick boost in engagement.

Just type “Buy Instagram likes” into Google and you’ll see dozens of services promising “real and genuine’ like” for as little as $0.01 each (usually in packages ranging from 50 to 10,000 likes or more).

Buy Instagram Likes - Package options from Buzzoid

‘Likes’ Packages from Buzzoid

When you buy Instagram likes from these services, your posts are automatically liked by the (often fake) Instagram accounts managed by the service.

They split the purchased likes across different posts so you don’t end up with one picture that has a crazy number of likes.

It can seem like the ideal solution for those short on time and marketing expertise, but the truth is buying Instagram likes is more likely to hurt your brand than help it.

Why You Should Never Buy Instagram Likes

We get it. On the surface, having a ton of likes (even if they’re bought) seems to be valuable, but it only actually works if you’ve earned them through organic tactics.

That’s because although the appearance of more engagement and popularity in the form of likes may have some short-term benefits — like impressing real users and getting some of them to follow you — fake likes could undermine future organic or paid campaigns.

Here’s how :

Reason #1 – Your Competitors (and Instagram) Can Tell When You Buy Instagram Likes

There are a few dead giveaways that your likes aren’t all real:

  • If your likes-to-follower or likes-to-comments ratios are too high, it can be a sign that you buy Instagram likes, since buying likes is cheaper than buying followers or comments. The rate of engagement drops off steeply as accounts gain more followers, but even at their highest engagement rates are usually under 11%.
Like-Follower ratio chart

(Source)

  • If the accounts that liked your posts have profiles that show little activity in the form of posts, have few followers of their own, are missing a profile photo or haven’t been updated in ages, they may be accounts specifically created for brands who buy Instagram likes.
  • If any like-buying services follow your account, it’s a dead giveaway that you buy Instagram likes, because these operations openly and widely advertise the fact that they sell likes (even right in their Instagram profile).

On top of all the negative consequences of buying Instagram likes, there’s the fact that likes may not matter as much going forward.

Instagram is rolling out an update that hides how many likes a post has. If no one can even see how many likes your post has, there’s certainly no advantage to buying fake likes!

Reason # 2 – Instagram Will Punish You

Following in the footsteps of similar crackdowns on Facebook and Twitter that purged tens of millions of fake accounts, Instagram in 2018 started removing “inauthentic” likes, followers, and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to boost their popularity.

Instagram warns they will remove inauthentic accountsIf you’re a repeat offender, you could have your Instagram account shadowbanned, which is when Instagram partially blocks your content so only users who follow you can see it. You might even be banned outright. An outright ban will also permanently block your username, meaning you won’t be able to recreate your account. In the most serious cases, Instagram could restrict your IP address from accessing the Instagram app and website.

Reason #3 – Fake Likes Do Not Equal Real Business

No matter how many likes your posts show, paid engagement never results in real business. Unlike real people, likes from fake followers (bots or lines of programming code) can never lead to purchases or create brand loyalty. At best, they do little more than making your brand appear to be more popular than it actually is.

The negatives of buying Instagram likes far outweigh the positives. Your best bet is to grow your engagement organically, and we have a few tips you can follow to get more Instagram likes—the right way.

Don’t Buy Instagram Likes. Do These Things Instead.

Instead of relying on a cheap gimmick to increase your Instagram engagement, create a long-term Instagram strategy to organically build your brand in an authentic way.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Create Content with a Purpose

If you want people to stop scrolling through their Instagram feed and like your post, you need to create content they care about.

Users need to quickly see what they’re going to get out of your posts if they’re going to take the time to read it. Make the value of your post clear by tying it to a specific purpose. Is it informational? Educational? Entertaining?

Here are a few suggestions for types of posts and what they might include:

  • Informational: Content that tells your audience about something they didn’t know.
    • News – The latest local, national or international happenings in your field, industry or sector
    • Research & Analysis – Research in a specialty field that explores a particular subject or area
    • Shared Content – Interesting articles, stories other relevant content from around the Web
NatGeo posts informational content

(Source)

  • Educational: Content that teaches your audience how to do something specific.
    • How-to Guides – Step-by-step manuals on how to accomplish something
    • Tutorials – Teaching materials in the form of a series of photos or instructional videos
    • Reviews – Overviews of products or services to help with purchase decisions
  • Inspirational: Content that urges and uplifts your audience, filling them with emotional spirit.
    • Inspiring Imagery – Fashion, food, homes, gardens and travel photos/videos
    • Personal Stories – Anecdotes about someone’s life to create feelings of empathy
    • Opinions – Strong, thought-provoking perspectives on a particular topic
  • Entertaining: Content that allows your audience to pass its time in an emotionally fulfilling way.
    • Entertainment News – Celebrity-focused photos, stories, gossip and other content
    • Mental Tests – Quizzes, trivia, and brain-teasers
    • Humor – Breaking up the monotony with things that are funny

If you want users to like your posts on Instagram, you have to create content that catches their eye and appeals to their interests.

Create purposeful content so users know at a glance that they will get something out of your posts.

And if users enjoy your content, they can share it with their friends so they can ‘like’ it, too.

2. Tag People and Places

When you use the @ mentions feature to tag another user, they get a notification, which draws their attention to your post. If they engage with the post, suddenly you’ve expanded your reach (and potential for likes) to all of their followers as well as your own! This tactic is especially effective if you can tag an influencer, since they tend to have a larger following and more engagement than other types of users.

Allbirds tags the person featured in their post

(Source)

In this post, Allbirds featured and tagged user gregoryvelvet. When he commented, suddenly the post reach expanded to include his 151k followers.

This is a pretty common practice. In fact, nearly 60% of posts on Instagram tag another user.

You can also tag your location, showing other users exactly where the picture is located or where you are posting from.

Posts with location tags see 79% higher engagementthan posts without a tag.

3. Strategically Use Hashtags

Hashtags are among the best tools for organically increasing visibility and driving engagement of your Instagram posts. Use them liberally but wisely.

Although each Instagram post allows up to 30 hashtags, fewer may be better since overusing hashtags can confuse readers or appear spammy.

Rather than using general hashtags with high competition (like #travel or #MondayMotivation), it’s better to opt for more specific hashtags (think #NYCtravels or #YogaQuotesoftheDay).

Narrower hashtags have fewer posts to compete with, which means your post is more likely to be seen. Narrower hashtags are also going to reach users specifically interested in your post (they’re searching for similar content, after all).

Higher interest levels mean you have a better possibility of getting likes on your post.

Macy's uses a mix of hashtags in their post

(Source)

Macy’s uses a good mix of extremely popular and more narrow hashtags. #activewear, for example, has over 3,570,000 posts. On the other hand, #workoutinstyle has around 82,000 posts.

Using a more focused hashtag can ensure that your content doesn’t get lost in a sea of posts, and that users seeing your post are interested in the content.

Interested users equal more likes!

4. Engage Users Daily

Remember, one of the basic rules of social media is that engagement fuels engagement.

Translation: The more you interact with other Instagram users, the more you increase your exposure and visibility.

That means you should take some time every day to engage with users.

Start by responding to every comment left on your posts.

Lego answers user questions on their post

(Source)

Lego is very responsive on Instagram and it pays off, as you can see with this post. Lego’s reply got 214 likes—which is 214 likes that wouldn’t have happened if Lego didn’t engage its users!

You don’t have to wait for users to comment on your posts to engage. Go to competitors’ profiles and tap “followers” to find accounts to engage with.

Like and comment on their posts (in a genuine, meaningful way, of course), and some will start following you and engaging with your content.

The more active and responsive you are on Instagram, the more engaged users will be with your posts.

5. Share User-Generated Content (UGC)

Users love to see their content featured on your Instagram. It increases your brand authenticity and adds to social proof.

When you feature user-generated content (UGC) (with the creator’s permission, of course) you’re showing users how real people like and interact with your brand.

Real users lead to real engagement—the opposite of what happens when you buy Instagram likes.

Wayfair has a special hashtag to encourage UGC: #Wayfairathome

Wayfair shares a user-generated post

(Source)

When users post with the hashtag, Wayfair can find their posts and feature them on the Wayfair Instagram.

Wayfair uses UGC to feature their products in real homes. With every user-generated post, the company reaches the followers of the original creator, increasing the exposure of the post and the probability for more likes.

6. Include a Call-To-Action (CTA) with Every Post

Your goal in buying likes is to increase your engagement metrics and get your post seen by more people. Why buy Instagram likes when you can just ask users to engage instead?

Invite engagement by asking or promoting your followers and target audience to take action and interact with you.

Some examples of engagement-focused CTAs include:

  • Like if you agree/if this happens to you!
  • Like if you tried X product, and let us know what you thought in the comments!
  • Tag someone who loves _____ .
  • Would you rather _____ or _____ ?
  • What is your favorite _____ ?
Lush uses a CTA in their post

(Source)

Lush asked users to give their opinion on a new product.

Whenever someone comments because of the CTA, the post can be seen by a whole new set of users, which opens up even more potential for likes and engagement.

If your goal is having likes, of course, tailor your CTA and ask users to like your post if they tried the product, rather than only asking them to comment.

7. Host an Instagram Giveaway or Contest

As an occasional, short-term strategy, you can give away your products or services through an Instagram contest.

Giveaways are a great way to get likes, gain followers, increase comments, and maybe even attract new customers. Design the rules of the giveaway around the engagement you want (and read this post for many more Instagram Giveaway Tips&Tricks).

For example, each like on the post could be an entry, and you could offer extra entries for tagging friends or sharing the post.

To supercharge your efforts, partner with a related brand or influencer.

Find an influencer in your field and see if they will host your giveaway on their page. This will allow you to promote your Instagram giveaway to both audiences, extending its reach.

Necessaire partners with influencers for giveaways

(Source)

Necessaire worked with influencer gothamista on their giveaway.

To enter, users had to follow both accounts. They could get an entry for every person they tagged, and another for reposting on their page. Now the followers of both accounts will see and interact with the posts. On top of that, every time users tag each other or share the post to get entries, the reach of the post (and the potential for engagement) expands.

Include liking your page as one of the requirements for entering the giveaway and you can increase your engagement organically—without having to buy Instagram likes!

8. Incorporate Emojis

Adding emojis is a fun way to encourage likes on your post. By now, everyone is familiar with emojis. 57% of profiles use emojis, and now that users can use emojis as hashtags, emoji popularity is only going to increase.

Emojis add personality to your post and can break up long blocks of text to make it more readable. On top of that, emojis have been shown to increase engagement rates.

Lego uses emojis in a post

(Source)

Lego uses the eye emojis to add a little humor to the sentence ‘take a closer look.’ Users responded well—the post quickly gained thousands of likes, and many users followed Lego’s lead and left comments using emojis.

Increase Your Instagram Engagement…No Purchase Necessary

With so many ways to grow engagement organically, there’s no reason to buy Instagram likes and risk hurting your brand.

While it may sound tempting on the surface, the truth is that if you buy Instagram likes you can cost yourself valuable business and partnerships and violate Instagram’s Terms of Service, placing you at risk of having your Instagram account shut down.

Doing things the right way requires more effort and doesn’t provide instant gratification. Not only you will see your legitimate following grow, but you will also build trust in the process.

Instead of trying to pay your way into popularity, follow the practical tips we gave you in this post and these other tested and proven Instagram marketing and advertising strategies.

For more insight into why it’s not a good idea to buy likes and followers on Instagram (and for those of you that only trust numbers), check out the experiment we ran to get at the truth behind the practice.

What do you think? Did you give in to the temptation of buying Instagram likes? How was your experience? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

You may also like reading:

  • Social Commerce 101: How to Make Money Selling on Social
  • 63 Instagram Caption Examples for 2023 (And How to Write Your Own)
  • 15 Fresh Facebook Ad Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign [2022]
  • How to Create a Facebook Business Page (The Easy Way)

Comments

  1. Thierry B says

    December 28, 2016 at 1:07 am

    ok a question still need to be answered, pple are using bots not because of the result, but because it takes “time” to create a genuine result, bots can work when you sleeps.

    Can you tell us how many people and how many time it takes to do it the right way to calculate the ROI?

    Reply
    • Evelyn Acosta says

      August 14, 2018 at 4:59 pm

      Great article.
      Have been working with various IG accounts for almost 3 years marketing and I can second your experiment, but let’s not deny that the practice of buying Instagram followers can also be considered a “growth hack” for most marketers.
      Not looking for engagement I recently did a similar experiment with [xxx] and all I find attractive is their automatic likes function which seems to be attracting more real users to like our images. So I don’t know if its best buying followers or a certain amount of likes per upload and see how it goes.

      Reply
    • Matilda R says

      September 19, 2018 at 5:11 pm

      It’s about perception. The number of followers is something that many people look at when sizing up an account to follow and it’s a common metric that brands use to measure their own Instagram efforts.

      If you’re thinking about buying Instagram followers, it might be because you’re looking for a quick thousand followers to get the ball rolling, hoping that will encourage real people to check out your brand. Quality over quantity is a nice sentiment, but the reality is, many people judge an Instagram account by its numbers.

      I read an article written by Max Chafkin, a Bloomberg reporter, where he claimed he had boosted his account with thousands of real followers. The case study is published at Bloomberg and you can find it Googling “Confessions Of An Instagram Influencer”

      Reply
      • SEO Company UK says

        October 3, 2018 at 4:55 am

        I agree with Matilda – times have changed and quality over quantity has to be the focus in 2018!

        Reply
        • dan says

          October 21, 2018 at 3:08 pm

          Times have definitely changed! & so has Instagram’s algorithm. Instagram now penalizes people for buying fake followers.

          I know this because I bought fake followers in 2015 and since the algorithm shifted I get next to NO engagement. For anybody reading this there is hope. You just need to remove the fake followers.

          They are easy to identify, Just look through your followers and find those who have no profile picture, posts, etc. IT does get time consuming when you have purchase many ghost followers (think 1k+)

          If you don’t want to do it yourself try some of the apps available to automate it. I have 170k followers so I simply didn’t have the time to tackle this feat on my own. IT’s working though, engagement has been up! The key seems to be to remove fake followers if you have ever purchased them. Instagram knows

          Reply
  2. Guillaume says

    December 28, 2016 at 5:06 am

    Thanks for sharing this analyse. As a 2nd step, it could be interesting to dig this way :
    Option 1 : set your bot only to like targeted posts (not follow). This way, you can imagine that people who follow you in return are more interested in your brand (as they don’t “follow back”).
    Option 2 : if option 1 gets résults, try to compare only humain versus only humain + option 1
    What do you think ?

    Reply
  3. Christina says

    December 28, 2016 at 8:29 am

    What about leveraging an intern, employee or company to leverage the bot not just put it on autopilot? Seems like a mix of human and technology here would work better than one or the other.

    Reply
    • Andrew Tate says

      January 3, 2017 at 3:31 pm

      Hi Christina! Thanks for your question. With the service we used, we could only control parameters for the bot. Once it was up and running, we were hands off! If there was a more customizable bot, it might be possible to use the bot as tool rather than as a human replacement, and the results may have been different.

      Reply
  4. George Jabley says

    December 28, 2016 at 9:36 am

    This is interesting to see. So what you can’t afford to hire someone and you don’t also have the time

    Reply
  5. Mike says

    December 28, 2016 at 10:02 am

    An interesting and useful experiment. Especially correlating with actual sales.

    One of the potential points of failure you noted was “It unfollows too quickly. If someone doesn’t check their Instagram every day, they would have missed the bot following and unfollowing them.”

    I fully agree and think this time frame is too short. Is there any way you could change the time frame between following and unfollowing? Perhaps a week or more between follow and unfollow?

    Seems like some of the Bot issues could be more a matter of how the Bot behaves or is configured, and not a matter of it being a Bot.

    Overall, 111 new Followers over 4 weeks isn’t all that great.

    Would be interested in seeing this done with a different service other than Boostgram to see how the specific Bot service and settings affects the results.

    Reply
  6. Gabriel Mangabeira says

    December 28, 2016 at 10:54 am

    AWESOME POST Andrew!!!! Thank you so much for this!!!
    I have tested with BOTs before and found some confusing results, I guess I was overlapping the bots and manual work.
    There are a few bots where you can filter down and try to find real “humans” to follow and interact with.
    For ex: Only follow users with more than 500 followers, more than 20 pictures posted, with description and profile picture. That helped a little bit. Maybe you can test that on another experiment.

    Other than that, the human way combined with bots might bring some interesting results.

    Again, congrats on the article and I am sharing this everywhere!

    Best,
    Gabriel

    Reply
    • Andrew Tate says

      January 3, 2017 at 3:38 pm

      Hi Gabriel! So glad to hear you enjoyed the article. You make a good point – it would be interesting to see how different bots perform with different parameters! But even with more customization, the best bots still won’t be able to hand-pick profiles like humans can. Maybe bots that you can mix with “the human way” will appear soon!

      Reply
  7. Ian says

    December 28, 2016 at 12:36 pm

    These results are expected as you guys nailed it with “people can tell when they are interacting with a bot”.

    That said, I’m really curious to know what businesses that Instagram tends to build success with. In my business, the engagement that I have seen from those who are doing it more than others isn’t translating into sales.

    Reply
  8. Yanick says

    December 28, 2016 at 5:36 pm

    In order to make this a valid experiment though, wouldn’t you have to follow users of the same accounts in the auto-method that you also followed in the manual method? Otherwise you’re looking at two different sent of audiences, this might explain the different results – I don’t think H&M has the same aesthetic as your Not Your Girl account, thus follow back and engagement rates would naturally be lower?

    Reply
    • Andrew Tate says

      January 3, 2017 at 3:45 pm

      Hi Yanick! Thanks for the insightful comment. You’re right to point out that targeting can play a huge role in who follows you back or not! We did go through H&M/H&M-esque stores to find followers while “human following.” Hope this clears things up!

      Reply
  9. Anton Stetner says

    December 28, 2016 at 9:24 pm

    As usual there are no short cuts to success and you have to be real to get actual results. Plus this is was an interesting experiment that I would love to see done again with a mix of tech and human element. Lastly, a follow up to this a few months later it would interesting to investigate the lasting or lack of lasting results from automated follower growth. The sample time was so short it was hard to judge that.

    Reply
    • shirley whyte says

      December 29, 2016 at 2:13 pm

      Interesting experiment tend to agree ref mix of human & bots.. apart from bootsgram what other bots would the group recommend for test?

      Reply
  10. Seun says

    December 29, 2016 at 8:01 pm

    I work for a company that once paid for 50,000 Instagram followers with essentially no negative repercussions. The followers we got were all real people (I don’t know where this idea of “fake accounts” came from), they were all targeted toward our niche, and they were a great stepping stone for us to achieve the 250,000+ likes we now have 2 years later. Just do your research, and don’t use the followers for the sole purpose of showing more likes and you should be fine.

    Reply
  11. Akash Kandari says

    December 29, 2016 at 10:55 pm

    What if we do both, bot as well as real way? Will it give us more returns in terms of followers and engagements??

    Reply
  12. Al Imran says

    December 31, 2016 at 8:41 am

    thanks You For Good Infrom.

    Reply
  13. Rose says

    January 3, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    WHOA, I know a lot of people who use bots for personal accounts and like you point out, the same number of people end up liking their posts even though there’s 10 times the followers. So much vanity! Ugh! Still, social proof…I still think it LOOKS better to have followers, but the complete lack of sales from the bot method makes me think maybe LOOKING good doesn’t really mean anything at all. Great post!

    Reply
  14. Akilo victor says

    January 4, 2017 at 3:35 am

    good

    Reply
  15. Abegail Smith says

    January 9, 2017 at 5:05 pm

    Boost your social media authorities try and visit BuyRealMarketing and see how it works.

    Reply
  16. Tom says

    January 10, 2017 at 3:53 am

    I think it’s fine thing to do. I used services from zen-promo and I can’t say it’s bad. They helped me to find my first followers and this is important in the beginning of your pat there.

    Reply
  17. Jonathan says

    January 18, 2017 at 2:09 pm

    I see many people disparaging purchasing instagram likes and followers, but honestly, my decision to purchase them was definitely the correct one. It has lead to much greater organic growth for my instagram account then before the purchase, which I guess is a result of more people wanting to follow my instagram due to the increased number of likes and followers. Buying them can also really help you out if you have an instagram for your own business, as it can make you look more popular and legitimate, drawing more customers in to buy from you. Buying instagram followers and likes in the year 2017 is honestly a must if you want your instagram to become more popular. I usually use BlazingSocialMedia.com to purchase my instagram likes and followers because they have very cheap prices, the likes and followers are high quality, and they have never dropped from my instagram unlike those from other providers. You can really use any provider though.

    Reply
  18. Jonathan says

    February 7, 2017 at 9:39 am

    Great article, I’ve nowhere else seen a similar article, where people really try out the bot method. Thanks!

    Regards Jonathan

    Reply
  19. bargearse says

    February 14, 2017 at 9:01 pm

    I have had a lot of people follow me only to unfollow in a couple of days so I downloaded ‘followers assistant.’ Now I unfollow those companies/people as soon as they unfollow me and make a point of commenting on one of their posts that I unfollowed and that I suspect they use bots and are not obtaining followers the organic way but a fraudulent way in order to make it look like they are more popular than they really are. I delight in it.

    Reply
  20. Mike says

    March 8, 2017 at 3:08 am

    Most of the times people know they are buying fake followers but they still do. At the end of the day atleast numbers is all that matters. More followers means more popularity, that’s what younger generation seems to be chasing now a days.

    Reply
  21. Anonymous says

    March 10, 2017 at 5:41 pm

    Automation works. There’s much better tools out there for much cheaper than what you used. They’re just hard to find. I’m averaging 70-100 followers net PER DAY with mine. And I use options in the program that allow me specify, “has the target user posted anything with these words in it?” “has the target user posted within the past X days?” does the target user a certain number of followers? Followings? Follower to following ratio?” etc, etc. Just about the only thing I can’t do that I wish I could with it, is to target followers based off their recent activity as far as liking or commenting(I can use it as a target audience, I.e. Follow people who have liked or commented on posts by X page within the past X days), but I can’t use it as a requirement to follow(I.e. Having liked or commented on any photo in the past X days), but then again I don’t even know if that’s obtainable with the current API.

    Tldr; they work. They work well. Just the vast majority of automation programs are junk.

    Reply
    • Anonymous says

      March 30, 2017 at 7:17 am

      Hi. I believe I have to agree with you! Which automation are you using? Which settings do you use? I also seriously would like to compare accounts followers with mine, because it is annoying when re-following those who are already following you. Look forward to hear form you! Cheers.

      Reply
  22. Nicola says

    April 2, 2017 at 8:15 am

    I think the bots are highly effective if used correctly and mixed with a human interaction. Bots are brilliant for small brands who don’t have the budget to hire someone to do the job manually. There are a number of companies providing this service and its really just about finding the right one that enables the user/brand to tailor every action the bot will conduct.
    Best settings
    -Slow growth
    -Constant engagement
    -Automated DM’s to new followers (great way to direct people to your website).
    Target relatable accounts – H&M is too large of an account. A better choice will be a niche blogger with a following of up to 200K, their audience is concentrated and loyal – they will get far better results!
    Hashtags – again not too broad – narrow it down.
    That would be my advice. I have spent the past year researching bots and influencer marketing and have also used these services for two businesses and a charity. Personally, I have seen great results, it just takes a bit of practice. It doesn’t happen overnight but it certainly saves time and money!

    Reply
  23. Johnathan says

    April 15, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    I’ve tried a few bots, some differ from each other, with much more advanced targeting. The best one I found to work well was http://www.socialenvy.co

    Thanks for this blog, it was a great insight. I believe you cannot beat manual, however like previously said, if the bot is setup correctly, it can be effective. The team at Social Envy do it all for you, and they have great experience.

    Reply
  24. Maya says

    April 23, 2017 at 6:45 am

    Truly awesome tips, I have been experimenting with different ways on growing my Instagram and am sure this list covers most of it.

    Reply
  25. bowman unblocked says

    April 30, 2017 at 12:08 am

    After I initially left a comment I appear to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and from
    now on every time a comment is added I recieve four emails with the same comment.
    Perhaps there is a means you are able to remove me from that service?
    Thank you!

    Reply
    • Flavia Caroppo says

      May 3, 2017 at 1:44 pm

      Thanks for telling us, and sorry for the inconvenience! I think we fixed the problem, can you write me just in case you keep experiencing it? flavia@adespresso.com

      thanks again!!! 🙂

      Reply
  26. Callie says

    May 7, 2017 at 4:39 am

    I strongly dislike people using bots and prefer organic method of gaining followers.

    I can tell a bot based on several factors and I NEVER follow back just some random follow. I get followers who have never liked a single image I’ve posted. A REAL person doesn’t follow without ever taking the time to see if s/he likes the content being posted, therefore if I get a follower without ever liking my picture — I ignore it. Another way is they like exactly one picture to make you think they are human and then like you — they have several thousand followers or mid-3-digit followers, but they only follow less than 1/8 of the amount of people they have following them (unless they are a celebrity of some type)…

    Here’s my question to them — why should I follow you? Most of these accounts have nothing I’m even remotely interested in, so if I wouldn’t organically follow him/her and s/he is just going to delete me…why would I waste my feed with clutter? When I do follow someone because s/he did indeed fool me…and then s/he deletes me 1 to 3 days later…I Block that account….I don’t need that FAKE numbers…I want true organic followers who actually have an interest in what I post, and that I have a potential interest in their posts.

    Do not waste my time with Bots and I won’t waste yours with following and then blocking when your bot deletes me. I work hard supporting my followers I would not bot them, and yes I have a lot to keep track of (over 700 which might not be much to some people, but I’m okay with that) so sometimes I’m a bit behind, but prefer real to fake.

    Reply
  27. Cameron Kinney says

    May 24, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    Buying Instagram followers is almost ALWAYS a bad idea. Same with bots right now. They are way too risky. I have been working with a company called relaxedsocial.com and they have done a great job boosting my following organically.

    Reply
  28. facebook says

    May 30, 2017 at 8:25 am

    I relish, cause I found exactly what I was having a look for.
    You’ve ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great
    day. Bye

    Reply
  29. best admin says

    May 31, 2017 at 5:50 am

    Link exchange is nothing else however it is simply placing the other person’s
    website link on your page at appropriate place and other person will also do same for you.

    Reply
  30. Tiago Amaro says

    June 2, 2017 at 5:19 am

    Hey, social media newbie here. Thank you very much for this post, as it shows great insights for people who are just starting their business and are tempted to buy likes, shared, etc.

    I’ve always tried to make marketing the less “shady” way possible, and grow organically. It seems it’s hard work, but you showed the numbers are so much better when human curated, that’s completely worth it.

    Thank you for your experiment and the numbers! 🙏

    Reply
  31. facebook.com says

    June 25, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    Awesome article over again! I am looking forward for your next post:
    )

    Reply
  32. Steven Male says

    July 10, 2017 at 4:20 pm

    Definitely, agree that you can’t buy your way to success but what about using Instagram followers as a boost to start the process? As Gary Vee says, you can’t fake genuine interaction, but it can help start the growth of genuine interaction.

    Thanks!

    Reply
  33. Robert says

    July 16, 2017 at 12:11 am

    Nice experiment. I partly agree with your conclusion that buying bot followers is not working.

    Yes, indeed they do not engage with you at all. However, many people only follow someone when they have a substantial amount of followers already. Don’t ask me why, but this is just how it goes.

    So using sites like social-aid or any similar site to give your account(s) a bit more ‘credibility’ is not even a bad idea.

    Just my 2 cents,
    Robert.

    Reply
  34. Hugh says

    August 9, 2017 at 7:39 pm

    After I use the 14 day free trial will it charge me straight after the days are up, or will it just end and not do anything

    Reply
  35. dc legends hack says

    August 12, 2017 at 6:14 am

    This is a really good tip particularly to those fresh to the
    blogosphere. Simple but very precise info… Thank you
    for sharing this one. A must read post!

    Reply
  36. Paul says

    August 20, 2017 at 11:51 am

    The problem that I see is its incredibly time consuming, to gain followers, and who has the time? I have an account and have followed 700, left likes and gave thoughtful comments, have about 125 followers, at this rate I will be following 2000 with possible 500 following, looks like I’m desperate. Buying bots seems like cheating, but, following others, with the response rate I’m getting the ratios make my store look bad. I cant spend hundreds of thousands on marketing campaign.

    Reply
  37. Dave Johnson says

    August 24, 2017 at 4:55 am

    I think the point is to use any kind of follower boost to bolster organic growth campaigns. It’s called the bandwagon effect, like when mcdonalds puts the 90 billion served on their sign. The follower account gives the impression you are popular, and people are lemmings. I bought ‘real’ instagram followers from sociaboost and saw my organic follower gains go up almost immediately.

    Reply
  38. Martina Zola says

    August 24, 2017 at 8:42 pm

    Great Experiment! Thanks

    Reply
  39. COYNE says

    August 30, 2017 at 8:46 pm

    There is certainly a lot to find out about this topic.
    I really like all the points you made.

    Reply
  40. Marlyn says

    November 19, 2017 at 7:34 pm

    Thanks for sharing these useful methods. It’s better to not buy bot on your Instagram. People will not believe you once they see that you have many followers but very few likes on each post.

    Reply
  41. ashwini says

    November 21, 2017 at 10:26 pm

    completely Agree with you, Its always better to engage with the people who like our products.

    Reply
  42. Shanaya says

    December 21, 2017 at 2:13 am

    This is the first time i read such type of blogs,Its really useful for the users.Keep updated This type of blogs provide information to the users ..

    Reply
  43. Eadlyn Schreave says

    January 21, 2018 at 7:01 pm

    Wow. Such an informative and eye-opener article you have. Keep posting! I’ll be waiting for your new experiment!

    Reply
  44. Di says

    January 29, 2018 at 8:35 am

    really interesting

    Reply
  45. Joie M Gahum says

    February 11, 2018 at 10:46 pm

    This experiment is very helpful. I firmly believe that it is not about how many followers or audience you have, what should matter is if they are genuinely interested with what you offer. Conversions are most likely generated from a genuine, organic following, something a bot may not offer. This is the reason why I use Hashatory, a hashtag suggesting tool, instead of a bot to help me build my brand and following on Instagram. Do you have experience in using something similar to this in the past?

    Reply
  46. Andrew says

    March 1, 2018 at 1:01 am

    A great read! I have been considering buying followers myself until decided to grow organicly

    Reply
  47. xvideos lesbians says

    March 18, 2018 at 9:16 am

    There’s defnately a great deal to find out about this subject.

    I like all of the points you’ve made.

    Reply
  48. Akeeem says

    April 4, 2018 at 11:23 pm

    “Fake It Until You Make It” There is nothing quite so off-putting to the potential customer/client like an unpopular profile. It just looks a little suspicious. If your product/service/brand is so good then why are you having little followers on social media? If your feed is so witty, then why has no one else realized?

    We purchased 50k followers 3yrs back when starting out and we’re currently the strongest influencer in our industry with about 4million+ followers presently.

    The simple truth is “99% of potential customers/clients never want to be first to the party.” People will turn up once the party starts to fill out a little bit.

    Reply
  49. designgeo says

    April 17, 2018 at 7:39 am

    Thanks for sharing this!

    Before launching my little Instagram project (@designgeo for anyone interested), I ran similar experiments on growing a niche business. It confirms everything you’ve written here. Instagram actually shadowbans people who automate or try to “cheat” Instagram. I actually tried an Instagram agency a few weeks ago and saw stellar results, since they do everything manually. They’re called https://upleap.com (might be useful for anyone running ads at the same time)!

    Either way, thanks for the insights. Your post about 7 brands doing Instagram right is great as well.

    Reply
  50. Phone verified says

    April 29, 2018 at 10:58 pm

    It’s an entirely excellent and constructive post. I’m trying to find some help. And finally, I found it here.

    Reply
  51. Atticus says

    May 27, 2018 at 2:12 am

    Definitely, agree that you can’t buy your way to success but what do you think about buying Instagram followers as a boost to start the process? You can’t fake genuine interaction, but you can help start the growth of genuine interaction.

    Reply
  52. James says

    May 29, 2018 at 7:32 am

    I used to buy Instagram followers and it killed my engagement, i had literally thousands of fake followers and very low number of comments and likes on my publications, a total waste of time and money. Since then i have started working with this company (Social24) and building my profile slowly but steadily with great results.

    Reply
  53. Alice Nathan says

    May 29, 2018 at 10:59 am

    I don’t understand why all people want to buy followers if they are all bots. Now there are many applications that allow you to attract real followers in the IG. I use [cut], it has a huge number of cool functions. This is certainly better than buying bots.

    Reply
  54. Kristi says

    July 14, 2018 at 10:00 am

    I’m of the same opinion that with Instagram becoming one of the top new sales platforms for e-commerce, the temptation to buy followers has never been stronger.

    Reply
  55. Amir J says

    July 24, 2018 at 1:52 pm

    Hello everyone, I’ve personally bought 3 instagram accounts in the past year and I’ve had a bad experience with all 3 purchases. in my opinion there is not a safe way to buy an instagram account, it is very easy to get tricked and scammed… if you want to know the details and how you could be scammed i’ve made a video for you sharing my story https://youtu.be/A7dAPUBV_HY

    Reply
  56. Justin Hilgart says

    September 8, 2018 at 7:26 pm

    So I have actually tried buying Instagram followers for my account @justgym8 and sure enough, it didn’t work. Your article is right on the money. However, after a while, I decided to try an Instagram Growth Agency and I found it to be really effective. They do all interactions manually and they really helped me get in touch with the fitness community on Instagram. Thanks again for writing this informative article!

    Reply
  57. Anonymous says

    September 21, 2018 at 10:04 pm

    This is certainly better than buying bots. Thanks for sharing this amazing article with us.

    Reply
  58. Insta Growing says

    December 15, 2018 at 12:38 pm

    Bots are good for small brands who don’t have the budget to hire someone to do the job manually.

    Reply
  59. anil says

    January 14, 2019 at 12:27 pm

    Nice

    Reply
  60. Victor Frago says

    January 17, 2019 at 11:26 am

    In the present scenario Instagram has become a paramount part of individuals’ life. Most people use it for online growth of their business. Without any doubt Instagram is a best platform for the promotion of business but it totally depend on the number of followers on our Instagram account. It is not a tough nut to crack for anyone to make a Instagram account but to get huge followers is really a very challenging. There are numerous ways to buy Instagram followers but few methods can be proved useful for long term. When people use black hat methods to increase the Instagram followers it can be good for few days or few weeks but after that those methods can spoil our whole business. You have described the best way to buy followers with the help of experiment, it is very wonderful work. As I am also a Instagram follower provider, So i really understand the depth of this article and appreciate your work to provide very specific information to people about buying Instagram followers.

    Reply
  61. Josephine Alberto says

    January 22, 2019 at 5:38 am

    Such a great post!!
    Thanks for sharing with us.

    Reply
  62. Web Hosting Bangladesh says

    January 25, 2019 at 11:06 am

    Great experiment. You showed all of the things of Instagram.

    Reply
  63. Santhosh M M says

    January 26, 2019 at 3:31 am

    True. we should never follow shortcuts in marketing. Smart work & dedication is the only way to succeed in marketing.

    Reply
  64. Nishant Chandravanshi says

    January 27, 2019 at 1:59 pm

    These days, I am getting tired of the auto-generated message, likes, comment, followers and subscribers on every platform. It does not give a human feeling. If you do not have time, then do not go for it. It does not build repo. Twitter, Instagram etc…..

    Reply
  65. Sandip says

    January 29, 2019 at 3:41 am

    Buy Buying followers or likes or view is for only brand purpose, if you are having good number of followers you can built the trust among people. I always recommend to use Instagram influence marketing to get reach and followers. Instagram ads are costly now days.

    Reply
  66. shane says

    January 31, 2019 at 12:36 am

    Great article. It is very useful and informative. I got some good ideas about this topic. Thanks for sharing this post.-

    Reply
  67. rymann says

    February 1, 2019 at 4:14 am

    Thanks for your post

    Reply
  68. mark adem says

    February 5, 2019 at 8:03 am

    thanks great web site and post.

    Reply
  69. rikki martin says

    February 6, 2019 at 6:11 am

    Nice article, thanks!

    Reply
  70. Jonathan says

    February 7, 2019 at 8:43 pm

    Great article! Thanks for sharing! I always make it a point to share in my groups that authentic is always best. For growth, I usually do collaborations and influencer marketing. Here’s a top 100 list of influencers worth collaborating with – https://phlanx.com/top/instagram/followers/100

    Reply
  71. TeamPlus India says

    February 8, 2019 at 8:07 pm

    Great post and advice. Very useful information, it clarified things a lot for us. Thanks for the wonderful blog. – top placements consultants in bangalore, staffing companies in bangalore

    Reply
  72. maurineviren says

    February 21, 2019 at 8:59 am

    Hello, I want to develop my business and I think instagram will help me a lot. I recently heard that there are sites that offer you an instagram profile. I do not know if he will help me, but I think to try. I will write again as I have some development.

    Reply
  73. Leon Turner says

    February 21, 2019 at 11:18 am

    2019 and it’s still relevant – nice article! 🙂 Tip 1 is timeless though and something too many Instagram users forget – people will only follow you if you have good content. I use withwings to manage my growth so I can focus on the content – so far it’s been a winning formula. 🙂

    Reply
  74. Bing says

    February 22, 2019 at 12:37 pm

    Hi great post, I have a great way to gain more organic followers

    Reply
  75. Smm Quick 10K FOLLOWERS says

    March 16, 2019 at 6:30 am

    Hey,
    great post for all folks I have a great way to get more real active followers and Likes

    Reply
  76. IG MANAGER says

    April 10, 2019 at 3:43 pm

    Yes you are right. Your information is valuable. Fake likes always creates bad impression to your business. Real followers and real likes are matters only. Instagram is also smart enough to see the differences between real and fake. a instagram management agency helps you to understand all that.

    Reply
  77. Tod Rud says

    April 22, 2019 at 11:17 am

    Great article! Surely buying likes and followers on Instagram gives you a quick raise up but it doesn’t guarantee you a quality audience. As stronger are your efforts to make good marketing or brand campaign as more presence and credibility you’ll build for your brand.

    Thank you for the tips, they’re so useful!

    Reply
  78. Christian Nellums says

    April 23, 2019 at 1:45 pm

    I see this more like a moral thing, and actually, this should be present in a lot of things, the lack of moral question may be the reason why so many things don’t work as should be.

    Reply
    • Massimo Chieruzzi says

      April 26, 2019 at 1:53 am

      Agreed 🙂

      Reply
  79. Johnjafery says

    May 13, 2019 at 5:56 am

    You give a great article about the Instagram follower or like. This absolutely works to enhance your like and follower.

    Reply
  80. Andreas says

    June 1, 2019 at 9:06 am

    Great post, and the fact is; it’s all true. There are too many fake accounts on Instagram these days, and it’s really hurting the reputation of influencers in general. I believe that Instagram should do another sweep of bot-accounts, and really take this issue seriously.

    Reply
  81. Mauro says

    June 5, 2019 at 2:50 am

    Great bog…!!!
    All the information which have you shared with us is very useful for my business. We need to keep a blog alive.

    Reply
  82. Mauro says

    July 9, 2019 at 10:00 pm

    Nice blog….!!!
    We need to keep a blog alive for the Further information.

    Reply
  83. Mauro says

    July 9, 2019 at 10:18 pm

    Awesome article, Thanks for sharing this.

    Reply
  84. Miichelle Jones says

    July 22, 2019 at 3:31 am

    Thanks again for such an amazing and informative piece of information. Your posts are really awesome. In this article, I have some queries. I know getting organic followers is best but there are some websites which provide real Instagram followers. Should I go for them? Because they claim their followers are genuine and they didn’t harm my account.

    Reply
  85. Sourav Basak says

    November 18, 2019 at 11:42 pm

    While there are plenty of theories about how to get likes on Instagram, a lot of the time it is a matter of trial and error. The most popular one is the use of hashtags. By using hashtags, you can draw attention to your post by highlighting specific parts of the content it addresses or by directing people as to the general idea of the post. Another strategy that is often promoted is the use of locations for posts. By adding a location to your post, you are able to focus in on people in your immediate area. This should be enough to get you more local fans and should be useful if you are looking to make a name for yourself in the area you are based in. Both methods are ways that can get you the attention of people who may not have heard of you but share common interests.

    Anyways, read the below. This might help.
    https://www.namasteui.com/why-buying-instagram-likes-is-good/

    —
    Regards,
    Sourav Basak
    Namaste UI

    Reply
  86. Sheel says

    June 1, 2020 at 5:35 am

    Fake followers will always damage your brand, i am completely agree with you.

    Reply
  87. Instant Instagram Likes says

    June 18, 2020 at 7:21 am

    Thanks for sharing such a great blog.

    Reply

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  1. Five Things Your Online Marketing   Strategist Dreads Hearing – Marketing For Kicks says:
    December 12, 2017 at 7:23 pm

    […] Followers can be purchased. There are widgets and programs designed to “scrape” social platforms for followers, but this reduces your online marketing efforts to the same hail-Mary style tactics used in television and radio advertising. […]

    Reply

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