Instagram – and other forms of social media – present the ideal ways to promote a business. They give you a platform with millions of users and include simple tools to target the correct audience. Instagram hashtags help people discover your content and follow your profile based on their interests. The more followers you gain, the more beneficial this platform becomes for marketing purposes.
As a result, this lends many business owners to believe that buying Instagram accounts is a smart choice. They purchase existing accounts with established follower bases, assuming that it’ll provide all the benefits they’re looking for. The same goes for Twitter or Facebook accounts – but is it the right investment for your marketing strategy?
In short, no.
Buying Instagram accounts or Twitter accounts never makes sense. You should never do it. Coming up I’ll explain why in this post. There are also much better ways to spend your digital marketing budget – you’ll see these later in the guide!
The main reason to avoid buying accounts on traditional social media platforms is simple: it gives you a terrible base to conduct business. A bought account will have followers, but you have no idea where these followers came from.
Are they even part of your target market? Are they real?!
It’s a significant risk that will easily become one of the worst marketing mistakes of your life. Your social media presence must be authentic, and it must gain organic followers who are genuinely interested in your posts and what you provide. There’s no use having 100,000 followers if none of them engage with your content.
Therefore, buying these sorts of accounts is a complete waste of money and will rarely generate a positive ROI.
You’ve got money to spend on improving your digital marketing strategy, so don’t waste it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok or Snapchat accounts. Instead, consider any of these investments as they’re proven to generate a much better return.
While buying social media accounts doesn’t make sense, buying Reddit accounts is a lot more advantageous. How? Because Reddit isn’t a traditional social media site. It blurs the lines between social networks and mass online forums – and the way the accounts are set up means you’ll actually benefit from buying one.
Reddit accounts don’t revolve around followers. Instead, you join different communities/subreddits and engage with fellow Redditors. From a business perspective, this is an opportunity to interact with your target market on a level like never before. Buying an existing Reddit account will help you be seen in these subreddits, thanks to Karma. Karma is Reddit’s system for establishing which accounts are more knowledgeable and trusted than others. You gain Karma by getting upvotes on posts and answers. If you buy an account with lots of Karma, you immediately inherit this credibility.
Better still, you can buy accounts that are specifically involved in your target subreddits. For instance, if you sell fitness products, then it’s easy to find accounts with a lot of Karma in loads of different fitness-related subreddits.
The main difference between this and buying Instagram accounts is that you’re not purchasing loads of unknown followers. You’re simply inheriting credibility, which will help you promote your brand going forwards.
You might already purchase Google Ads for your business, helping you appear in search engine results or on different websites around the world. This is an effective use of your money, though you should also look into social media advertising.
The difference between social media and Google Ads is that each social platform has its own ad network. This is the only way to get your adverts published on the different platforms. Moreover, social media advertising carries some critical benefits you can’t overlook:
Another big thing to consider is how social media ads are displayed to users. A display ad on a random website will always look intrusive. The more intrusive an advert is, the less likely someone is to click on it. Social media uses “native ads” that blend into the content. For instance, you’ll see something that looks like a normal Instagram post or story, but it’s been sponsored to appear on your feed. It doesn’t interrupt the user’s experience and is far more likely to be clicked on than a traditional display ad.
How more likely? Data shows that native ads have a click-through rate of between 0.2-0.38% on average. That might not look like a big figure, but display ads have an average CTR of just 0.05%. This displays the difference in generating clicks – and leads – for your business, which shows how beneficial this investment will be.
The third thing you can do instead of buying Instagram or social media accounts is to pay influencers to promote your brand. This is almost the most organic way of “buying” accounts. You’re not purchasing the influencer’s account, but you are buying their audience and influence. They’ll promote you to their existing fanbase, which will help you generate lots of leads and sales.
Keep in mind that a whopping 75% of people use social media for purchasing advice. If your products are recommended by their favorite influencers, there’s a massive chance you’ll get a score of sales opportunities. Plus, you can use the influencers to grow your social media following in a more natural way than buying an account with followers.
buying social media accounts to gain followers is a terrible idea. If you want to purchase accounts on any platform, then look to Reddit. It’s the only place where this makes sense, as you’re effectively buying credibility rather than trying to increase your follower count. Alongside this, think about investing in social media ads and influencer marketing to get your digital campaign off to a flying start.
If you want to grow your business, it’s always worth getting the support of a successful business consultant to help keep you on the right path. I’d love to work with you. Learn about my business consulting program here.
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