Twitter is growing every day and so does its popularity in the sphere of social media marketing (SMM). Just Google for “buy Twitter followers” and you will find hundreds of thousands of websites offering SEO packages people so that they can add 1000s of “new” followers to their Twitter account.

If you are starting up a new business, or thinking about starting one soon, with only few followers, you might be tempted to purchase those Twitter followers. After all, a BIG fan following would mean BIG business opportunities, right?

Wrong!

Purchasing “fake” Twitter accounts or followers will get you nowhere. Rather, it will hurt your online reputation because:

1) You do not know types of followers you will be getting:

You can purchase two types of followers on Twitter – “targeted” followers and “generated” followers. Targeted followers are real people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say, and what you have to offer. Many online marketers use software to find these types of people and follow them, hoping they will return the favor.

“Generated” followers are fake accounts, or “bots”, created by spammers.  They usually have an inactive status, and unfortunately, many newbie small businesses end up purchasing these so-called “bots” without knowing it. Some of them even grant permission to their Twitter account.

Once bots have access to accounts, they can do severe damage such as spamming the followers you already have by sending unwanted links and messages.

2) Your engagement score will drop

If you bought Twitter followers, you bought just numbers, not followers who are genuinely interested in your industry. As a result, they will not initiate a conversation with you, nor they will respond, or re-tweet, or favor your tweets.

Since they are usually “inactive,” all of your marketing endeavors (content creation and promotion) will be wasted. Though you may have a HUGE Twitter following, your engagement score will be relatively low

Soon, your competitors will take notice of that too.

3) You risk ruining your online reputation

Even if you think no one will notice, you will be found, eventually.

There are few sites though to find fake followers you have. For example, Social Bakers has a useful “FakeFollowers” app that lets anyone look up any handle you want and check how many inactive, suspicious, or good accounts you have.

If the number of fake accounts is below 20%, you are safe. However, anything over that percentage could be a problem for you.

Here is bad news: On the right column of the FakeFollowers apps, there is a list of most checked Twitter accounts that visitors of the app are looking up daily. How would you feel if your account was there for everyone to see? Humiliated, right?

But not only that, you will also risk ruining your brand’s credibility, which is something you should never compromise just for the sake of being “Twitter popular.”

Final Thoughts on “Should you buy Twitter accounts?”

We highly suggest that you completely avoid falling into the trap of purchasing cheap and “1000s of Twitter followers in 24 hours” gimmicks for your Twitter marketing strategy.

Instead, build your followers organically (naturally).

You see the main purpose of having a large Twitter following is to connect and communicate with real people who are genuinely interested in your posts, your company, and your brand.

These interested group of people will want to read, engage, write, and re-tweet what you tweet, and that is what makes Twitter following more valuable to you.

On the other hand, a Twitter following that simply overlook what you have to share is simply not worth it.

Follow these simple steps to increase Twitter followers for your business:

• Engage by creating meaningful conversation with your audience, answering their pressing issues and questions, and encouraging them to take action with call-to-action such as a link to your website or blog or a picture.
• Promote your Twitter handle as regularly as you can. Tweet during peak hours of the day – between 10am to 11am usually works for me – and use “proper” hashtags. Add your profile to your website, blog, email messages, and forum signatures.
• Follow people by doing Twitter search. This will probably be the number one reason to gain followers because many people usually follow anyone that follows them.
• Be active, post messages, and make your Twitter accounts a place to connect with your readers, and not just your web page feed.
• Participate in Follow Friday, one of the many different community customs where one user calls out some of their favorite people to follow them.
• Although you may not have thousands of followers following these white hat social media marketing strategy, but I can guarantee that those following you will be genuinely “interested” in you, your brand and what you have to say.

Before you go, we would like to hear from you too.

Should you purchase Twitter followers to promote your small business? Please share your thoughts, ideas, and tips in the comment box below.