Interesting concept posited to me today: apparently there are companies out there claiming that they can get you “quality, targeted Twitter followers fast” for $50 to $200 a pop.
While I want to place some faith in humanity and think that this is not some elaborate fly-by-night operation; that it is actually designed to help small business owners grow a budding community, let’s face it, we weren’t born yesterday. Grow your followers to number into the thousands for a price? There’s just something about the whole practice of it that sounds incredibly fishy to me.
First of all, there’s the “why pay for what you can get for free” argument. If your content is marketable, interesting, relevant, buzz-worthy, all of the above, or a combination of any of the above, you will most probably gain followers organically, which is a much more meaningful way of building connections on a social networking site. If you run a business, you want real people to follow you. Real people means real money and prospective clients. Are you going to get either of those things from spam accounts, empty profiles, or inactive users?
Secondly, ask yourself why you even want that many followers. If you just want to look like a person who’s got a lot of influence, then it doesn’t really matter how you do it in the first place. Do you want to be able to share your thoughts and ideas to a like-minded audience? Or are you just padding your numbers to overtake the next guy who has a million of them? Your intentions don’t have to be noble, but this is the Internet, and people can usually spot a fake at the same speed their connection runs on.
Thirdly, do you care about who follows you? The whole point of Twitter is to connect to individuals with whom you more or less have something in common with. If you don’t particularly care about this, then go right ahead and cough up the cash, but it does rather defeat the point, doesn’t it? Why talk to an audience that won’t care two whits about what you’re saying in the first place?
Paying for Twitter followers may seem like a good idea; 4 digits or more sure looks great on a profile, and will lead casual visitors to believe that your reach is truly extensive. If these companies are conducting their business legitimately and not creating a million inactive accounts for the sake of padding someone’s numbers, more power to them. However, like I pointed out above, it’s ridiculously easy to spot a fake. You can lead people to believe that you’re a person of influence, but without the material to back it up, you’ll find yourself losing them, along with your online credibility. I just don’t see any long-term benefits to buying followers. It just seems a lot like buying friends. If a business can’t gain followers organically through sincere means – truly interesting content, good products, excellent service – then they’re best off not using Twitter as a business aid in the first place.
Later,
Andy
