It can be tempting to think about buying thousands of followers. Buying followers on Instagram, to look like an influencer, sounds like a great idea… BUT… on a platform like Instagram it really doesn’t work. On that platform it can look obvious and it can cause you lost business. Let me give you a great example from an account I recently found…

Let’s say you’re searching for a photographer or film maker and you come across this account:

This person has almost 5,000 followers, they must be really good…right? Now let’s look at the likes from his recent posts; 15, 9, 12. A possible 4,800 people saw his posts but only 0.2% actually think it was worth ‘liking’. If you were looking for a photographer/filmmaker… would YOU hire him based on those numbers? I sure wouldn’t! Those numbers make him look un-hireable.

My Instagram account is fairly new and raising slowly, steadily and naturally. I’m close to 1,000 followers and I usually get around 200 likes per post, typical stats for my kind of content as someone who isn’t a pro photographer.

He should be getting close to 1,000 likes per post. Based on averages, I am guessing that he has maybe a few hundred real followers and the rest are fake.

The issue is that because he is promoting himself as a photographer/film maker, he’s actually making his skill and work look far worse than it is. It would be far better for him to have 10 followers and 8 likes than 5,000 followers and 10 likes. One shows you’re starting off but most people really like your work, the other visually shows that your work isn’t good at all because nobody likes it.

I’ve blurred out the main details. This isn’t a naming and shaming post. It is however one of the best examples I’ve found of what never to do when it’s your livelihood you’re promoting.

You can hide fake followers on some platforms. Instagram is not one of them. The percentage of likes will always be an issue and it will always show up as clear as day.