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The temptation is real for getting famous on Instagram. This is specially true for struggling creators who fail to attract a healthy amount of followers though they produce great content. Unfortunately, there are people who try to exploit these creators by promising them thousands of followers for a small fee. So, is this for real? Can you actually buy thousands of followers for a nominal fee? In this article, I will discuss the reality behind buying Instagram followers.

Is Buying Instagram Followers a Good Idea?

When you make a post on Instagram, you may often receive messages from random accounts asking you to send them your content. In return, they would promote the post you just made. These accounts usually have thousands of followers and appear to be legitimate.

So, what happens after you contact these individuals? Someone starts a chat with you. When they figure that you are looking to promote your content, they offer you packages that allow you to get a decent number of followers for cheap. For example, you may be offered 1000 followers for $10, 5000 followers for $50, etc.

As tempting as it may be, it’s not a good idea to fall for these offers. I tested this out with an account to see how this works and here’s what I found. I bought the cheapest package possible.

After I purchases the package, I actually started seeing an increase in the followers. The followers grew until I hit the target amount and even more. I also started seeing likes and comments in my previous posts. This all seemed very real and promising. The entire process took just a few hours.

Now that thousands of followers have been added to my account, I did some digging to see who these followers were and whether they were legitimate. I went to random profiles and noticed something strange. The accounts were all few months old and had random names and autogenerated content. Usually, some random pictures which were posted few days apart. Obviously, you can tell that these accounts were fake.

After a day, I started seeing some of the followers disappear. Apparently, Instagram detects these accounts as fake and deletes them. Over the next few days, half of the followers disappeared. The person who sold me the package now contacted me again and offered me cheap packages to buy followers again. 

As tempting as it may be, it’s not advisable to buy Instagram followers. The value of your content is based on your user engagement and these fake accounts will not help you create engagement. Instead, your content will lose value because of the follower to engagement ratio.

Therefore, avoid buying Instagram followers at all cost and grow your account through engaging content.