Have You Found Examples Of Folks Buying Twitter Followers?
-
Check out this article.....
USA Today “Handicapper” Danny Sheridan Bought Thousands of Twitter Followers: http://www.wagerminds.com/blog/danny-sheridan/usa-today-handicapper-danny-sheridan-bought-thousands-of-twitter-followers-6096/
Seems pretty clear Sheridan, who is not a particularly compelling celebrity, is purchasing Twitter followers. I remember when he first launched his Twitter account, he offered (on live radio spots) to donate $1 to charity for every follower he received for a few months.
From the article: "Buying followers is, if you think about it, the height of narcissism. You’re buying followers to dupe casual Twitter users into thinking you’re more popular and influential than you really are. In turn, you’re hoping the phony popularity will help translate into actual popularity as legitimate users flock to a seemingly ‘popular’ Twitter user."
Do you believe this is becoming a problem on Twitter, and do you think it actually can help him or anyone else?
-
Good timing - one of Australia's biggest sporting stars has just shut down his Twitter account after getting outed for buying followers.
Quite funny that a fellow sports star outed him! So yes, it does happen.
-
A guy I went to uni with actually owned a website that sold Twitter followers. I think the going rate was about $40 for a few thousand. He did alright business out of it.
Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to stop. People want their follow count to be as high as possible.
I have never purchased followers and never will. The aim of the social media game is to create meaningful relationships (be it with customers, like people in the industry etc). You're not going to get that by buying followers.
-
I've never purchased fans, likes, followers, or anything else. Buying Facebook fans will cause a drop in EdgeRank as nobody is interacting with the posts. I don't see any negative repercussions for purchasing Twitter followers other than being called out like this publicly.
-
This is pretty rampant and shouldn't be all that surprising. There's a great video called "First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy" (can't recommend it enough) that illustrates why people do this. It's not enough to be compelling / interesting. People need to feel safe that you are worth following... that they won't feel like idiots for thinking your stuff is good.
On Twitter, your Follower:Following ratio is a quick way to gauge value. Sure, it's a flawed measure that's easily gamed, but it's something that inherently feels like it should work... and it definitely influences how many people follow you and who will follow you. "Fake it 'til you make it" applied to social media.
-
Buying Twitter Followers is not a good practice and actually against Twitters Policy. My advice is to cross market yourself on all the social networks and you will see that in time you will attract real followers. Buying Face Book Likes and Twitter Followers is like buying links. Seems easy but in the long run is not worth it.
Also most of these likes and followers aren't real and won't provide much value for you as a business or marketer. It's nice to have 10,000 followers but there is a different of genuine versus artificial.
You can also potentially hurt your efforts. I am sure that Twitter and other Social Media Networks are aware of this tactic and will in due time penalize sites for this practice.
Remember Panda and Penguin.
-
Yes indeed, the purchase of Twitter followers as with Facebook is very very common. It's a bummer!
-
I know loads of people who have purchased Twitter followers. There are at least 10 businesses who I have done work for who practice this method regularly. I saw an article somewhere not so long ago which claimed that 85% of Twitter accounts were spam/fake accounts and I can believe it. Users only have one goal, to shout as loud as they can but they refuse to listen to others... This just results in lots of shouting lol.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Twitter hashtag tending?
A Twitter hashtag #MufflerMan is trending worldwide and that too since last 8-10 days. How is it possible for a hashtag to rend for so long?
Social Media | | IM_Learner0 -
Add Tracking Parameters to Website Links on Facebook/Twitter
does anyone know of a way to add tracking parameters to facebook/twitter website links in the about us section so that we can understand what traffic is specifically coming from that page? I already add tracking to posts, but I am more trying to track each standard link on these social channels. I am currently running into character limits or the result looks like a long url that will most certainly deter clicks because it looks suspicious.
Social Media | | dsinger1 -
Hi! The same function you have on twitter ( how you can see their flooewrs) do you have it for blogs?
Hi! The same function you have on twitter ( how you can see their flooewrs) do you have it for blogs?Describe your question in detail. The more information you give, the better! It helps give context for a great answer.
Social Media | | JohannaPihl0 -
Twitter inbound link not being indexed
Hello Mozzers! I was using open site explorer to investigate inbound links to our company website and also to our competitors. The main difference being is their top links are all coming from twitter - where as ours aren't. Now our twitter account is about 10months old maybe more and it's got the standard setup with a description and the URL. We've also been tweeting with a link directly to our site. Yet no luck? Am I missing something? Thanks, Dan
Social Media | | Sparkstone0 -
Does buying thousands of Facebook Fans/Likes affect SEO?
To begin with, please pardon me if this question is ignorant. I'm completely new to this whole social media thing, and somewhat feel it is overhyped. I find it really difficult to believe that social media will actually help the majority of small business owners out there like me, and that most of them are probably being misled about the powers of social media to increase sales. Because it's mentioned so frequently, I've decided to delve into it a bit more to see how this could possibly help me business. Over the past few weeks, I've become familiar with a company that sells Facebook Likes, Twitter followers, as well as YouTube and SoundCloud plays. Since my official Twitter and FaceBook accounts really didn't have that many followers, I decided to buy a few thousand followers for each account. Initially, I bought them because I wondered what would happen if a customer that visited my online store happened to go to those Twitter and Facebook pages. If I personally see a Facebook page with few followers, I probably wouldn't give them my business. I would want to go with a company that seems to generate a bunch of traffic to their pages. Originally, I only had about 200 Facebook followers (now called Likes, it seems) and maybe 25 Twitter followers. I now have over 12,000 Twitter followers and 2,000 Facebook Likes. I may end up buying more since the service was pretty quick and affordable. I'd like to know if Google factors Likes and followers into it's formula for creating SERPS. Will my website rank higher if I have 10,000 likes, rather than only 200? If so, would it be a notable increase? FWIW, I found that more people organically started following my Facebook and Twitter accounts once I had more followers. I didn't change anything about how I maintained the page; I just had more people following them. One other thing of note: these companies are almost certainly using fake/hacked accounts to like various pages around Facebook/Twitter. You can tell because my Facebook page says some city in Croatia has the most amount of 'likes' of my page. Do you think this might come into play at all? Thanks for any and all help!
Social Media | | CHEATERS0 -
Business CRM for Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin
Hi Guys, Does anyone know / use any good all in one CRM for Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. This is for business purposes therefore I will need to able to post on facebook as my business page (not personal profile). Thank you.
Social Media | | Socialdude1 -
Social Content Posting - Post to Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter and Linked in at the same time
Hi, Is there any means of posting new content for my companies various social profiles in the one go rather than having to log into each one? This would save a lot of time. Thanks
Social Media | | fdep0 -
Buying Facebook Shares?
Would it be considered buying links if you asked your Facebook fan base to share a specific product page, and by doing so they will be entered to win a drawing? How would Google look at this? And could we expect a significant increase in rankings as a result? Or would it just be a temporary "what's trending?" boost you think?
Social Media | | JerDoggMckoy1