What happens when you buy twitter followers? The Rabbit Agency ran a little experiment to find out…
Metrics are important in digital media whether it’s website traffic statistics or social media interactions. However, be strategic with your choices. It’s not about gaining followers or fans, if they’re not interested in you or your organisation then the numbers have no meaning.
The Social Penguin recently ran an article on Social Media Gurus and the dangers of buying their snake oil. I love social media and really believe in its potential as a tool for engagement but these guys are right, your scepticism has a valuable place here. To be successful with social media it’s important to invest time and energy strategically, that way you’ll grow relevant followers who will take appropriate actions like visit your website or share a message. I would go even further and suggest that when you’re measuring traffic on your website and you’re tracking social media referrals, take note of where users go when they get to your site, what are they doing when they get there? How engaged are they with your content? This will help you to develop more meaningful digital strategies.
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I’ve heard a few people say it works to build up a certain number of followers and after that you change strategy to organic follower building.
What’s your view on that, Jennifer?
Well I can definitely see the logic in that, especially for a business account. However, I still wouldn’t recommend it.
For me, trust is one of the most important things to build in business and it really doesn’t take long to work out if followers are organic or purchased. Yes, you may look a bit unpopular to begin with but strong relationships are built over time and with effort. Some of my most beneficial business relationships began when I didn’t have many twitter followers but have stayed with me and have only improved over time. The same can be said for personal relationships too.
So for me this method has worked well but every business is different so to get the best results you would need to do a bit of a risk assessment and see if the business benefits are worth the risk.