Astroturfing: Is buying friends good for you?

Who says you can’t buy friends? In the realm of social media, you can amass hundreds to thousands of followers overnight. Astroturfing, the practice of increasing the number of followers on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest, has become an internet phenomenon. It is the fastest path to popularity.

The benefits of astroturfing are undeniable. With the right amount of followers, you can make other people believe that you are worth more than you really are, that you are really important, and that you have something to offer them. A high number of followers gives you the illusion of popularity, which in turn increases your value in the social media sphere. Eventually, more people will follow you, further bolstering your online popularity. But enjoy it while it lasts because astroturf will cost you a lot.

While you can get up to 100,000 followers in a day by spending money on services that automate the tracking system, social media platforms have it all figured out. They know about these services and are well aware of the bots or spam accounts that use these services to increase their customer followings. Social media platforms take action in two ways: they ban spam accounts, which significantly reduces your following, or they can simply ban your account for being guilty of astroturfing. Either way, your efforts will be wasted and your money will be wasted.

Let’s say you’re careful. You don’t get as many followers through astroturfing and your account doesn’t get banned. Excellent! But still, the number of spam accounts following you will send red flags to other people, both your followers and those who are considering following you. They will find out that you have been pretending to be popular by accumulating fake followers. As a consequence, your online credibility will be greatly reduced. You will lose followers and stop gaining real followers.

Also, having thousands of fake followers is useless. Remember that these fake accounts are bots, so they cannot like or share the content you post. One of the main purposes of social media is exposure. Without likes or shares, the things you post won’t have a wide reach and your account’s exposure to other people will be limited.

The best way to do this is to build your following from scratch. Engage with people, share interesting content, contribute helpful information, show you care, offer tips and advice, and develop close relationships with your followers. The key action here is to build trust. The more people trust you, the more followers you will have. It might be helpful to apply other principles of friendship, such as compassion, correction, comfort, openness, compliance, and compromise.

Accumulating real followers will give you the exposure you need, along with the popularity you crave. By then you will no longer need to buy friends or astroturf. You can still use astoturfing to boost your popularity. However, use it with caution and focus more on how you can attract proper attention on social media.