Have you been searching for "buy Instagram followers" a lot to grow your Insta page? You've likely read a few blogs that tell users not to even think about it, or else they could be banned. Well, as long as you do this correctly and strategically, you do not have to worry about buying Instagram likes and followers.
We will not discuss morality in this article. Instead, we will review the many myths that exist with respect to purchasing Instagram followers. We will identify things that are factual versus things that may be overstated.
Myth #1: Buying followers will get your account banned instantly
The most often stated rumor about the way Instagram prohibits attaching an account to it is that buying followers will get you banned immediately. This is mostly just hype created by the people who spread it. There is no auto ban programmed into the platform that bans the user’s account as soon as a batch of new users arrives. Instagram’s algorithm for detecting bots or fake users and reporting them is based on detecting patterns over time rather than through instant bans.
If you go from having 500 users to having 50,000 users in one night, and you do not have any engagement on your page, then that means the account is a red flag to Instagram.
So, the risk of buying followers at all is not going to be getting banned from the platform. Most likely one of the following will occur:
Your reach can be temporarily limited due to a ‘flag’.
Your follower number will be reduced by the platform because of them performing a regular 'purge' of bots and fake accounts in one go.
If you have any other reasons for being on thin ice with the platform like copyright strikes, previous complaints, etc., then you may get manually reviewed.
It is rare to be permanently banned from the platform as a result of buying followers alone, unless you couple that activity with other blatant rule violations.
Myth #2: All purchased followers are the same
There are three types of purchased followers:
Bots
Real Accounts That Are Dormant
People Who Buy Engagement In Return For Following/Commenting/Liking
If you want to buy Instagram followers, you really need to understand the differences between them. If a seller does not disclose the type of followers they will be providing you with, they are likely providing you with bot accounts.
Myth #3: It doesn't matter, since the algorithm doesn't actually check engagement quality
This point once had merit, but not now. The engagement signals considered by Instagram for ranking and displaying content on explore/hashtag pages are based on relative engagement rates, not total follower counts.
This creates a practical effect, meaning your organic reach can be lower after you buy 10,000 followers than before you bought any. A 5k account with 4% engagement often outperforms a 25k account with 0.3% engagement by the number of "real followers" who see their content.
Myth #4: Buying likes is easier to track than it is to buy followers.
To buy Instagram likes has an alternative set of risks compared to buying followers. The difference between the two lies in the immediate, visible impact on a post’s functionality when purchasing likes versus purchasing followers.
In case you receive 40 likes on a post, but you purchase enough likes to increase it to 2000 likes, without any corresponding increase in comments, story shares, or new followers, this will create a mismatch in your profile that can be more readily identified by both the algorithm and actual humans viewing your profile.
Consequently, if you inflate your like count while not having any comment activity, you will significantly jeopardize your ability to acquire a sponsorship with a brand.
Myth #5: If you purchase followers from a 'real-looking' company, no one will know.
People can easily tell this, including Instagram itself. Anyone who knows how to search for information can use metrics that are publicly available to see the following: your follower-to-following ratio and growth of followers as compared to the number of times you post; and whether any of your so-called followers show any activity on their account.
If you plan to buy Instagram likes and followers, think of it as a short-term appearance strategy, not a long-term growth strategy. The most realistic operational uses where your risk is the least:
Brand-new account credibility: A brand-new business account with no followers is going to appear less trustworthy to someone just visiting for the first time; if the account has a reasonable amount of followers, then it will appear more trustworthy while you put up more and more content.
Establishing social proof on the launch date: Giving an enhancement in likes on the first post of a new product to start it at 0, so that the actual likes can begin to catch up to it when organic traffic begins to be built.
So what should you actually take away from this?
The fundamental takeaway from this isn't "don't buy Instagram followers", but rather that the result of doing so is utterly dependent on the supplier you buy them from. The commonality of every one of those myths listed above comes from a single source: low-quality suppliers selling generic batches of bots with a lack of consideration for pacing and ratio.
To buy Instagram likes creates solutions to important real-world problems of new accounts having an "empty room" effect. Those accounts experiencing the most success are using it as scaffolding around quality content and not as a substitute for such construction.