The differences between mass following and subscriber buying

Mass following: short-term marketing strategy complementary to growth hacking

Web marketing includes several strategies and techniques that allow you to develop your business very quickly. Many start-ups use some of these methods for their development, including the technique of "growth hacking". This is a webmarketing strategy that combines hacking techniques to optimise the growth of a company or brand. This strategy aims at strong growth through methods that deviate from the normal system. This approach is not always legal, but it is done within the limits of what is allowed on the web.

Growth hacking uses techniques such as mass following to boost visibility. This is a method of artificially increasing an audience. You should know that the reputation of an account, whether it is on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, depends on its number of followers. In this case, the more followers your professional account has, the more visibility you gain and the more credibility you will have in the eyes of your community of followers. Mass following consists of following accounts en masse in the hope that they will in turn subscribe to your account. 

Mass following: a strategy to encourage follow back

The principle of mass following is to subscribe to several accounts at the same time in order to be followed in return. This is called follow back. This practice translates into the fact of following a profile that has followed yours. The aim is to thank them and to return a sign of politeness. This is the principle of reciprocity. The follow back is in a way the fruit of mass following, which is very much used and much more efficient and reliable than buying followers. The very functioning of social network algorithms almost requires its use. 

If you subscribe to hundreds of accounts every day, you are sure to get more followers. This practice of mass following is effective, but time consuming. There are now automated follow back methods based on the grey-hat approach whose aim is to increase the number of followers. This consists of setting up automatic routines managed by bots that follow hundreds of profiles every day. The number of followers increases continuously and drastically. Even if this technique is forbidden by some social platforms, it is still effective. Provided, of course, that a lot of precautions are taken.  

Buying followers: to have an artificial community

It takes a lot of time and energy to develop a community around a brand or a company on social networks. This is why many companies are tempted to buy followers or likes. This is an easy approach that seems to be a quick and cheap solution. Among other things, it allows you to have an artificial community. 

When buying followers, the first thing you need to remember is that the vast majority of your new followers are just bots and ghost accounts. They don't really exist and are mostly inactive. In general, they don't add any value to your posts, as they only add to your list of followers. 

This artificial community is very quickly noticed if you are not careful. The risk is enormous compared to the low value that these fake followers can bring you. Moreover, this practice is forbidden by most social networks. Thanks to the algorithms of the social networks, which are constantly innovating, these fake accounts will be detected and then deleted. Thus, you risk finding yourself overnight deluged by several hundred fake followers. 

Buying followers: a strategy that does not reflect awareness

The number of followers on social networks reflects the awareness of your brand or company. Indeed, if you have several thousand followers, it means that your customers are satisfied with your offer. You will gain credibility in the eyes of other users who will be tempted to follow you. However, this satisfaction cannot be measured on fake followers. This strategy will have no impact on your reputation, since the accounts that follow you are not even real. 

With this kind of approach, the fake subscribers available to you are usually inactive. Inactive accounts cannot increase your visibility because they are not real people. On the contrary, you will be seen as a cheat and you risk losing money and damaging your brand image. What's more, fake accounts are easily noticed and your real subscribers may see fake accounts on your subscriber list. 

By buying subscribers, you risk :

• shoot up your engagement rate,
• lose your credibility in a hurry,
• get into a vicious circle,
• discover the shadowban.
  

Mass following and buying followers are based on the same principle. The only difference lies in the nature of the followers. Mass following is based on subscribing to real accounts, while the other is fed by fake accounts. A difference that My Name Is Bond has made clear to you to act with caution.