The goodness of social media is not just in terms of allowing you to connect with your friends and family, as well as seeing the amazing posts from people all around the world, but it also allows you to market your business and branding to a global audience. In fact, it transcends the limits of traditional media, because your content can be seen by people from different regions, regardless of where they are or whether they follow you or not.
Among these social media networks, Instagram happens to become the most prominent ones in terms of the exposure it gives you. Thanks to the wide array of people that use it actively on a daily and monthly basis, you are able to grow the awareness of your business to a large following, as well as increasing traffic to your site. In addition, the introduction of the algorithm in 2016 changed the manner of business on the platform. That has led to the increase of people employing the services of bots and the ever increasing services that offer you the chance to get free likes on Instagram.
Therefore, it is important to consider the benefits and drawbacks of buying Instagram likes.
The advantages
Instant form of recognition
It is no secret that one of the criteria the Instagram algorithm uses to rank posts on the platform is he overall engagement levels they get, which includes the likes, comments and shares. It is therefore easy to understand that the more your post gets likes, the more recognition you will get because of that.
If you are to examine the other accounts that are in the same industry or niche as yours, you will notice the most popular accounts have roughly the same number of likes per post. When people see that your posts have a high number of likes, they will connect you to the leaders in your niche. That also means your influence is likely to spread, you will not be forgotten quickly, and they will tend to check up your account. If you notice that your competition is becoming closer in terms of engagement, then you can consider buying likes so that you increase the gap.
Interactions will be greater
You do not just want your posts to only get likes and that is it – you want to get interactions from other users. Regardless of what form that comes in, such as commenting, liking and sharing, the more engagement your posts get, the higher your post will rank. The less activity happens, the more forgettable your account is.
It is normal for your audience to want in on some action if they see your posts have many likes, and it is likely that your posts will have their own lifespan very quickly. The more other people will see it, they notice how popular it is, and they will likely do what they see everyone else is doing (the feeling of not missing out).
The cost of buying them is small
Of course with buying, you need to spend money, but it is not much when you think about it. The problem with organic interactions when you have few followers is because the algorithm can make it challenging to gain widespread recogni9tion, unless you are willing to wait for years, and willing to spend large amounts of money in traditional advertising methods.
When you go the route of buying likes, it will be a small price to pay in the long term. You will not use much, yet you will be seen by many Instagram users.
It allows you to jump the competition
You cannot avoid competition, because you are not a monopoly in what you do. There will also be accounts that have higher numbers of followers and greater engagement levels, and before you begin placing dents in their methods, it can take many years to close that gap. When you decide to buy Instagram likes though, it helps in closing this gap.
Drawbacks
The engagement levels are lower than organic methods
When you decide to buy likes or followers, it is very similar to purchasing random people who do not know the value of what you do or why you are in that niche. The engagement from thee people will therefore not be as high as you want, beyond going from giving your posts some likes. It will also be lower than when you decide to grow your audience organically.
When another brand decides to examine the engagement levels of your account, they will quickly notice there is some discrepancy between your likes and your followers or comments. That will raise a red flag, and make them wary of interacting with you.
It creates a vicious cycle of buying Instagram likes
Social media is addictive, but the additional feature of fake likes is even more addictive. When you become hooked on likes, it gets very difficult to survive without the validation of others, whether they are actual Instagram users or not. This is because the content tends to over-perform when you buy likes, compared to other content that you post.
The bad news is that it is very easy to spot these differences when analyzing the performance of the account overall, and Instagram can even shut down your account. This has high chances of happening unless you buy more likes – which means spending more.
You are risking breaking the rules and terms of the platform
There are community guidelines of Instagram, and you risk breaking these rules. The platform will strive to remove fake accounts, which it admits is a major problem, as well as bot services, which it has done in the past.
Final thoughts
Even though buying likes will increase your reach temporarily, it is still a major controversial issue because of problems associated with it. You do not need to risk the credibility of your account by buying fake likes. It is better to keep it safe and grow the account using organic methods such as hashtags and using common keywords. The engagement levels also tend to be lower than organic reach and actual accounts.