How to Grow Instagram Followers Organically for Your Business

The purchase of a few initial followers might be a good idea at the time. But is it really?

It’s like that you’re “buying” an audience of people who might like your work. But is this really the reality you’re obtaining?

The company behind the social media software Hootsuite chose to put this idea to the test.

They wanted to find out about it for themselves. What’s the difference between a “bought” follower and an organic follower?

What They Did

In the beginning, they made a fake account. They were required to view this in the same way that many companies do.

You’re gaining a following from the ground up. They had to replicate the same. The fact that their name is well-known to it would sabotage the study.

Then, they looked into the possibilities. They found websites selling 100 followers for $3.

Other sites were also selling followers at as much as $1,000.

To test their hypothesis, they decided to purchase an item that was in the middle to make certain…

…they were not just buying bargain-priced goods due to the bargain price.

The company claimed to be reliable by providing reviews of something that appeared to be real customers. They claimed to have “quality followers”.

What Happened

After two hours, they were able to count 400 followers. This is enough followers to bring some attention to a post.

They decided to put up something to see what happens.

In terms of Instagram, the post was normally likely to be viewed by double taps and even comments.

There was no response. Maybe it was too for a time.

They waited 24 hours before today; they had over 1,000 followers. But nothing.

They waited for a month and continued to upload. Not a single double-tap.

Who were those 1,000 followers? Who has been “chosen” to be sold as one of the followers?

While looking through the accounts, they came across what appeared to be:

Statements that are very old and inactive.

Adult content accounts

Accounts belonging to snarky teenagers taking selfies

Funds that weren’t active in the beginning (no posts)

Also, they are very likely not the real people in any way.

This isn’t an isolated incident. It wasn’t a random chance to pick a bad option.

This occurs repeatedly. You can raise the price.

You could try one of the apparently harmless methods, like automating following and liking to gain followers.

It doesn’t matter.

Purchased followers aren’t engaging followers. They’re not your ideal customers.

In the majority of cases, it’s not true that they’re real people.

Hootsuite was the last thing to check before it was time to pass the test.

How would having thousands of followers assist them in getting momentum on Instagram to gain real followers? They shut down the account for a while and then continued their posts.

The number of followers was at or below 1,000 followers all the time.

It was apparent that fake followers were somehow frightening away the real ones. How can that be?

It is easy to tell whether a particular account has bought followers.

There are now tools that identify accounts that have bought followers with an algorithm that analyses the statements that follow them.

There are a few tale-telling indicators. It indeed scares people away.

What’s not to worry about is to use Instagram as it is supposed to be used. It’s all about learning how to increase Instagram followers naturally.

This is what this article is about.