Social media—What started off as a means to be in touch with family and friends quickly rose to one of the most effective marketing tools in today’s world. While it was completely uncharted territory, businesses now are considering a variety of SMM KPIs to grow their market. Simply put, no one can ignore the existence of social media anymore.
That’s how the concept of influencer marketing grew. Why? Because people relate to them more than the brands themselves. It’s like the modern version of “word-of-mouth” marketing. At the same time, various bloggers are trying to buy a few thousand followers to boost their presence.
But that’s not helpful anymore. Instead, it can turn out to be against your marketing strategy. Here’s Why?
Why Should Social Media Influencers Avoid Buying Followers?
Everyone thinks what could hurt from buying a few thousand followers. Isn’t it? While it might seem enticing but the reality is that it hurts your credibility as an influencer in the long run. And with social media channels making it a point to turn down such accounts, you might end up losing your account.
Do you want that? I am sure not! If you are still ignoring the importance of organic traffic building strategies, here’s why you should think about it right away.
I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
Fake Followers Can Impact Your Engagement Rates
When you are buying followers, you are not ensuring engagement. They are mere numbers. They are equivalent to bots who have no willingness to engage with your brand or what you’re doing on your social media.
And when it comes to social media, engagement is one of the primary KPI in assessing whether you are doing good.
Brands Won’t Work With You
It’s pretty obvious. Organic growth is what looks promising in today’s world. Anything that’s out of the ordinary would be like a “red mark.” And with PR reps and marketers having access to tools that can reveal you are a genuine influence, things like this would turn against you.
Why feel embarrassed when you can use strategies to grow your market organically? Right?
Your Reputation Will Face a Heat
Buying followers will only give you a temporary boost. After that, you’ll feel intimidated with less engagement or mentions. And since influencer marketing is still new compared to other marketing strategies, such incidents will travel fast. And it will reveal you as an inauthentic. You might even be blacklisted. This goes without saying that it’ll severely impact your reputation in the long run.
That’s not all!
It’s just one side of the story. When it comes to the digital world, no one is safe. Sometimes there is a phishing attack, while the other times, there is a case of impersonation.
How to Avoid Scammers?
All of this can turn out to be ghastly. But one can avoid it by using the following ideas. Are you ready to learn? Then, let’s get started!
Start With Vetting Your Friend or Contact List
It is very important to have an understanding of who is on your followers’ list. Associating with everyone without vetting can enhance the risk of scammers in your social media channel. And it goes without saying that such individuals aim at malicious strategies that can go against your work.
Make sure you are 100% sure about your followers’ list. It might seem tedious, but it will ensure your growth.
Avoid Contacting The Imposter
It’s a waste of time and energy to accuse imposters and ask them to stop their activity. The best thing is to block them right away. Different social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and others, provide varied strategies to block such spammers or fake account holders.
It’s absolutely like if you want to block someone on your contact list, you have to go into the settings and stop their number. Although people on social media get to know if they are blocked, the same rule does not apply to contact numbers. People usually end up finding how to know if someone blocked your number, to know whether or not they are blocked. But like contact numbers, fake spammers can use different accounts or numbers to reach you. So, be a little vigilant.
Report Such Incidences
Simply blocking someone won’t be helpful as such mischievous characters use different means to do the same. In such a case, reporting such accounts or numbers will help you avoid any malicious messages. Remember, you can’t let anyone affect what you build. So, taking necessary measures to prevent such incidents in the future must be your responsibility.
Being Proactive is The Key
If you find someone is impersonating you, make sure to send out advance announcements to tell people that the person isn’t you. Other than that, be wary of the people trying to contact you many times. It goes without saying that it takes a lot of effort to create an online presence for yourself. You can’t let anyone take advantage of what you build.
Wrapping up
Influencer marketing is all about building relationships with the right people to promote your business or market. To become a thought leader in what brands look for, you need to create a social media presence that will force them naturally to connect with you.
However, if you are not doing it right, no one would want to connect with your social media handle. For instance, if you’re going to link to hotel brands, try becoming like Mr. Bourdain, who often raves about accommodations on his SMM platforms.
It’s game-changing for you and your associated businesses. In fact, as per the data reported in Linquia’s Research, more than 74% of marketers are thinking of activating their influencer campaigns once again.
Plus, even with the budget for digital marketing campaigns might be decreasing due to pandemic, more than 40% of marketers confirmed that there would be no change in influencer budgets.
That’s the power of influencer marketing, growing with social media marketing taking precedence over various digital marketing strategies. So, it is more important than ever that you become the kind of social media influencer that companies would want to work with.
