Have You Found Examples Of Folks Buying Twitter Followers?

[wattssw]

Check out this article.....

USA Today “Handicapper” Danny Sheridan Bought Thousands of Twitter Followers: http://www.wagerminds.com/blog/danny-sheridan/usa-today-handicapper-danny-sheridan-bought-thousands-of-twitter-followers-6096/

Seems pretty clear Sheridan, who is not a particularly compelling celebrity, is purchasing Twitter followers. I remember when he first launched his Twitter account, he offered (on live radio spots) to donate $1 to charity for every follower he received for a few months.

From the article: "Buying followers is, if you think about it, the height of narcissism. You’re buying followers to dupe casual Twitter users into thinking you’re more popular and influential than you really are.  In turn, you’re hoping the phony popularity will help translate into actual popularity as legitimate users flock to a seemingly ‘popular’ Twitter user."

Do you believe this is becoming a problem on Twitter, and do you think it actually can help him or anyone else?

[MattJanaway]

I know loads of people who have purchased Twitter followers. There are at least 10 businesses who I have done work for who practice this method regularly. I saw an article somewhere not so long ago which claimed that 85% of Twitter accounts were spam/fake accounts and I can believe it. Users only have one goal, to shout as loud as they can but they refuse to listen to others... This just results in lots of shouting lol.

[APICDA]

Yes indeed, the purchase of Twitter followers as with Facebook is very very common.  It's a bummer!

[bronxpad]

Buying Twitter Followers is not a good practice and actually against Twitters Policy. My advice is to cross market yourself on all the social networks and you will see that in time you will attract real followers. Buying Face Book Likes and Twitter Followers is like buying links. Seems easy but in the long run is not worth it.

Also most of these likes and followers aren't real and won't provide much value for you as a business or marketer. It's nice to have 10,000 followers but there is a different of genuine versus artificial.

You can also potentially hurt your efforts. I am sure that Twitter and other Social Media Networks are aware of this tactic and will in due time penalize sites for this practice.

Remember Panda and Penguin.

[EppieVojt]

This is pretty rampant and shouldn't be all that surprising.  There's a great video called "First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy" (can't recommend it enough) that illustrates why people do this.  It's not enough to be compelling / interesting.  People need to feel safe that you are worth following... that they won't feel like idiots for thinking your stuff is good.

On Twitter, your Follower:Following ratio is a quick way to gauge value.  Sure, it's a flawed measure that's easily gamed, but it's something that inherently feels like it should work... and it definitely influences how many people follow you and who will follow you.  "Fake it 'til you make it" applied to social media.

[wattssw]

I've never purchased fans, likes, followers, or anything else. Buying Facebook fans will cause a drop in EdgeRank as nobody is interacting with the posts. I don't see any negative repercussions for purchasing Twitter followers other than being called out like this publicly.

[bradkrussell]

A guy I went to uni with actually owned a website that sold Twitter followers. I think the going rate was about $40 for a few thousand. He did alright business out of it.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to stop. People want their follow count to be as high as possible.

I have never purchased followers and never will. The aim of the social media game is to create meaningful relationships (be it with customers, like people in the industry etc). You're not going to get that by buying followers.

[bradkrussell]

Good timing - one of Australia's biggest sporting stars has just shut down his Twitter account after getting outed for buying followers.

Article here

Quite funny that a fellow sports star outed him! So yes, it does happen.