Buying Twitter/Facebook Followers

[Hurf]

@EGOL - You are absolutely correct. Quality is always preferable to Quantity. Now, we all know that the BEST WAY to make gains in the SERPS is to stick to the straight and narrow and work hard and eventually you will obtain the results you want. However, in the real world, we are competing  against huge numbers of SEO companies that all promise fast results - and deliver them - by using a variety of dark practices - and many of these companies are not getting penalised for it (and I have watched them prosper over the course of nearly 4 years using less than pure techniques.)

So as time passes I watch them continue to reap the rewards, thinking to myself 'Any minute now Google will see what they are doing and drop them off the face of the earth...' Well, I'm still waiting, and waiting, and waiting...

So what does the honest, wholesome, whitehat SEO do?

How realistic is it for an SME with say 400 inbound links and 50 facebook followers to HONESTLY outgun a competitor who has 320,000 inbound links and 3,000 fake facebook followers?

I have fought quite a number of battles for some time with clients and employers, all the time resisting the easy path in favour of the long haul, but I am getting rather worn down by it. The addage if you can't beat 'em - join 'em springs to mind.

There are certainly scenarios where a quick boost to your fan base numbers for credibility are essential - especially if part of your pitch to potential clients will be that you will be marketing product X using social networking sites (Let's say we are selling a targeted property listings site, which will also use facebook and twitter to further promote its listings) Now your potential client will want to see the audience you plan to promote their product to - BEFORE you win their business and therefore have a product to promote - so  you are faced with a dilemma - spend a lengthy and non-revenue generating period  while you earnestly build a following, or, spend $50 and build the numbers in a matter of days - show the customer your thousand/s of eager followers fans - win the business and THEN invest your time in gathering genuine interested followers and in turn build a number of followers who are genuinely interested in the products you promote.

There is safety in numbers at play here - for all parties - as @Dunamis said 'if I see a page that has cool stuff and is followed by thousands of people, I am more likely to follow it.  I'm  not as likely to become a fan of a page with 100 members even if the content looks decent. '

We can't fight human nature with the argument 'Hey, I might only have a few followers, but one of them is the Pope!' Numbers are a very quick indicator of Credibility  and we are manipulated by the power of numbers dozens of times a day and this will not change!

[Hurf]

Well, if he is expecting conversion from fake followers - tell him to think again!

If he is looking to build credibility through numbers and THEN gain converting followers after the fact, then that may not be so silly (based on the psychology that people follow the crowd.)

Don't forget the SEO benefits of having a larger number of followers/fans is known to give.

[MarieHaynes]

My experiment with facebook ads is on a REALLY small scale.  I have been running $2.00 per day ads for 5 days now.  I read somewhere that when you're trying to gain fans it's best to run CPM rather than CPC, but when I look at the numbers I'm not sure about that.

So far I've gained 10 extra fans on $2 per day at a cost of $1 per fan.  That's higher than I'm willing to pay.  So, the next step is for me to start optimizing the campaign by targeting particular demographics (for example, my site attracts more people in the 25-34 range who are female so I'll target those).  I'm also going to start playing around with my ad copy.

Back to the CPC or CPM, I'm currently paying $0.21 CPM.  I'm going to see how the ads run once they're better targeted, and with different ad copy.  If I can't get the cost per fan acquisition down then I'll try some CPC ads.

It's fun to play around with.  Once I get it figured out then if I can get good quality fans for a decent price I'll throw more money at it.

Although I've only gained 10 fans directly from my ads, I gained a lot more fans than I usually do over a week.  I'm not sure if this is indirectly because of my ads or not.

My fan interactions are improving as well and I'm really enjoying starting to have a fan base.

[kchandler]

Sounds like a pretty good return, $1 per fan. Especially if the were truely engaged fans, rather than the fictious fans that it sounds like you could get from these purchasing sites. Thanks for the info!

[kchandler]

Is there actually a published article with statistics that state that more followers/fans give you higher ranking in SERPs?

[MarieHaynes]

I don't think that having more fans puts you higher in the serps.  However, when fans share your stuff on facebook it definitely helps.

I'm not sure how much effect a "like" has though as opposed to a "share".

[USHoleInOne]

Whats the point if the followers or fans aren't really interested in the content. A better way to earn facebook and twitter followers would be to run a contest or sweepstakes.

Then when you build the fan base, write interesting content that will keep them there.

[KeriMorgret]

Just today YOUmoz published a piece about one person's experience with buying Facebook followers. Most of them appeared to be from Eastern Europe, and possibly under 13 years old. He did not have the best experience. This was also at the request of a client who wouldn't back down. It might be useful to read, add a thumb if you agree, etc. http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/social-media-fan-base-to-buy-or-not-to-buy

[Tony-Karib]

My experience was a little different. I targeted and refined legitimate ads on Facebook to potential readers in the Philippians. They landed on a custom Facebook tab that encouraged them to "like" the page. Once they connected I have them move to a "Best of Our Website" page. The end results was about 3 cent per fan page follower and most of them visit our site immediately. These have stuck around and most visit the website again within one week of their initial like.

I've tried similar systems in a few other countries, but the cost was usually closer to 8 cent.

[ChristopherGlaeser]

I tried a sweepstakes. The prize was a $620 electronic device for athletes. The majority of entries were either fake people or couch potatos who spent countless hours entering sweepstakes and would never consider using the device. Lesson learned.

[JamesNorquay]

I would not advise on buying fans because usually you end up with low quality fans who have no engagement with the page, 95% of the time they are fake profiles too. Really why buy a bunch of fake fans, the only benefit is if you want to make your brand look like it has some likes! 
But overall in the future your page becomes a waste land where people do not even comment or any thing due to the fact you have no real customers to engage with.

[hireawizseo]

Numbers make a visual impact but there will be no interactivity or brand loyalty...