Yes, you really can buy Instagram followers for promotion. There are lots of very cheap services out there that let you purchase 1000s of followers for just a few dollars. But you only are paying for a small number of actual followers. Most of these fake followers are either dormant accounts or bots, so they will never actively engage with your content. But it doesn’t take long before the account becomes clear, and you are left with worthless humans who won’t help you promote anything.

So the question remains. Can you buy followers on Instagram to boost your brand awareness? If you want to use social media effectively, then answering this question is almost entirely negotiable. Social media are all about increasing your brand awareness and engaging your audience in the conversation. If you have a solid social media strategy, then buying Instagram followers may be just the thing to leverage that strategy into more direct traffic, and increased brand awareness.

I think the key to buying Instagram followers is finding a company that offers value for their money. Many companies that offer digital media management and promotion services will let you buy your followers. The problem with this is that they aren’t always going to be your best options. If you are buying from a company that does mostly pay large agencies to manage their brand, you are likely to be getting a very poor quality. Those agencies will likely get you a list full of inactive or bot profiles. Even if the company has some good recommendations, you are still rarely going to be able to ensure that the people on your list are truly your audience.

Another way to buy Instagram followers is by working with organic campaigns. This means that you can buy high quality, verified Instagram users, and start following them and engaging with them daily. I say ‘organic’ because there are people on Instagram that aren’t active, but who are still popular with their fans. I call these inactive accounts ‘bots’ because these accounts tend to stay online longer and therefore gain more followers than their counterparts. So while it is possible to use a bot strategy, I highly recommend that you work with real people and find an autoresponder to manage all your campaigns.

My favorite way to buy Instagram followers is from an autoresponder. With an autoresponder, you can schedule emails, which automatically send out messages at pre-set intervals, designed around your brand theme.