I'm sort of the media watcher on here, since I come from a newspaper background.

So I'm chiming in to say I've been watching one of my old editors on Twitter. In one day she went from 160 followers to over 1300.

I had no idea how this happened, so I signed up and it looks like her followers are fake. Virtually all of them are following thousands of people but have a few followers and few Tweets (like 3-4 each) themselves. As such, she must have bought them.

There is the media for you: editors paid to bring you the truth who are deceiving everyone with fake followers.

It surprises me no one calls people on this because it's so transparent -- all you have to do is look at who a person's followers are. I'm sure this will only interest like three of you, but I felt I needed to put it on record as yet another way media people deceive us.

I wanted to buy like 15 just to get the herd mentality and make people want to follow. But then I decided that was dumb and that it doesnt matter because I only tweet about bullshit!

On the flip side, if you observe someone's twitter or facebook fan page and see minimal followers or likes they lose credibility.

Most people by nature are followers, so they will like someone/something if thousands of others do and will not bother to check the validity of those "cheering throngs".

Think of it like the laugh tracks used on old sitcoms to promote viewer engagement.

see Obama.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/...ollowers/1

Everybody does this from obama to lady gaga. I also recently heard 40% of twitter accounts havnt even sent a single tweet. when you buy followers obviously its bot accounts or autoposters. Most go away after a few weeks. The idea is not to but an engaged user but to give the impression your more popular than you are. Someone is more likely to follow someone with 50k followers than 50.

Do a quick google search on tnt tony #wearethepeople. Bbc did a story on him. Basically one of the most popular hashtags this year. The guy runs confrence calls about investments because hes based out of rural north dakota theres sum little known thing where they have to kick back part of their fees to users so he gets a few thousand people sitting listening to a 3 hour confrence call a few days a week and he makes about 15k via kickbacks from phone company. Really interesting hustke. The guys a known mlm scammer but a good hustler and gotta give it to him for finding an angle where his users dont give him money the phone company does

Pre-selection I guess at play everywhere

Quote: (04-14-2014 11:03 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

Everybody does this from obama to lady gaga. I also recently heard 40% of twitter accounts havnt even sent a single tweet. when you buy followers obviously its bot accounts or autoposters. Most go away after a few weeks. The idea is not to but an engaged user but to give the impression your more popular than you are. Someone is more likely to follow someone with 50k followers than 50.

Do a quick google search on tnt tony #wearethepeople. Bbc did a story on him. Basically one of the most popular hashtags this year. The guy runs confrence calls about investments because hes based out of rural north dakota theres sum little known thing where they have to kick back part of their fees to users so he gets a few thousand people sitting listening to a 3 hour confrence call a few days a week and he makes about 15k via kickbacks from phone company. Really interesting hustke. The guys a known mlm scammer but a good hustler and gotta give it to him for finding an angle where his users dont give him money the phone company does

Yup couldn't agree more. Hate to say it I'd rather build followers organically than look super fake. It's so obvious which of my friends on social media buy followers, likes, and reposts. Compared to who has real and organic interactions.

I'll just leave this here: http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/04/half-fa...-accounts/

In the early days it worked better. Twitter has gotten better at shutting dowm accts who do this or taking away fake followers. I used to use this site called like twitter train. It was badically i follow u then u follow me. It was a way to quickly gain real legit followers altho not engaged followers. Im not totally against it if people do it within reason. If sum nom engaging crap acct has 100k followers i know its bogus but if ur a rwgular poster and maybe buy a few hundres to a few thousand at a time i think it doesnt ruin ur account and gives the perception of having more value and nore engaged users. Muat be a reason why celebs and politicians use it. I think obama spent nearly 2 milluon buying fake followers and retweets to push obama care

The big famous people don't buy fake followers, but the fake twitter accounts follow the big famous people to try and blend in by following more than just the people they were paid to follow.

Quote: (04-14-2014 12:45 PM)MattW Wrote:  

The big famous people don't buy fake followers, but the fake twitter accounts follow the big famous people to try and blend in by following more than just the people they were paid to follow.

well said

how much would it cost to buy 50000 followers? I don't use twitter, but I probably could. You don't make money off of twitter, do you?

Quote: (04-14-2014 01:33 PM)eradicator Wrote:  

how much would it cost to buy 50000 followers? I don't use twitter, but I probably could. You don't make money off of twitter, do you?

i think you can, plugging adverts and sponsors

Quote: (04-14-2014 01:33 PM)eradicator Wrote:  

how much would it cost to buy 50000 followers? I don't use twitter, but I probably could. You don't make money off of twitter, do you?

Fiverr.com has people who will boost your twitter followers. Don't ask me why I know, I was going to pull a practical joke. Leave it at that.

Might cost you 50 bucks if you hire a few different people from Fiverr.com

You think twitters bad you should see instagram.

Now nobodies can purchase followers, likes, and shout outs.

It's laughable that nobodies have 10k followers yet only 50-100 likes on one photo. At least keep up the appearance by buying likes for each photo.

The thirst for validation and want has never been so real.

There is only one friend of mine who has an organic following that reached over 11k, because he manages and works with some of todays upcomings dj's.

It's not that hard to create a following, one of my old jobs was social media manager, you can create buzz and interest easy by just interacting with other users and businesses.

Your right fake accts do follow popular tweeters. That said its well documented that celebs nd politicans spend big money on followers

http://boostlikes.com/blog/2013/10/10-ce...-followers

Quote: (04-14-2014 01:48 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

You think twitters bad you should see instagram.

Now nobodies can purchase followers, likes, and shout outs.

It's laughable that nobodies have 10k followers yet only 50-100 likes on one photo. At least keep up the appearance by buying likes for each photo.

The thirst for validation and want has never been so real.

There is only one friend of mine who has an organic following that reached over 11k, because he manages and works with some of todays upcomings dj's.

It's not that hard to create a following, one of my old jobs was social media manager, you can create buzz and interest easy by just interacting with other users and businesses.

I see so many chicks on Instagram who have 10k followers, and at first I thought that every thirsty dude on the planet has an Instagram that followes hot chicks. Now I know these lizards just buy like 9k followers and the rest are the thirsty dudes. I see so many that claim to be these fitness gurus and **** like that. They don't know WTF they're talking about. They're 20 year old chicks who work out 3 hours a week and haven't hit the wall yet, nothing more.

It's kind of funny, because Instagram is really the social media version of the female hamster in a lot of ways.

Use follow back tactics. Its cheaper, and it ensures that your followers are "real" and not bot accounts.

Downside of it is that it takes longer to build an audience. I got 3k followers on my personal account using this.

Tweet well and often, retweet judiciously based on your interests, grow organically. Your followers will respect that and help you grow.