This Is Nothing #2
Welcome to This Is Nothing, a special series on Blogfyre devoted to examining content marketing opportunities and solutions. If you’d like to submit something that you think might be Nothing, email it to us with the subject line “Is this Nothing?” and we may feature it here! Matt@bahnfyrepr.com
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In my many years marketing on the internet, I’ve seen a myriad of tactics that are Nothing. So what does it mean to be Nothing? Well, I’m glad you asked. I deem things as Nothing when they:
Cost more than they’re worth, either in time or money
Promise great impact with no infrastructure to produce results
Generally have no benefit to a marketing strategy.
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The Subject
Please stop spamming my inboxes. It will never, ever work. It will, however, continue to give me a reason to write this blog series. Today’s blog is about Followers.com. They emailed me last week asking if I would like to “Join Our Nerdy Podcast Revolution Today!” In our last issue, I needed to do some Googling before I cast my judgment. This time around, I can tell you up front that this is Nothing.
Let’s begin with the email in question. I’ve blacked out last names, emails and physical addresses.
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The Investigation
This email sucks for a lot of reasons. Upfront, I don’t like the way they’ve addressed this email, but I don’t think it’s the worst. Clearly they’re using my Instagram handle, so I’ll give it a pass. That’s the only free pass you get from me, Followers.com. Don’t get used to it.
Ok, on to what’s terrible. “I’ve seen you around on Instagram and had to reach out.” Why wouldn’t you reach out through Instagram then? Also, not a single person or account related to Followers.com has ever engaged with any of our posts. Next line, they copy and paste our Instagram bio verbatim, which is honestly just a strange choice. It’s worth noting that we’re a comedy show and nothing about our branding lends to “honest debates.”
Clearly they haven’t done any actual research into who they’re emailing, but it seems like they haven’t done their social media research either. The email says “your engagement is lower than it should be,” but the average social media engagement rate is between 1% and 3.5%. Our nine most recent posts average out to a 5% engagement rate, so we’re actually already above where we should be.
Next, let’s check out this “partnership proposal.” If you head to boostingfollow.com, it just goes to the Followers.com website. If you add /[your Instagram handle], the page will add your handle to a few buttons on the site. Let’s be clear here, this is not a sales proposal. There is nothing on this page specific to my profile or addressing how it will impact me specifically. This is a landing page with personalized cosmetics, that is all.
You can do your own search for reviews on Followers.com. You’ll likely find that there aren’t many. Most of the reviews note that the business has mismatched information across multiple outlets and that the website doesn’t get many visitors. I did find one reddit post reporting a 700 follower increase across five months. I’d prefer to leave you with a different fact that, I believe, tells you absolutely everything you need to know about Followers.com
This brand, who claims in their email that they “specialize in growing Instagram accounts with real followers,” DOES NOT HAVE AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT. Their website footer has links to a Twitter and a LinkedIn profile, but both of those links are broken. Hey, reader, general rule of thumb here: if a social media company has no social media presence, do not trust them.
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Is This Nothing?
To me, the answer is clear, this is absolutely Nothing. You don’t get to sell me an Instagram solution if you’re not on Instagram, that’s silly. Let’s go point by point:
Plan starts at about $25 USD a month. Trust the expert here, ~140ish followers a month won’t bring you $25 worth of sales.
While Followers.com says they “guarantee engaged followers,” that is not a promise they can make. Unless they’re going to your followers’ houses and making them double tap your post, they can’t promise engagement.
Buying followers is a gigantic waste of money. More on that below.
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Why Would They Do This?
Simply put, people don’t realize that buying followers is a gigantic waste of money. Repeat after me, “followers do not equal engagement.” It does not matter how many followers you have if those followers do not actually care about your content enough to engage with it.
These quick-growth methods usually involve following and unfollowing accounts with a high ratio of accounts followed to followers. That means your follower list will suddenly be flooded with accounts who follow thousands of other accounts. Do you really think that person is going to see your post? If so, you should read my other blog because I’m about to blow your mind. They will not.
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Should I Do It Anyway?
I never recommend buying followers. Followers.com’s main service appears to be post boosting. If you want to pay money to boost posts, just do it yourself. Don’t pay a middleman to do something that Instagram will literally do for you. To really understand why buying followers is a waste of time, we need to do some math. I’m sorry in advance.
I noted above that the average social media engagement rate is between 1% and 3.5%. So that means you should only expect ~3 likes/comments per 100 followers. Put a pin in that ratio. But that’s just engagement, not conversions. See only 17% of social media users report making an in-app purchase in the last three months. If we’re optimistic, that means you should expect one purchase per 200 engaged followers. Even if the 700 followers you get from Followers.com are super engaged, that’s still only two sales. And that requires 700 super engaged followers, which I promise you will not get.
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In Conclusion
Great news Followers.com, we here at Bahnfyre PR have determined that you are Nothing! I do not feel bad about saying this. You said you appreciate honest debates so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This Is Nothing is an ongoing feature produced and written by Bahnfyre PR. If you’d like to submit something that you think might be Nothing, email it to us with the subject line “Is this Nothing?”