Buying Twitter Followers

So what's the difference?

Real promotion (eg. advertising) is different to buying twitter followers.

When you "buy followers" you are paying a fixed price for a certain number of followers.

Say, $5 for 100 followers...

This means that someone will create 100 fake accounts and make them follow you.

Or they will use interaction tricks to add those followers.

That's why it's not allowed - and why you shouldn't do it.

More on the consequences later...

Use legitimate promotion instead (paid)

When you use real promotion you are not paying for followers.

You are paying for advertising - with no guarantee that people will follow you.

A good example of this is Twitter Ads, where you can advertise yourself on twitter.

Some people will see your promotion and may decide to follow you...

...of their own free will.

Twiends promotion is similar - you advertise yourself to the users on our website.

This type of promotion is allowed because it doesn't automatically add (fake) followers to your account.

It's advertising, and people are choosing to follow you.

Another way to advertise yourself is to pay an influencer to tweet about you.

This is known as sponsored tweets and it is (somewhat) allowed.

But be aware that there are some rules.

Most notably, tweets that promote need to disclose that they are paid endorsements.

Or grow organically instead (free)

This is obviously allowed.

In fact Twitter encourages it.

By doing this you will attract followers by tweeting, interacting, and connecting with others.

Just be sure not to over do it or spam.

Don't trick people into following you either.

That's also bad.

In summary: buying bad, advertising good

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

So here goes:

Buying followers

Not allowed

Fake accounts

Churn targeting

Low retention

Fast

Cheap

Twitter Ads

Allowed

Country targeting

Keyword targeting

Medium retention

Fast

Pricey

Twiends Featured

Allowed

Country targeting

Broad targeting

Medium retention

Fast

$1 Trial

Organic Growth

Allowed

Country targeting

Keyword targeting

High retention

Slow

Free

As you can see, when you buy twitter followers you get a fast and cheap service.

But that's all you get.

The results will be temporary and you are taking on a lot of risk.

If you are happy to go slow, then stick with organic growth.

If you want to go fast, then go with advertising.

* don't do this *

Buying twitter followers without giving your password

Some websites will offer to sell you followers this way.

They won't need your twitter password.

You just give them your username and enter your credit card.

They will then pull a trick out of the bad guy toolbox.

These three are the most common techniques.

They create bots / fakes

This is their favorite - it's easy and fast.

They follow you with fake accounts that they control.

(They make thousands of these fake accounts beforehand)

These followers are not real, no matter how much they claim otherwise.

There is simply no way they can make real people follow you.

They are not advertising you anywhere.

They just use bots to follow you.

They use dummy accounts

They create a bunch of these.

Then they use them to spam twitter.

They send thousands of direct messages out asking people to follow you.

The hit rate is low, but some people do follow.

It's still spam though, and it's pretty annoying.

Twitter is wise to it.

They leverage virus apps

This is a bit more elaborate.

These sellers create virus apps that trick people into signing into them.

They spam signup links through direct messages and tweets.

When someone clicks the link it sends them to the virus app website.

The victim then signs into the app by accident.

As soon as they do this the virus app sends more spam messages out to their followers.

Then the virus app makes the user follow you.

* don't do this *

Buying twitter followers and giving your password

When you do this the seller can control your account.

They can then do a few more things to get followers.

They aggressively follow and unfollow others

This is known and churning and twitter hates it.

The seller needs your password to do it.

They may follow thousands of people.

Some of those people will follow you back.

And those are the followers they have sold you.

They then unfollow everyone.

Twitter will usually lock your account when this happens.

They spam others directly

This is less common because twitter has mostly put a stop to it by locking accounts.

Here they use your account to @mention or DM other people directly.

Some of those people may follow you back.

But many will report you.

So your account will quickly become locked.

Your follower count will initially increase

This may happen fast.

For a small purchase probably a few hours - fake accounts are quick to control.

If the seller is using a churning or spamming method then it will take longer because they need to trick people into following you.

And this takes time.

The increase will be temporary.

After a few days, weeks or months they will be removed by twitter.

The followers are usually fake

Not always...

Just like, 99% of the time.

When they don't ask for your password then they will usually follow you with fake accounts.

The seller does not control any real accounts so they can't make real people follow you.

They don't introduce you to anyone.

They don't advertise you anywhere.

The followers are just bots.

Fake dummy accounts are sometimes created

Then they use these to spam people.

Some users will report you for this.

They use your @handle in the spam messages and this makes it pretty easy for twitter to link it to you.

But twitter can't be sure it's not someone being malicious towards your account - maybe you are being framed?

So they will usually just lock your account.

People are tricked into following you

This is slow.

They need to follow and unfollow thousands of people.

Because twitter has daily limits for this type of activity it takes time.

So most don't use this method.

But if they ask you for your password then there's a good chance this is what they are doing.

They may say this is legit.

It's not.

Twitter does not allow aggressive following and unfollowing.

Twitter will remove the fake followers

It may take a day, it may take year..

One day you'll have those 100 followers you paid for...

The next day they'll be gone.

Twitter does not permit fake accounts, so they will remove them once they are identified.

They have many systems now to find fake, dormant and suspicious accounts.

Their standard approach is to lock any that trigger a check.

When a follower is locked they are removed from your follower list.

Only real people tend to unlock their accounts, so this gradually removes all fake and dormant accounts from the platform.

You will notice big follower drops

Twitter tends to do these in batches.

So they often lock fake and dormant accounts in bulk.

...kind of like cleanup days.

So, if you purchased 1000 followers then you will often see your followers drop by 1000 on a future date.

Other times they are removed more gradually.

This tends to happen if the seller went to a lot of effort creating the fakes accounts.

The harder they work to make the accounts "look" real, the longer it will take twitter to find them.

Twitter may lock your account

They tend to do this first.

If they notice something dodgy then locking is a quick and easy way for them to take action.

It's more automated.

And you can unlock it by verifying a phone number.

They do this because they can't be 100% sure that YOU tried to buy the followers.

Someone could be "attacking" your account by adding fake followers to it without your permission.

So locking is a safer process for twitter.

They know that it will weed out a lot of bad accounts.

While not permanently penalizing the good guys.

You may get suspended eventually

But this is rare.

It is more likely if you have given someone your password.

Because then twitter knows that your account performed the action.

If your account aggressively follows and unfollows thousands of people then you are responsible.

Even if someone else did it on your behalf.

You may lose your money

Sometimes you'll get a refund.

But not always.

Many bad websites operate from countries with weak consumer protection.

If you create a dispute quickly on PayPal or with your bank then you may be able to get a chargeback.

You usually need to do this within 2-3 months of purchase.

But you may also lose the dispute.

Also, if you used a bank pin number when entering your card details then you may be out of luck.

This does something call liability shift, which moves the liability from the seller to the bank / you.

They may message your followers

This is messy.

And your followers will hate you for it.

But if they have your password then they can send messages to all your followers.

And they sometimes do.

This is more common with virus apps that offer free followers.

Sometimes these sellers will sign you into these virus apps using your password.

Some of your followers will block and report you when these spam messages arrive.

And this leads to more account locks.

It becomes hard to measure real growth

You may add 10 followers today organically, or by using good advertising.

But if you lose 100 followers from a previous bad purchase then your numbers just went down by 90.

This makes it so hard to track your results.

We see this all too often when people switch to us after unfortunately buying followers somewhere.

You may be shadow-banned

This is a fancy way of saying twitter is restricting you.

They may do this if your account spams others.

This could result in your awesome tweets being hidden in some of your follower's timelines.

They want real targeted & active followers

If I could sum it up in one sentence, this would be it...

They want real people in their niche to follow them.

So that they can get more activity on their tweets.

Let's check out some common search queries that give us some clues.

Buy real twitter followers  

This is one of the main searches on Google.

It tells us that people really are trying to grow an audience on twitter.

They want real people to follow them.

It takes a very long time to grow organically.

So many want to fast track this by spending some money.

Buy active twitter followers  

This is also a pretty popular search.

It gets to the crux of the matter.

People want interaction and engagement with their tweets.

They want others to retweet and like their stuff.

And they know they need active followers to do this.

Buy real active twitter followers  

Here we see both in the same query.

This gives us a clue that they are related.

Buy twitter followers that retweet  

This query really tells us what people are looking for.

Retweets are the goal.

More so than likes.

Because retweets help you to reach new people on twitter.

Buy targeted twitter followers  

Most brands and influencers know that they need followers in their niche.

Your followers are more likely to interact if they are interested in your content.

By searching for targeted followers people are looking for this interest targeting.

They may also be looking for location targeting.

If it's a business then they may want followers in a certain town or city.

(On a side note, twiends supports country targeting in our ad platform.)

Buy keyword targeted twitter followers  

When searching for keyword targeting then we know that someone is looking for followers interested in a specific topic.

They want instant or fast results

Like so many things in life..

Most people want to grow their followers quickly.

Buy instant twitter followers  

This query says it all.

They want to grow their followers fast.

If they wanted to do it slowly then they could just grow organically instead.

They want to pay a low price

Don't we all...

Most people starting out do not have big advertising budgets.

Generally they just want to spend a few dollars to boost their followers.

Buy twitter followers cheap  

Cheap for most people is under 10 bucks.

For others it's a little more.

Real advertising can cost thousands though, especially in competitive markets.

(Trust me, I know, we spend up to $10 for a single signup from Google Ads.)

Buy 100 twitter followers for $1  

It is simply not possible to reach 100 real people for $1.

So anyone searching for this is probably just looking to add fake followers to their account.

Time to get real people.

They want a bigger follower count

Some people just want a bigger number under their name.

Maybe they are starting out.

Maybe they want social proof.

They don't care what the followers look like.

Buy fake twitter followers  

I'm always surprised that people actually search for this.

But they do.

They just want to increase their follower count.

Also, the conspiracy theorist in me thinks they maybe want to do it to someone else's account too.

Buy inactive twitter followers  

Also surprising.

I mean, who actually wants inactive followers over active followers?

Again, probably just looking to increase numbers.

* don't do this *

Buying twitter followers on fiverr

Fiverr has gone some way to removing gigs that sell twitter followers.

This is good.

But many gigs have just changed the way they describe their offers now.

They now claim to get you organic real followers instead.

But a lot still use aggressive following and unfollowing.

And as you know from earlier in this guide, that will land you in hot water.

* don't do this *

Buying twitter followers on ebay

There's was a time when this was a thing.

But ebay has largely removed all of these listings now.

Now you will mostly just find books and stickers about buying followers.

* don't do this *

Buying twitter followers on devumi

Devumi gained some notoriety a few years back when NYT did an expose about them.

They later shut down when they were probed by the NY attorney general's office.

An investigation showed that they were creating and selling millions of fake followers.

Their website is still up, but thankfully you can't place any orders on it anymore.

* don't do this *

Buying twitter followers via reddit

There are loads of pages on reddit about buying followers.

Some advice is good.

But there are some recommendations that link to bad websites.

Be careful.

If someone is recommending a particular service then be critical.

This guide covers in detail what is allowed and what is not.

* don't do this *

Buying twitter followers on [any website]

I've seen them come...

And I've seen them go...

Every week another website appears selling followers.

They tend to get shut down after a few months.

If you see the phrases 100% safe, non drop, no password, guaranteed then run for the hills.

The same goes if they promise quantities of followers, such 100, 500, 1000, etc..

Every site we've checked is selling fakes or doing churning.

Don't give your password to these websites

You don't know them.

They can take over your account and lock you out of it forever.

They change the email address.

Then the password.

And poof... it's theirs.

There are no good places to buy twitter followers

There is no best place, best app, or best website to buy twitter followers.

It just doesn't exist.

If you want to spend some money, then spend it on real advertising.

You'll reach real people.

And although advertising can't guarantee results, many of those people will still be following you in years to come.

$1 used to be a thing

But not any more.

Even creating fake accounts requires some effort.

So you will be hard pressed to find any websites selling fake followers for as low as this now.

We couldn't find any.

But on the plus side, you can actually trial real advertising for $1.

(shameless plug)

$3 to $5 is entry level

This is the starting price for buying fake twitter followers.

For this price you'll get 50 to 100 fake followers added.

(Which of course twitter will remove)

So I guess, money well spent...

Free is not free

Some websites will claim to sell you followers for free.

Hmmm?

But really it's a ploy to get you to fill out surveys.

There are no free rides.

Buying twitter followers with PayPal

This is actually quite rare these days.

Most websites selling followers are not able to accept PayPal anymore.

Their dispute rates are too high, so PayPal's compliance team usually cuts them off.

They also lose too much revenue due to lost disputes.

So most have removed their PayPal checkout options.

Even if they still show the PayPal badge on their website, it's usually not an option.

Buying twitter followers with a debit card or credit card

Cards are now the preferred option for most bad websites.

Because they have a better chance of keeping your money.

It's all down to something called SCA (Strong Customer Authentication).

You know that bank pin number you use when paying online sometimes?

Well that pin basically protects the merchant.

It's does something called liability shift.

Which means that the merchant doesn't have to refund the payment if you dispute it afterwards.

Buying twitter followers with Bitcoin or other crypto

This is still not widely used.

It's harder for merchants to automate checkouts.

And can present challenges converting back into dollars.

But it is starting to emerge.

You see, crypto payments can't be reversed by the customer.

So for scam websites they can take the money and run.

Buy quality twitter followers  

Just about every website will promise you high quality followers.

It's hard to understand how fake followers can be considered quality.

If you buy followers, they will never be quality followers.

You can get medium quality followers through legitimate advertising platforms.

And you can get high quality followers through organic growth.

But there's no cheap shortcut to high quality follower growth.

Buy twitter followers no bots  

They mean no fakes.

And we know that this is mostly a lie.

Some websites can make this claim if they are using aggressive following and unfollowing.

But this is equally bad.

We know that most bad websites just sell fake followers.

It's quicker, easier, and cheaper for them to deliver.

Buy twitter followers legit  

Well, if you are a lawyer I suppose you could claim that ALL followers are legit.

Even the fake ones.

I mean, fake followers aren't against the law.

But that's not what is being claimed here.

The claim being made is that these followers are real people.

But the followers you buying are fake or have been tricked into temporarily following you.

Hardly legit...

Buy twitter followers no drop  

Many websites will "guarantee" you no drops.

What a joke.

They CAN promise that the fake followers they add wont unfollow.

But twitter will remove those fake followers eventually, so the drops WILL happen.

And when you go to collect on your "guarantee" the seller will be long gone with your money.

Buy permanent twitter followers  

Same as before.

There is no such thing as a permanent or non-drop follower.

Real people change their minds.

Real people sometimes unfollow.

Fake followers are dormant and get recycled by twitter.

As they say, nothing is certain except death and taxes..

Buy organic twitter followers  

There's only one way to grow organically.

And that's by attracting followers through the content you put out.

This means tweeting, doing videos, podcasts, or any other awareness campaigns.

It can include some paid promo, but it mostly means the free stuff.

Buy genuine / authentic / legitimate twitter followers  

These three are pretty much the same.

They want you to think that you are paying for real people to follow you.

But the only way to do that is through real advertising.

And none of these websites are advertising you.

So they will add the fakes and call them real.

Knowing that most people won't notice.