Over the past few years, TikTok has become very popular. The short-form video app is one of the fastest growing social platforms, especially with Gen Z. TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed, which is curated via its algorithm, makes it very easy for videos to go viral and users to get lots of followers in a short period of time.
Some TikTok creators .and businesses have started to wonder about buying fake followers to raise their numbers artificially. Is buying followers on TikTok ethical? Is it giving anyone any real benefit or value? In this article, we will look at the good and bad sides of purchasing followers on TikTok to help you determine whether it’s worth it.
The Appeal of Buying Followers
There are a few reasons why someone may consider TikTok followers buy:
Quickly Inflating Follower Count
The most obvious appeal is to instantly increase your follower number to make your account look more popular. Higher follower counts generally lend a sense of social credibility and influence.
Buying even 1,000 followers can get you your first 1,000 followers for a new account with no followers at all, making it look less inactive. It can inspire real users to follow and interact.
Boosting Content Reach
Accounts with more followers tend to have better reach on TikTok. Their videos show up higher in hashtag searches and user feeds.
If you buy enough followers, the TikTok algorithm may start bumping your content as a “rising” account, exposing you to real audiences.
Driving Discovery Through Following/Followers
On most social platforms, gaining more followers means you also gain access to their network when they favorite, share, or engage with your content.
The bulk followers you buy may help your account be discovered through their followers lists, bios, and social connections—even if the accounts themselves are fake or inactive.
The Troubles With Purchasing Followers
While buying followers may seem tempting, there are quite a few downsides to consider:
Artificially Inflated Metrics
Paying for followers leads to misleading social proof metrics. It creates the illusion that more people follow or value your brand than they actually do.
This false signal prevents you from accurately tracking real growth and engagement over time. It also skews future marketing budgets and platform decisions.
Poor Engagement Rates
While your vanity metrics may go up, bought followers don’t engage with your content. As a result, engagement rates are very low and can raise red flags.
What TikTok and other users expect is that you will have a natural correlation between followers and likes, comments, shares, etc. Fake followers drop your engagement rate average and make you look suspicious.
Risk of Shadowbanning or Suspension
Buying followers or engagement violates most social media platform policies. If discovered, the penalties can range from reach limitations to full account suspension.
TikTok routinely checks for artificial inflation and may shadowban or throttle reach if it detects bought metrics. Repeated or large-scale policy violations can result in account bans.
Wasted Ad Spend From Poor Targeting
Social platforms factor audience quality into ad pricing and delivery. Fake followers hurt your audience’s quality score, leading ads to underperform.
Essentially, buying followers wastes advertising money because you pay more to show content to bots and ghost accounts that don’t engage.
Ethical Considerations of Buying Followers
Beyond just the marketing effectiveness, there’s an argument that buying social-proof metrics is unethical in principle. Here are some moral issues to weigh:
Deceiving Real Followers & Customers
Essentially, deceiving genuine followers and potential customers makes an account look more popular than it is. If discovered, that damages integrity and trust.
Unfairly Manipulating Algorithms
Buying followers tricks algorithms into favoring your content over real creators’ content, unjustly diverting discovery from authentic engagement.
Enabling Scams & Spam Networks
Most of the businesses selling fake followers are shady operations that contribute to further fraud and spam at scale on platforms. Buying from them makes it worse.
Putting Accounts at Risk
This is why purchased followers can get innocent users suspended for policy violations. The real damage is caused by losing access to communities and connections.
For brands focused on integrity and corporate social responsibility, these factors make buying followers hard to justify ethically. The short-term vanity gain comes at a much higher moral cost.
Does Buying Followers Work on TikTok?
The consensus from social media marketers is that buying followers typically fails as a TikTok growth tactic and has limited upside compared to its risks:
- The TikTok algorithm favors engagement over followers. Simply having more followers doesn’t boost videos much if the followers don’t actively like, comment, etc. Fake followers hurt your engagement rate.
- Cleaning up bought followers can tank metrics. TikTok frequently prunes fake/inactive accounts. Losing these purchased users causes your follower count to plummet.
- Results are short-lived. Any temporary boost bought followers give soon vanishes as the next wave of inactive accounts gets removed. It’s an endless, costly game.
- Money is better spent on ads. TikTok’s advertising platform lets you micro-target real audiences interested in your content. This drives more authentic visibility and conversion.
If you don’t intend to spend an infinite amount on more and more followers to replace lost accounts, most brands will end up wasting their money for a tiny, fleeting impact.
Best Practices for Growing Your TikTok Following
While buying followers may seem like an easy shortcut, authentic growth through smart optimization takes more time but delivers far better outcomes. Here are sustainable strategies for expanding your real TikTok audience:
Leverage Hashtags and Trends
Tap into viral hashtags and trending sounds related to your niche. This will help get your content seen by communities that are already active on relevant topics. Use hashtag research tools to find opportunities.
Optimize Your Profile
Flesh out your bio with engaging text. Add a profile photo and link to other social accounts. This will give viewers more context and ways to connect once they discover your account.
Collaborate With Nano/Micro-Influencers
Work with real authentic niche influencers in the 1K to 100K followers range. Who doesn’t want early access to content or to build co-branded videos to leverage their own organic audience?
Interact With Other Creators
Comment on videos in your industry or niche and reply to any comments left on your videos. Building connections leads to engagement and awareness from an audience that cares about your specialty.
Promote From Other Social Channels
Share your TikTok videos natively on Instagram, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, etc. This will expose your content to your current followers, as well as those who may be compelled to check and follow you on TikTok.
Run Hashtag and Interest-Based Ads
TikTok’s self-serve ads manager allows for granular targeting and budget flexibility. For less than what most charge for fake followers, you can reach thousands of perfect-fit potential followers.
Analyze Performance and Iterate
See which videos, captions, hashtags, sounds, etc., receive the most engagement and shares. Double down on what works and continuously test new creative angles. TikTok rewards persistence.
Conclusion
Purchasing TikTok followers may temporarily increase vanity metrics, but it doesn’t really help to improve actual engagement and growth. Value creation leads to authentic audience connection, not an illusion. While buying followers seems like a quick fix, sustainable results require an ethical emphasis on understanding user needs and delivering genuine entertainment worth spreading. There are no shortcuts—only an honest path built on empathy, creativity, and perseverance. The only thing you can do is combine the two approaches: gain subscribers and grow your channel with engaging content.
