You created a Twitter account.  You learned to tweet. You started following people, and some started to follow you back.  But you see other tweeps who have thousands of followers, compared to your hundred.  The green-eyed monster rears its big green head and you want that many too.  So what do you do?  Believe it or not, many people go out and actually buy their followers.

Buying followers is not the answer.

There are many services out there that will let you buy followers.  I say to people, a little tongue-in-cheek, that for $100 I could have 10,000 followers tomorrow.  Ok, it would be a bit more than $100 and it might take a week, but I could still get them.  The problem with buying Twitter followers is that it is like a bad boob job. It looks good on the outside, but when you take your shirt off it looks awful. What I mean with my awful metaphor is this: looking like you have 10,000 fans overnight is great, on the surface. Instant popularity. The reality is that it is hollow (warning, here comes another bad metaphor); it is a one night stand with no orgasm.  Not only is it meaningless, there is no satisfaction.

• Bought followers do not read your tweets.

• They do not retweet you.

• Bought followers do not know who you are.

• They are not necessarily even people!

• Bought followers will never be clients or customers.

• And they will not click your links.

Bought followers may make your numbers look good but in all probability they will  not benefit your long-term goals. If you want real engagement, click-throughs, retweets, people who help grow your network, read your tweets and do business with you, you have to do it organically. It is slower, but the payoff is much bigger.

This said, I will admit here that not all the follower buying sites out there are useless, some of the better ones offer to connect you with targeted followers and users, which is not the same as buying randomly in bulk.  Ultimately Twitter is about engagement. Sure, you can purchase as many followers as you can afford, but if you are not participating in the discussion you will not receive any authentic benefits.