Why Do People Buy Instagram Accounts?
There are 4.2 billion likes on Instagram daily, and every user wants their piece of cake. With the growing popularity of the platform, standing out on Instagram is getting harder. You can find hundreds of Instagram accounts with thousands of followers for almost any topic, from beauty and lifestyle to medicine and agriculture.
In such a hypercompetitive environment, building a popular Instagram account from scratch may almost seem impossible. That might give you an idea of buying an active Instagram account that has already got a good following.
In this article, we’ll look into why people buy Instagram accounts, what risks you might take if you decide to make such a deal, and how to buy an Instagram account.
Buying Instagram Accounts: Reasons
Reason 1: Lack of time
Establishing a strong social media presence takes time. To grow your audience, you need to publish engaging content almost every day for months. Sometimes you don’t have that time and want to appear in front of a large audience right away. Then, purchasing a popular Instagram account might be your option.
Reason 2: Lack of strategic thinking
When you grow an account from scratch, you are the one to develop a strategy and test the waters. If you don’t have a degree in marketing, a unique vision, or just enough experience with social media, buying an Instagram account with a solid content plan can help you avoid the painful beginner stage. However, if you are too inexperienced in managing an Instagram account, buying a ready one can be useless because you won’t be able to maintain it.
Reason 3: Need for an engaged audience
People with a large follower base can get a lot of feedback from their audience. If you are thirsty for real communications with a broad audience and want your message to be heard, you can purchase an Instagram account where you’ll be able to engage with your audience with contests, games, polls, etc. from day one and get more attention back.
Reason 4: Monetization
When you create a new Instagram profile, it can take you months to start earning money from it. If you want to make Instagram your main source of income, buying one or several ready-made accounts might be what you need. The ownership of multiple profiles allows us to earn more money on ads, sponsored posts, and collaborations with other Instagrammers.
Reason 5: Lots of accounts for sale
To buy an Instagram account, you don’t have to browse through thousands of profiles looking for the sale sign. There are special websites and agencies that deal with selling and buying Instagram profiles. Acting and third-party services, they usually provide you with additional security, help you find reliable sellers, and worthy accounts.
For example, on fameswap.com, you can find accounts for sale on various topics (humor, cars, food, pets, tech, and more) and with the various number of followers (from 15,000 to 500,000.)
Buying Instagram Accounts: Risks
Risk 1: Violation of the Terms of Use
So when you sign up for Instagram, you agree to its Terms of Use. In this document, Instagram clearly forbids to “buy, sell, or transfer any aspect of your account (including your username) or solicit, collect, or use the login credentials or badges of other users.”
Though violation of Terms of Use isn’t a form of a legal violation, Instagram can still block your newly purchased account if they find out that you break their rules.
Risk 2: Scam
As it often happens with many person-to-person deals, you risk becoming a victim of scammers. A seller can disappear after you transfer the money, or they can steal your credit card details, or send you a login\password from a different profile -- there are so many ways to fool a customer. No matter how hard you try to protect yourself, you can’t be 100% sure that you’re in good hands.
Risk 3: Fake accounts
Fake likes, comments, and followers are major issues that Instagram’s fighting these days. Seeing a big number of followers in an account doesn’t guarantee you the fame you want.
Some of those followers and likes can be fake, meaning that there are bots behind them. Fake followers won’t react to your posts like real users. So you can have thousands of followers and just thirty likes and zero comments. Buying such an account is useless.
Risk 4: Limited account functions
Instagram embraces authors. Authentic content is of the greatest value on this social media. There are numerous personal blogs that generate unique pictures and create remarkable discussions.
You can’t buy a personal blog (or, at least, you shouldn’t) because the audience of a blogger intentionally follows him or her, and you can’t simply replace that personality. So, all you can buy is public accounts with memes and quotes, photo galleries, and maybe educational pages. Those can be pretty popular as well, but if you want to promote yourself, you’ll not be able to do so via a public page.
Risk 5: Waste of money
If you haven’t ever been on Instagram and want to start by purchasing someone else’s account, chances are you’ll face some difficulties with managing it. Buying an account makes more sense if you already know how to keep it alive and promote it further. Otherwise, the money you spend on an account might not bring you the results you expect.
How to Buy an Instagram Account
Now that you know about the main benefits and drawbacks of buying an Instagram profile, you can make a thoughtful decision. If you acknowledge the risks and still want to buy an account, follow the guidelines below.
Learn Instagram basics
Study the basics of Instagram marketing before purchasing a profile with a large audience. You need to understand what’s trending on this social platform, and what its audience appreciates, how to use Instagram’s business tools, how to run ads, etc.
Read through Instagram’s Terms of Use, Community Guidelines, Platform Policy, and Music Guidelines.
Check the number of followers versus the number of likes
If an account has a lot of fake followers, you won’t see many likes and comments on posts. Fake followers don’t engage with profiles they follow and are often blocked within a few weeks after they are created.
Look for profiles with lots of comments
Comments matter a lot on Instagram. They indicate to the algorithm that the content is quality and that it’s worth to be on the top of followers’ feeds. Also, lots of comments from real people show you that the owner of this account hasn’t bought fake followers.
So if you see long discussions on the posts of the account you want to purchase, it’s a good sign.
Study your future audience
Most likely, the followers of an account for sale don’t know it is being sold. They are used to the content and love chatting in the comments. They expect consistent posting, so you have to be ready to live up to their expectations.
Keep your payments secure
Don’t share your credit card details or any other payment information with the seller. Try to get printed or written evidence of your deal. Otherwise, you risk getting into the hands of scammers.
***
Chances are, buying an Instagram account doesn’t look as easy as it did at first glance. But people still buy popular Instagram accounts for various reasons. If you consider this option, remember that maintaining a popular profile can be as hard as growing it.
Recommended for you:
Games in Stories: how to engage and entertain your audience
LinkedIn: Networking Features and Case Studies of transnational brands