What Does It Mean to Buy TikTok Followers?
Buying TikTok followers refers to purchasing follower accounts from a third-party provider to increase the number of followers on your TikTok profile. Rather than gaining followers organically through regular posting and engagement, users can pay for follower accounts to be automatically added to their profile.
On TikTok, there are a few main ways to gain followers for your account:
- Organic followers – gained when users genuinely find and follow your account through TikTok’s recommendation engine or searching.
- Paid ads – TikTok provides an advertising platform where users can pay to promote their account and gain new followers.
- Buying followers – paying a third-party service to add follower accounts to your profile, often “bots” rather than real users.
Buying TikTok followers means paying for these additional followers to be added to your account automatically by the service provider. This is seen as an shortcut to increase followers rather than gaining them organically over time. However, there are risks associated with buying TikTok followers rather than earning them naturally.
Is It Against TikTok’s Terms of Service?
TikTok’s terms of service explicitly prohibit artificial inflation of metrics like followers. According to their Terms of Service, “You may not manipulate metrics (such as followers and Likes) by unauthorized means, including purchasing fake followers, Likes, views or shares.”
The terms also state that accounts may not “use the Services, such as trading reviews with other users or writing or soliciting fake reviews.” So buying followers or engagement on TikTok is a violation of these terms.
TikTok outlines in their Community Guidelines that if they detect inauthentic engagement like fake followers, they will remove those followers. The terms serve to discourage buying followers and make it clear that TikTok aims to detect and penalize accounts using these tactics.
Can Your Account Get Banned for Buying Followers?
There have been some reports of TikTok accounts getting banned after buying fake followers, though the issue is not clear-cut. TikTok’s terms of service prohibit buying followers and using other artificial means to inflate follower counts. According to TikTok’s community guidelines, “Services that offer to boost your account(s) via followers, likes, views, or shares generated by artificial means are not permitted on our platform.”
However, the consequences for buying followers seem to vary. In some cases, TikTok has banned accounts or removed fake followers after detecting suspicious activity. For example, TikTok influencer Sebastian Moy claimed his account was banned after buying followers and engagement. But other users report buying followers with no repercussions.
TikTok uses machine learning to identify inauthentic activity and fake accounts. But it’s an ongoing challenge across social media to detect bogus followers, especially if purchased through sophisticated providers. While buying followers clearly violates TikTok’s policies, the likelihood of getting caught or banned remains uncertain.
What Are the Risks of Buying Followers?
There are several risks associated with buying TikTok followers that users should be aware of.
First, there is a possibility of getting scammed by disreputable follower sellers. Some sites claim to sell real, active followers, but end up providing fake bot accounts or never delivering the promised followers. This can result in losing money with no gain in actual followers (https://www.dashhudson.com/blog/buying-tiktok-followers).
Second, buying followers can damage your account’s authenticity and trustworthiness. When an account suddenly spikes in followers, it raises red flags for TikTok. The platform may detect the inauthentic activity and purge the fake purchased followers, undoing any temporary vanity metrics boost. This could also get your account flagged or banned (https://fanbytes.co.uk/buy-tiktok-followers/).
Finally, even if you successfully buy followers, it likely won’t help reach real human viewers. Purchased followers are often bots or inactive accounts that do not engage with your content. Having an inflated follower count without meaningful interactions can actually hurt your account’s visibility and performance in the TikTok algorithm.
In summary, buying followers carries significant risks including potential scams, damage to your account reputation, and failure to achieve your goals of reaching a real audience. Relying on artificial vanity metrics rather than organic growth is not an effective social media strategy.
Does Buying Followers Help Your Account?
While buying followers may provide a brief spike in your follower count, it does little to actually help grow your account in a meaningful way. The vast majority of purchased followers come from bot accounts that do not watch or engage with your content.
Genuine followers who discover your account organically are much more likely to like, comment, share, and view your videos regularly. These real users help boost your content in TikTok’s recommendation algorithm. On the other hand, fake bot followers do not interact with your videos, so they provide no algorithmic boost.
Some services that sell TikTok followers promise “high-quality” or “active” followers. However, research suggests these followers rarely engage with your content either. They follow inorganically en masse after payment and remain largely inactive thereafter.[1]
In most cases, purchased followers fade away quickly as bots are deleted. You may temporarily have inflated numbers, but purchased followers do not translate into meaningful growth or interaction. Focusing on creating captivating content and optimizing your profile will do far more to build a real, engaged audience.
How Much Do TikTok Followers Cost?
The cost of buying TikTok followers can vary quite a bit depending on the seller, package size, and other factors. According to industry research, the average cost per TikTok follower when buying from third-party sellers ranges from $0.10 to $1.10 per follower.
Some key factors that influence the cost per follower include:
- Package size – Buying followers in larger bulk packages (10k+) brings the average cost per follower down.
- Follower quality – More “high quality” followers that are more likely to engage cost more per follower.
- Seller reputation – More established sellers with good reputations charge higher prices.
- Delivery speed – Getting followers delivered faster costs more per follower.
For example, a package of 100 TikTok followers from a basic seller may cost $10-$20 total. But a package of 10,000 followers from a top seller claiming “high retention” may cost $1,000-$2,000 total, working out to around $0.10-$0.20 per follower. So the range in cost can be quite wide.
According to reddit comments, the average cost per follower for TikTok growth campaigns runs between $0.10 to $1.10 per follower.
Signs That a TikTok Account Bought Followers
There are several telltale signs that a TikTok account may have bought followers instead of gaining them organically:
One major red flag is when an account has a high number of followers but relatively low views and engagement on their videos. For example, if a profile has 500k followers but their videos only get a few thousand views, it’s suspicious. Engagement should be proportional to follower count.
Accounts with fake bot followers will often have generic, meaningless comments left on their videos like “Nice!” or “Great video!” These comments are made to imitate real engagement but they seem automated when you look closer.
The follower demographics may also be a giveaway. According to Sociality.io1, bought followers will frequently come from unrelated target audiences and countries.
You can use tools like HypeAuditor2 to analyze a TikTok account and estimate what percentage of followers may be fake or inorganic. This can confirm suspicions of bought followers.
While buying followers is common on TikTok, authentic engagement is key for long term growth. These signs can help determine if an account’s followers reflect genuine interest or not.
Organic Ways to Gain Real TikTok Followers
There are several effective strategies you can use to authentically grow your TikTok following without having to pay for fake followers.
One of the best organic ways to gain more real followers is to focus on creating high-quality, viral content. Come up with fun, creative ideas that will capture viewers’ attention and make them want to watch more. Using popular sounds, trends, and effects can also help make your content more discoverable.
Using relevant hashtags in your captions and descriptions is another great tactic. Doing hashtag research to find which ones are most popular in your niche allows you to get your content seen by people who are interested in your type of videos.
Collaborating with other popular creators in duets or stitch videos can introduce your account to new audiences from their follower base. Establish relationships with similar accounts and creators to boost each other’s growth.
Promoting your TikTok account and videos across other social media platforms you use, like Instagram or YouTube, can drive external traffic to your profile. Let your followers on other sites know you’re on TikTok as well.
Consistently employing these organic strategies helps build authentic engagement and a genuine following, without having to resort to buying fake bot followers which could actually hurt your account.
Pros and Cons of Buying TikTok Followers
There are some potential pros and cons to consider when deciding whether or not to purchase TikTok followers. Some of the possible pros include:
– Quick influx of followers – Buying followers can quickly inflate your follower count, giving the appearance of a larger audience. This can create a sense of credibility and social proof for your account (Dash Hudson, 2023).
– Vanity metrics – Having a high follower number can make your account seem more popular and successful on the surface, even if the followers are inorganic. This can potentially attract real followers or opportunities.
However, there are also significant potential downsides:
– Risk of ban – Buying followers directly violates TikTok’s terms of service and could result in your account being banned if detected. Even using third-party services carries risks (Fanbytes, 2022).
– Lack of engagement – Purchased followers are often bot or inactive accounts. They do not engage with your content, comment, or help build an authentic community. This looks suspicious to TikTok’s algorithm.
The pros of buying followers are mostly surface-level and temporary, while the cons carry more long-term risks. Most experts advise building a real, engaged following organically instead.
Conclusion
In summary, buying TikTok followers is technically against the platform’s terms of service, but not outright illegal. While buying followers likely won’t get your account banned, it does come with potential risks, including being flagged for inauthentic activity or having the purchased followers deleted. Buying followers also often fails to deliver on the desired benefits like increased visibility and engagement.
Ultimately, the best practice is to grow your TikTok account organically through consistent, high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. While buying followers may seem like a quick shortcut, it likely won’t provide lasting results. The most successful TikTok creators focus on producing engaging videos, using relevant hashtags, collaborating with others, and actively interacting with their communities. This authentic approach is the best way to build an audience that truly cares about your content.