Follower Frenzy: Should You Ever Buy Twitter Followers?

Social Media Management Services

Unless you’re a complete novice to Twitter, you’ll know that there are millions and millions of fake twitter accounts out there. Some have been created as a sort of bizarre marketing strategy to spread awareness of the brand, but many of these accounts are a result of people buying followers.

But why do people do this? Is there actually any benefit to it? Let’s explore this in greater depth:

Why Buy?

There has to be a reason people buy their followers, right? Nobody would fork out their cash for something that has zero benefits, so what are they? Well, depending on your perspective, there are a few very good reasons for deciding to purchase a large number of followers such as:

• Gain followers like a boss – if you’re new to Twitter, it can be hard to build up a following straight away but buying them gives you a large chunk in no time.
• Look the business – more follower = more credibility. People will take you more seriously with a larger number of followers.
• Fake leads to real – people love jumping on a bandwagon and if you look like a rising star then real people will start to follow you too.
• Fast and easy – earning real followers takes hard work and time, buying fake ones takes two clicks and a bit of cash.
• It’s legal – there’s nothing cagey about buying followers, it’s all above board. Stars like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber have a large percentage of fake followers, as does the US President Obama.

Sounds great doesn’t it? The problem is that none of these benefits deliver any measureable success and unless you play your cards right you’ll simply be throwing your money away. Learning how to turn fake, non-interactive followers into an active and engaging audience is essential if you are going to buy followers.

Finding Fault with the Fakes

So there are clearly benefits to buying followers and if it isn’t illegal then why wouldn’t you pay $5 for 1,000 new followers? Well, there is a lot to be said for buying fake followers with some of the biggest problems being:

• They are useless – we’re not insulting them, purchased followers are robots that don’t interact or even do anything. They are dead, useless accounts.
• No influence – real followers boost your Klout and help to spread your message and brand around, fake followers do nothing except make it look like you have a large influence.
• Not policed – it may not be illegal, but there is no system in place to stop you being scammed. Some sites may say they’ll give you followers and don’t or perhaps deliver less than what you paid for.
• Can damage your reputation – finding out that you have a large number of fake followers is very easy and can look very bad on you. How do you think it’ll look if people start shouting that you’re not really popular you’ve just spent cash to increase your followers? Not good at all.

Building up a strong following naturally can be difficult, but if you save your money and hire social media management services instead then you’ll end up with a very useful following. Whether or not you want to buy followers is up to you, there’s no hard rules about it but be aware of what you’re actually paying for. Learn more about social media management services.

How to Use Pinterest to Boost Your Business

Social media agency London

Image: mkhmarketing

 Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing social networks on the Internet.

And whilst business owners marvelled at the 4-year old visual discovery tool being valued at $5 billion, many still struggle with how they can use the platform to grow their businesses.

So to help you, here are some stats, facts and tactics you can use right now to boost your business with Pinterest.

Quick Pinterest Stats!

• Launched in March 2010
• 48 million users
• Grew 379, 599% in 2012
• 68% of Pinterest users are women…and 50% of these women are mothers
• The most repined pin is a recipe for garlic cheese bread
• The average annual income of Pinterest users is $100,000

5-Point Checklist for Your Pinterest Content

• Is my picture beautiful and compelling?
• Does my picture resonate with my customer’s dreams and desires?
• Does my Pinterest board have a clever and creative title?
• Does every picture/photo have a hyperlink?
• Have I included a price where appropriate?

10 Ways to Boost Your Business with Pinterest

#1 Showcase your business – when you setup your Pinterest profile, make sure to include your business name, the URL of your website, and a description of what you do. These are simple steps that will maximize exposure to your business and brand.

#2 Link your social accounts – once you’ve setup your Pinterest account, make sure to connect it with your Facebook and Twitter accounts as well. Doing this means that you are opening up more channels for customers to be able to connect with you.

#3 Tag other Pinterest users – the way you do that is using “@username”. This is a great networking tool and a way to easily initiate customer engagement.

#4 Repin, repin, repin – repin from multiple sources liberally. This increases your exposure to others on the platform of 48 million users.

#5 Pin videos – this is a little-used feature as most people simply associate Pinterest with photos. So repining YouTube videos or pinning your own videos is an easy way to stand out.

#6 Pin your business name – use your business name in the descriptions under pins…descriptions linger on.

#7 Embed – embed published pins as content on your blog and website.

#8 PinIt! – add a “PinIt!” button to the footer of each of your blog posts

#9 Stalk your customers – not really! But what you can do is see who’s repining your content by going to: http://pinterest.com/source/yoursitehere

#10 Make connections – connect your clients who use Pinterest by introducing them to each other. Doing so increases your value to them, strengthens your connections with existing clients, and increases the likelihood of your clients referring you to other people.

If you’d like a specialist team to help you get the most out of Pinterest for your business, Graphic Alliance – a Social Media Agency in London – by clicking here now.

Four Fantastic Examples of Creative PPC Campaigns

Pay Per Click Agency

When it comes to online marketing, you need to be creative in order to ensure that people click through on your adverts. In some cases this can be very difficult, especially if you have text-only ads, but it is possible, and when done right it is almost impossible to not click through!

Here are four phenomenal examples of when PPC has been done brilliantly by using creative techniques:

#1 The Perfume Shop

One of the best bits about PPC is that it doesn’t have to be word-for-word what people are searching for. In fact, it could be almost unrelated or connected through a very tenuous link. The Perfume Shop, used the fact that they sell celebrity perfumes to push their adverts onto celebrity videos on YouTube.

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Why did this work? Because the audience was right. The users were already interested in the celebrities and therefore immersed in celebrity culture which makes them the target audience for these type of adverts. The Perfume Shop received a whopping 236% ROI on view-through-conversion for this campaign.

#2 Alec Brownstein

Knowing your audience is absolute key in having a successful campaign. You don’t need to be a huge corporation or have years of experiencing in marketing, you just need a clever idea that works. Alec Brownstein was just a simple freelance copywriter who decided to set up ad campaigns that targeted the names of New York’s top creative directors. To explain further, check out this video.

Why did this work? He knew these big bosses would Google themselves and he appealed to their curiosity. This was different and outside the box thinking that people like to see – especially creative directors.

#3 Sky News

When you have thousands of news stories on your site every day you may think that a PPC campaign would be almost impossible. However, Sky News managed to do just that by running their RSS feed through Darwin Optimiser technology which created keywords that were relevant to particular news stories.

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Why did this work? Due to the very low CPCs and the high number of traffic as a result of these ads, Sky News was able to receive a 400% increase in the number of their page impressions. Low cost + high traffic = excellent PPC campaign!

#4 Ann Summers

When it comes to being a bit cheeky, Ann Summers’ pay per click agency really know their stuff – and we’re not just talking lingerie. They implemented a strategy that they quite appropriately referred to as the ‘sexy search’ which would put the Ann Summers brand in high visibility and unusual places.

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Why did this work? This may not have been hitting their target audience and making sales, but it did wonders for brand visibility. All in all they received over 1.5 million impressions and got media coverage in The Guardian and The Independent all for a budget of less than £5k! Here’s a bit more on how this worked:

Need a creative pay per click agency who can help you to make the most of your budget? Come and talk to the friendly team at Graphic Alliance today and find out what we can do to help you reach your goals.