By Melissa Kandel
You need a new car. After thirteen beautiful years together, your trusty steel-gray 1984 hatchback has finally exhausted its last turn. At the dealership, a salesman approaches, noticing you noticing a shiny, new SUV on the floor.
“Hi, I’m Richie McSupersuccess,” he says, pushing back a strand of chestnut-colored hair from a lopsided toupée. “Why don’t you step into my office and I’ll tell you about this incredible, life-changing car?”
You walk into a small room with trophies lining the edge of a wood desk. Examining them closer, you notice the awards are completely blank. “Oh, I just keep those there for show,” says a blushing Richie. He leans against his desk and the entire thing collapses into a pile of plywood. “Uh, yeah, this isn’t a real desk either, just needed something to fill the room.”
Nodding, you sit down, and the chair immediately topples, legs flying in every direction. They hit the thin, plastic walls of the office and with a thunderous boom, those come crashing down, too.
“Oops,” Richie drawls with an unapologetic wink. “Guess you could call this whole office more of a showpiece, if you know what I mean.”
(You do not know what he means.)
Richie bends down to pick up a rogue chair leg. His driver’s license slips out of his suit pocket, and now you see he isn’t wearing a suit at all but a long-sleeve shirt with a front pocket onto which a picture of a suit has been printed. You look down and notice the license in Richie’s hand reads Michael Smith.
The salesman offers an impish shrug. “Thought I needed a flashier name.”
Awkward silence follows while you stand among the rubble of Richie-McSupersuccess-Michael-Smith’s office. You turn to leave, unsure what else there is left to do, and as the bells above the dealership door chime, you hear the salesman call out in a voice sweeter than maple-flavored syrup, “So, how about buying that car?”
—
Of course you don’t buy the car.
Who would?
Except at the center of this fictitious scenario, there’s shocking truth. No, I don’t mean uncovering a sinister fake-office-furniture plot in car dealerships across the country; I’m talking about unearthing the downfall of one particular marketing tactic used on a little digital platform called Instagram.
There’s no denying Instagram is extraordinary. It can turn a vague idea into a viable business, or an unused product into an overnight sensation with one four-second viral video. But there’s a shadier side to the app, and it comes by way of the marketing strategy some brands take in their attempt to reach the lucrative perks of Insta-fame.
Sadly, it’s not that hard to do.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of cost-effective programs are available to marketers, dangling the sweet promise of endless Instagram likes, comments and followers.
For just five cents a comment, get 5,000 legitimate responses! At the low, low price of $100, add 58,017 real followers to your page! $59 will get you 5,900 genuine likes!
You can practically hear the fake-car-dealership bells chime.
Ding, ding …
If you’ve ever been tempted to buy Instagram engagement, let’s discuss three major reasons why you should always, always keep it real:
The reputation you’ve built.
In business, your word is your bond. Growth depends largely on people’s ability to trust, like and respect That Thing You Do. When you buy fake engagement, it sends a message to your prospective customers and current clients, much like the fallacy of Mr. Richie McSupersuccess’ office decor, and begs them to ask the next obvious question: What else is fake about your business?
For those shaking their heads and saying, “Our customers will never know!” Some of them might not notice but some of them absolutely will. Today’s modern customer is equal parts savvy and smart. A majority of potential customers are going to do their due diligence on any product or service they’re contemplating, and a google search always pulls up social media pages first.
Fake engagement puts your brand at risk and has the potential to give your business a scoured reputation. If customers can’t trust that the swooning comments on your Instagram page are real, how can they possibly trust you with their hard-earned money, especially if you’re dealing in large transactions like buying a house? It’s far more advantageous to nurture connections with fifty raving (and real) fans on Instagram than 50,000 bots who know nothing about your business and can draw only a hazy line from heart-eyed comments to legitimate business growth.
In real estate, where wire fraud and phishing scams can steal hundreds of thousands of dollars with one false email address, a truthful online identity isn’t just a nice-to-have for clients; it’s a must-have for everyone. Faking an Instagram presence speaks volumes about your commitment to digital safety without you saying a single thing.
The intelligence of the Instagram algorithm.
OK, you’re not convinced. You still believe having a bot-stuffed IG page will deliver results. Consider then the razor-sharp intelligence of the Instagram algorithm. There’s a reason even in-the-know CMOs are left scratching their heads each day as the Instagram algorithm changes course once again.
The algorithm is elusive because Instagram wants it that way. If we could figure it out, we wouldn’t be spending hours scouring Instagram Reels for trending audio; we’d be sitting in plush lounge chairs somewhere along the windswept South of France with a bottle of Bourdeaux and some Camembert cheese.
Instagram is not easy. There’s no quick button to success. It follows, then, this highly astute algorithm is also very, very good at discerning when page engagement changes in a way that can be flagged as suspicious. If you go from 8 to 80,000 followers in the span of a few days or your posts — previously getting tens of likes — are now getting tens of thousands, the algorithm will sooner or later catch on, and any program that purports to be above this algorithm … well … isn’t.
Even if there is a tool that can temporarily deceive the algorithm into thinking your engagement is real today, the perspicacious developers over at Instagram, Inc. could turn around tomorrow and roll out an update that wipes the override clean. It is, after all, their platform and only they know its inner workings best.
To bring this back to the car dealership metaphor, when the update happens, (and it will) you’ll be the one left shouting at retreating customers in your crumbled office with nothing but an Instagram account marked as “violating community guidelines” or worse, suspended for good.
The slippery slope of fake engagement.
For the final reason, picture this: You’ve evaded the ever-changing, mega-smart algorithm for months and spent thousands of dollars buying your way to some vague semblance of Insta-fame. Despite how unreliable these efforts have proven in converting customers, building a loyal online community or generating anything close to quality leads, you’re cool with it. You have so. many. followers!
Now your company’s marketing priorities have shifted and this quarter, you’re focused on, let’s say, a print magazine. Can you really abandon your Instagram bot program without it looking like your page has gone suddenly sparse? What would people think if your posts, which were garnering thousands of likes and comments before, now receive just a dribble of support?
Beyond the perception of your real followers, what will competitors think should they notice this precipitous engagement drop-off? Imagine the marketing fodder you’ve just provided them the minute someone on their team realizes you’ve been trying to fake your way to market dominance by paying strangers to add flame emojis on your posts. The Insta faux-pas will soon become brilliant messaging inspiration for a fiercely effective campaign — something about integrity, authenticity and credibility? — that targets the very customers your fake engagement failed to attain.
And last but never least, what will the algorithm think? Assuming the algorithm somehow believed your engagement was real (and thus your account has not been shut down), expect Instagram to organically display your posts to almost no one.
It’s simple math. If you have 50,000 followers and your posts receive, on average, 10,000 likes per post, then 20% of your followers are engaged with your content. If you have 50,000 followers and your posts receive 50 likes per post, then 0.1% of your followers are engaged with your content. This lackluster engagement tells the algorithm your content is not share-worthy, leading to your posts becoming organically de-prioritized on the ‘gram. Side note: If you’re buying followers to build influence, any brand you may approach for a collaboration will instantly notice your questionable ratios, fake comments and wavering like counts, and will say no thanks. You could boost posts through Instagram ads but then you’re back to spending the money you needed to allocate on that new magazine.
—
At the end of the day, it comes down to honesty, and for those who can handle a little tough love, read on: There’s an undercurrent of dishonesty about faking just how much people adore your content. If you can’t get actual human beings to engage with the stuff you’re creating, maybe the problem isn’t your Instagram reach, maybe the problem is you.
And that’s not a bad thing. Identifying the weak spots in your business will reveal exactly where there’s opportunity to grow. Hire a graphic designer, a writer or videographer to join your team. Partner with an agency or part-time freelancer and pay a monthly retainer for custom content. Research competitors or outside industries and see what they’re creating, then use your favorite elements of their campaigns to inspire your own. Take a class on Instagram content creation; Meta offers them free via Blueprint. Track your analytics and devise a data-driven strategy for sustainable Insta growth. Purchase visually stunning Instagram templates on Creative Market. Use a program like Canva to build branded stories, carousels and Reels.
There are endless possibilities for Instagram initiatives that will deliver measurable, long-term ROI — and they have nothing to do with buying your way to the top, which, to put it bluntly, you’ll never reach anyway in a fake car that can’t drive.
