Why You Shouldn't Buy TikTok Followers to Grow Your Profile

There are tons of reasons you might consider buying Tiktok followers:

Maybe you’re a creator, and someone told you that you can charge more for your content if you buy 1,000 TikTok followers.

Or maybe you work for a brand and have heard TikTok followers buy more, so you want more followers to increase your sales.

Your intentions are probably good–after all, we know firsthand how HARD it is to get more TikTok followers. But it’s not worth it.

Here’s why ⬇️

Why do brands and creators buy TikTok followers?

There are simple reasons why people buy followers on TikTok.

Creators buy followers to seem bigger and more popular, allowing them to charge brands more to work with them.

Although they do it less often, brands also buy TikTok followers because they hope that having a bigger follower count makes them seem more trustworthy to potential customers, making them more likely to buy.

The logic is easy to understand, but that doesn’t mean it works.

Fake followers are easy to spot, so creators risk losing brand deals because brands see fake followers and decide they’re untrustworthy. Likewise, a potential customer can easily see if a brand is padding their follower counts–and that will make them suspicious.

Plus, it goes against TikTok’s terms of use, so they’ve been working HARD lately to shut down accounts that seem like they might’ve bought fake followers.

So, now that you know a little bit more about why people buy TikTok followers, let’s ask the question you’re probably wondering:

Should I buy TikTok followers to grow?

Can you buy TikTok followers? Sure, but just because you can doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Considering everything we just discussed, the answer is straightforward: No, you should not buy followers on TikTok or any social media platform.

Even if you don’t get caught, the extra followers will bog down your account’s engagement ratios and make it harder for you to grow organically. So, instead of settling for the quick fix, it’s better to think strategically about how to grow your TikTok account.

If you’re looking for legit ways to grow, no worries–we’ll cover that later in this article.

But what if you don’t care too much about future growth? What if you just want a bunch of followers now? Is it worth it to buy TikTok followers then?

Why you should not buy TikTok followers

The answer is still nope. Nada. No way. And there are plenty more reasons why:

• First, social media platforms hate it when you figure out how to buy TikTok followers. If TikTok finds out, you will be banned. And good luck trying to recover your account once that happens. Here’s how we like to think about it: If you have 5K followers, 100 posts, and a nicely polished TikTok profile, why would you risk all of that just to get up to 15K followers? Do you think it’s worth it? Yeah, didn’t think so.
• Second, fake followers are easy to spot. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon or a marketing guru to figure out when someone’s bought fake followers. All you have to do is check out a few of their followers and notice that they have no activity, no profile picture, no engagement, and nothing of substance on their profile. Do you think no one will suspect a thing? Yep, they’ll be suspicious. And the more suspicious they become, the less they’ll trust you. And the less they trust you, the less they’ll want to work with or buy from you.
• Finally, having extra followers brings you no extra value. The only “value” they provide is to artificially inflate your number of followers–and followers don’t count for much. Engagement is what matters, and fake followers don’t give you that. Plus… You’re likely to LOSE followers after buying them because TikTok will probably ban most of them when they realize that they’re fake.

But what are the alternatives?

The good news is that you don’t have to know how to buy followers on TikTok. There are better alternatives out there.

Yes, the ideas we’ll give you cost money, but it’s 2024. Show us something free nowadays.

Yep, that’s right. That’s what I thought. There’s not much.

And if it IS free, they ask for your email to sell you something.

But that shouldn’t be too much of an issue–if you were planning to buy followers on TikTok, you were planning on spending some money anyway.

So, what are the alternatives to buying TikTok followers?

TikTok ads

If you were ever considering buying TikTok followers, use the money to run ads for engagement, awareness, and followers instead.

You’ll get more followers, and they’ll be real people interested in your content.

Plus, the fact that you’re running ads gives you a ton of data. You can track how much it costs to acquire a new follower using different content and ad types. Before long, you’ll be a pro at attracting the right people.

In case you’re wondering–you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to do this. Start with $50/month or so, and see what you can learn. Then, take it from there.

Work with TikTok influencers

If you’re a brand, working with influencers is a legitimate strategy for growing your TikTok account. If you don’t have a lot of money to start, consider working with influencers who accept gifted collaborations–you send them some products, and they make content for you in exchange.

If you’re a creator, you may have to get a little more creative–but it’s still a great idea (and super possible!) to grow by working with TikTok influencers. Connect with other influencers in your niche and duet them. It’s easy, cool, and costs nothing except time.

Have a pulse on TikTok

If you don’t want to spend money running ads or working with influencers, creating a lot of content yourself is the way to go. But it can’t just be any content: you want to develop a consistent (and constant) presence on TikTok by tapping into trends and value-driven content.

Post every week at least once per week. Then, pay attention to how your content performs. Which videos are getting lots of likes and comments? Which ones are being shown the most to new accounts? Getting this right will help you make content that resonates with your audience and helps you find new followers, too.

It’s also a good idea to watch for trends–they’re a great way to get discovered by new audiences. Using the right hashtags can help, too.

But don’t get us wrong: a content-driven growth strategy takes time and consistent effort. The other methods in this article will give you results faster. But this one takes time. Don’t expect to go viral on TikTok overnight.

So, our advice? Give yourself a little boost by running a robust content strategy simultaneously with ads and the occasional influencer collab. Of course, this will depend on your budget, but it's your best option if you can make it happen.

How do you get TikTok followers?

And that’s it–our best advice on how to grow on TikTok. Don’t buy TikTok followers–use these strategies instead.

Of course, we’d LOVE to hear your ideas if you’ve grown your TikTok account using a method we forgot to include here. Let us know in the comments!