I knew not to buy fake followers, but a giveway brings in real people right?! Unfortunately not. I even thought I found a good one that promised US and Latin American followers. I paid to have one lucky person get the chance to win some fancy prize if they followed me and at least 30 accounts. They even had to comment on recent posts which was supposed to help them know my feed.
When Things Started Going Wrong
Within minutes I saw hundreds, then thousands of real people start following me. By the end of this giveaway I had over 10,000 new followers. But there was a huge problem. Even with all those people being real there were several problems.
- All these people were following thousands of accounts trying to win these giveaways. I was lost in all the other accounts
- Most people were not in the US. When it comes to brand collaborations, especially in my niche, they require a majority US following and my following was skewed.
- Most importantly – They weren’t interested in my content and they never engaged
- Because they never engaged the algorithm saw a large following and very few people engaging percentage wise and stopped showing it to those new followers AND the people who were originally following me because they were interested in my content. Suddenly I was reaching less people than before the giveway
Luckily, (and it wasn’t fun) I slowly started filtering out these followers. Deleting a few every day and using other avenues (such as my blog) to gain followers, because I wasn’t being recomended anymore. Often times, while the followers are real, many people have to buy likes or participate in like pods (also not worth it and a conversation for another day). It’s not worth it and the work to fix the mistake is ardous. I wish I hadn’t done it. Learn from my mistake so you don’t waste money and time.
Related Posts: Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started Blogging
Do Giveaways Ever Work?
Why Mass Giveaways Never Work
Now you don’t even have to post the giveaway yourself to enter. You just get to be a “ghost” account and let the big accounts do all the work. But even if it’s Kim Kardashian running the giveaway, the straight up answer is that people aren’t following you because of your content. They’re following you because they want an ipad or expensive purse. Most people won’t be interested and the few people who might will likely never see your content.
How to Take Advantage of Niche Specific Giveaways
It’s not that giveaways are bad, they just have to be done very specific to your niche and on a much smaller scale (think anywhere from 10-100 followers gained vs 10,000). For us, working with local short term rentals or a local restaurant ensure that only the people interested in what we specifically post in our specific region follow. If you’re a fashion or food blogger, you’re going to get as niche specific as possible to not attract people who are only there for the free thing and have no interest in ever engaging again.
Even better, talke advantage of multiple authentic follower growth tactics. They’re constantly changing and you have to be creative, because once a lot of people do them, they tend to be less effective. They all tend to be small things that build upon each other and then eventually snowball and it’s one of the things we share in our Creator Academy!
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Last Updated 10 months ago by Jessica Serna | Published: January 7, 2023
